Real-Time Collaboration

Work together seamlessly with live cursors, instant updates, and built-in communication tools. Our collaboration features make remote teamwork feel as natural as being in the same room.

Live Presence

See who's viewing or editing any document in real-time. Colored cursors show exactly where each team member is working, preventing conflicts and enabling natural collaboration. Hover over an avatar to see what they're doing.

Presence States

Team members can broadcast their current state using the following keyboard shortcuts:

• Active editing — Green indicator (automatic)

• Reviewing — Press Cmd+Shift+R to toggle review mode

• Thinking — Yellow indicator after 30 seconds of inactivity

• Away — Gray indicator after 5 minutes

Comments and Mentions

Add comments directly to any item by selecting text or clicking the comment icon. Use @mentions to notify specific team members and keep discussions contextual. Comments support rich formatting, code snippets, and file attachments.

Feature Comparison Matrix

Advanced Comment Workflows

Power users can leverage these advanced commenting patterns:

1. Threaded discussions — Reply to comments to create nested threads up to 5 levels deep

2. Resolved comments — Mark comments as resolved; they'll collapse but remain searchable

3. Code snippets in comments — Use triple backticks to embed syntax-highlighted code:

   // Example: mention a user programmatically
   const mention = {
     type: 'mention',
     userId: 'usr_12345',
     displayName: '@alice'
   };

4. Emoji reactions — Add 👍 👎 🎉 🚀 ❤️ to comments without cluttering threads

Version History

Every change is automatically saved and versioned. View the complete history of edits, see who made each change, and restore previous versions with one click. This provides peace of mind and an audit trail.

Restoring Previous Versions

To restore a previous version:

1. Open the document you want to restore

2. Click the History icon (clock symbol) in the top-right toolbar

3. Browse the timeline or use the search filter

4. Select the version you want to preview

5. Click Restore this version

Comparing Versions

Use the diff viewer to see exactly what changed between any two versions. Additions are highlighted in green, deletions in red.

# Access version history via API
curl -X GET https://api.ferndesk.com/v1/documents/{doc_id}/versions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Sharing and Permissions

Control who can view, comment, or edit each item with granular permissions. Share links with expiration dates or require passwords for extra security. Public sharing makes it easy to collaborate with external stakeholders.

Permission Levels

Temporary Access Links

Generate time-limited share links with custom expiration dates:

• 1 hour — Quick reviews or live presentations

• 24 hours — External stakeholder feedback

• 7 days — Client collaboration sprints

• 30 days — Long-term partner access

• Custom — Set any expiration date and time

Security Best Practices

Keyboard Shortcuts

Master collaborators use these shortcuts to work faster: