Team workspace coordination

Team workspace coordination helps a group use one shared Roadmap Flow folder without turning Roadmap Flow into a cloud project-management system. It is the best next product improvement for teams that already trust OneDrive, SharePoint, or another synced folder, and just need fewer "wait, who changed this?" moments.

What it does

In the Team tab, Team users get a coordination panel for the current workspace:

Config still owns the workspace location setting. Team is where the people routine lives: names, seats, shared-folder path, reload, and who is editing.

Nobody has to announce themselves. Changing the roadmap marks you as editing; five quiet minutes, or closing Roadmap Flow, clears it. While someone else has changed the roadmap recently, a line beside the folder name says so — "Ben is editing · last change 2 min ago". And when their saves arrive through OneDrive, the roadmap updates on its own, as long as you have nothing unsaved. All of this applies once the workspace is marked as a OneDrive, SharePoint or other synced folder.

Roadmap item cards and item details also show the last meaningful item change when Change history is available: who changed it, when, and which field moved. Tiny paper trail. Surprisingly calming. In the item panel, See all changes opens the full trail for that item — see One item's story.

When to use it

• When your team stores the workspace in OneDrive, SharePoint, Dropbox, or a common network-synced folder.
• Before a planning session, so everyone opens the same folder.
• Before you edit after being away from the roadmap for a while.
• When you want to see who last touched an item before asking questions in the meeting.

When not to use it

• As real-time multiplayer editing. It is not Google Docs for roadmaps.
• As a replacement for a proper team conversation when two people are changing the same item.
• As a guaranteed cloud lock. Sync tools can delay, duplicate, or rename files.

3-minute flow

1. The owner creates or opens the Roadmap Flow workspace in a shared folder.
2. In Config, set Workspace location to OneDrive or SharePoint synced folder or Other synced folder.
3. Open Team and set your Display name.
4. Confirm the Team workspace coordination checklist.
5. Share the exact folder with teammates.
6. Each teammate opens Roadmap Flow from that same folder. The easy way is Open from a SharePoint link, on the first screen or behind Switch: paste the folder's link from the browser's address bar, or from SharePoint's Copy link, and Roadmap Flow finds it in OneDrive. Easier still for someone new: invite them with Invite someone to this roadmap (see Invitations).
7. Work. If someone else is editing, the line beside the folder name says who.

Best use cases

• A product team sharing one roadmap file from a SharePoint folder.
• A PM and designer taking turns updating item text before a review.
• A roadmap owner checking whether a teammate already updated status, confidence, priority, owner, target period, blockers, or decisions.

Common mistakes

• Sharing only an exported PDF or PowerPoint and expecting others to edit the live roadmap. Exports are outputs; the shared folder is the source.
• Opening a copied workspace from Downloads while everyone else uses the shared folder.
• Ignoring "Ben is editing" because "it is probably fine." It might be fine. It might also become meeting archaeology. A quick message first is cheaper.
• Forgetting to set Display name in Team or Account. Without a name, Change history can only say an unnamed local user made the change.

Opening from a SharePoint link

Roadmap Flow reads OneDrive's own record of the folders it syncs, so it can turn a SharePoint address into the folder on this laptop, whatever OneDrive called it locally. It understands the address bar of a SharePoint folder, a direct folder address, and Copy link links that carry the folder's path. A link to the folder above a single roadmap opens that roadmap; above several, it asks which.

If the folder is not on this laptop yet, it says to open it in SharePoint and click Add shortcut to OneDrive, and opens the roadmap by itself once OneDrive has brought it down. Some SharePoint share links are coded and do not say which folder they are; for those it asks for the address from the browser's address bar instead.

How simultaneous edits work

Roadmap Flow keeps a small file named .roadmap-flow-lock.json in the shared folder. Every change you save refreshes it with your display name, your computer's name and the time — at most once a minute, so OneDrive is not kept busy. After five minutes without a change it no longer counts, and closing the app removes it. If someone else changed the roadmap within those five minutes, their name stays in the file and you are told rather than stopped.

Roadmap Flow also notices when roadmap.json has been changed on disk by somebody else's save. If you have nothing unsaved, it loads their version and says so in one line. If you do have unsaved changes, it leaves them alone, and the check that runs before every save asks you what to do, so neither person's work is silently overwritten. Opening the roadmap no longer writes the file back, so two laptops never pass the same unchanged file to each other.

This helps coordination, but it is not perfect. OneDrive and SharePoint decide when the files reach the other laptop — usually seconds, sometimes a minute. It is awareness, not real-time co-editing.

Related guide pages

• Local-first workspaces
• Config - workspace setup
• Progress
• Account - plan and billing

Availability

Team. The workspace path, reload action, who-is-editing line, and last-changed item labels are built for Team workspaces. Roadmap Flow still does not add cloud sync; your shared folder provider handles file syncing.