Collaborative editing in ASP.NET MVC diagram control

24 Mar 20261 minute to read

Collaborative editing enables multiple users to edit diagrams simultaneously in real-time, providing a seamless collaborative experience in ASP.NET MVC applications.

Purpose

Collaborative editing in diagram control allows multiple users to edit and review diagrams in real time, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and faster updates. It streamlines teamwork by reducing delays, improving communication through comments, and maintaining data integrity with version tracking.

Configuration

• Use SignalR for real-time communication between the ASP.NET MVC app and a ASP.NET Core SignalR server
• Use Redis as a temporary data store to manage updates and version state
• Basic setup:
  • Configure a SignalR server. Refer link
  • Connect the ASP.NET MVC app to the server. Refer link

Limitations

• Default deployment
  • By default, a single server instance works without additional setup. For multi-instance (scale-out) deployments, configure a SignalR backplane (e.g., Redis) and use a shared Redis store so all nodes share group messages and version state consistently.
• View-only interactions
  • Zoom and pan are local to each user and are not synchronized, so collaborators may view different areas of the diagram.
• Unsupported synchronized settings
  • Changes to pageSettings, contextMenuSettings, snapSettings, rulerSettings, layout, and scrollSettings are not propagated to other users and apply only locally.

Note:
Collaboration applies to actions that raise the historyChange event.

Sample code

A complete working example is available in the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Collaborative Editing GitHub repository