I’m trying to implement Obsidian in a team environment having had great success with it personally. I already use a work vault which I have built quite a lot of information up in, and I want to share selective parts of it.
What I can’t quite work out is how to share some but not all of the data with the rest of the team.
Principally I am interested in a few folders that hold notes that are common between my job (as a team leader) and the other team members’ jobs (as project managers). For example, I have a folder full of notes on locations that we use which I link to in my own notes, which they will also need to link to (and keep updated). Whilst I really want folders like this to be shared and remain in sync, there is a lot of data in my vault that I can’t share with them.
So for example with two vaults containing these sub folders:
I am trying to keep /People and /Locations identical at all times whilst not allowing staff access to /SecretNotes.
Things I have tried
I’ve been looking at linking using an Obsidian URI link but I don’t think that’s going to work as there’s no feedback on whether the note exists in the other vault.
I looked at solutions such as this one but it relies on selective syncing which isn’t secure as staff could just turn on sync for a folder they shouldn’t see.
I was considering using a sync tool of some sort to keep ‘vaultA/Locations/’ and ‘vaultB/Locations/’ in sync whenever there is a change, not sure if this risks lots of inadvertant sync conflict duplicates. I’ve had similar issues before trying to sync files that are being worked on (although not with Obsidian) so I’m wary. I haven’t yet tried this but will give it a go.
Please let me know if I can clarify anything, I appreciate it might not be completely clear what I’m trying to do here.
Not a selective folder sync solution, but page-based: have a look at https://samepage.network/, which can be used between different Obsidian instances too.
This is a very interesting product thanks, I’ve never seen it before.
Although yet another monthly cost amongst all of the tools that are subscription based
If this helps, I’ve been using Onedrive to sync Obsidian between devices (no plug-ins, just have my vault sitting in the Onedrive folder on my pc while using Onesync on my phone). No problems so far, other than the ocassional editing conflict (but that happens with every syncing service).
You can share files in Onedrive for multiple people to view. Only one person can edit at a time, though (I think—I haven’t tested this on a vault). Everyone can have the vault shared with them and sitting in their OneDrive folder, though. With Onedrive I know it’s possible to un-share subfolders you don’t want other people to see.
Putting the vault on Google Drive might be a better option. I know that for most files on Google Drive, up to ten people will be able to edit a single one at a time. I haven’t tested this on an Obsidian vault, but it might be worth a try.
This part I don’t understand. If you set one device to not upload a folder, no matter what the other users/devices flip, they can’t download that folder because it wasn’t uploaded to begin with.
They are working on a pattern-based sync addition, which will allow sharing all pages in e.g. one folder.
According to my understanding, the Obsidian team is currently not actively looking into adding collaboration to the product. SamePage is bridging this gap for the time being. Good enough for me to test-drive this solution.
What I mean is that I have no choice but to sync everything on the way up because that’s how I access it on other devices. So doesn’t it rely on selectively syncing off on their side (i.e. they could just sync it on)?
Unless I’m misunderstanding, which is entirely possible.
I think the Obsidian team has and is taking notice of the very popular request regarding collaboration. Maybe a combination of a small team, the complexity of the topic and other impacting factors do not allow for immediate / medium-term implementation.
What I like is that the team is very selective about what should be at the core of the application. The high extensibility of the product is a pro in my opinion.
I think we will manually sync the necessary data between vaults for the moment, as it’s not time critical on the most part. Then we can wait to see what comes in later releases.
