O365 Integration - when a person leaves the document, they are still displayed as an editor.

Question

Dear support team,

Our software has integrated Office 365 and following issue happened:

1. Several people are editing a document.
2. When a person leaves the document, they are still displayed as an editor.
3. If the person rejoins the editing session, a new user icon is added.
4. If the person leaves the document again, the icon remains.

Since user session's initials and display are not handled on our end, is there some known issue related to notification system that we should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for guidance and answers,
Andjela

Answer 1

Hi @Andjela Mijailovic,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

I would like to provide you with the following information:

When a user closes the browser or application unexpectedly, or when the network connection is lost, the “user has left” signal is not sent to the Office Online servers in a timely manner.

In this case, Microsoft keeps the session in a pending state (typically for 15–30 minutes) before it is automatically cleared.

There is no system error related to the notification mechanism that you need to be concerned about in this situation.

However, if you would like to review these sign-in activities, you can follow the steps below:

Step 1: Go to entra.microsoft.com

Step 2: Select Users > Sign-in logs

Here, the system will display the users’ sign-in information. You can review the sign-in time and sign-in location to ensure the integrity of your documents. I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this.   

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments on this post so I can continue to support you.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

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Answer 2

The described behavior matches how Microsoft 365 for the web co-authoring sessions work and is expected, not a notification bug in the integration.

Key points from the co-authoring model:

1. Sessions are server-managed and not instantly removed
   • When a user leaves a document (closes the browser or navigates away), the Microsoft 365 for the web app does not immediately terminate all aspects of that user’s editing session.
   • The service continues to perform permission and lock checks for that user’s access token for some time (for example, via CheckFileInfo, Lock, RefreshLock, and PutFile calls) while other users are still editing.
2. Presence and editor list can lag behind actual user activity
   • Microsoft 365 for the web periodically verifies that each user still has edit permissions by calling CheckFileInfo with that user’s access token. This is done at least every few minutes while the session is considered active.
   • Because these checks are periodic, a user who has left can still appear as an editor until the next permission/lock check completes and the service decides to remove that user from the session.
3. Rejoining creates additional visible editor entries
   • When a user leaves and then rejoins, a new editing session is established with a fresh access token.
   • Until the old session is fully cleaned up by the periodic checks, both the old and new sessions can be represented visually, which appears as multiple icons/entries for the same person.
4. Automatic cleanup is driven by permission/lock checks
   • The cleanup behavior is tied to WOPI calls such as CheckFileInfo, Lock, RefreshLock, and PutFile, not to any custom handling in the host application.
   • For example, PowerPoint for the web verifies permissions by calling CheckFileInfo at least every five minutes while a user is in an active session, and similar periodic checks apply to Word for the web.
   • If a PutFile or lock-related call using a user’s token fails (for example, because permissions were removed), that user is removed from the editing session; otherwise, the session persists until the next scheduled check.
5. No host-side control over initials/icons
   • The initials and presence indicators for co-authors are managed entirely by the Microsoft 365 for the web application.
   • A WOPI host (your software) does not control when those icons appear or disappear; it only provides access tokens and responds to WOPI operations.

In summary, the lingering editor icons and additional icons when a user rejoins are a consequence of the built-in co-authoring session lifecycle and periodic permission checks in Microsoft 365 for the web, not a known defect in the notification system that the host can directly fix. The behavior is expected as long as the WOPI calls and access tokens are handled correctly on the host side.

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References:

• Co-authoring using Microsoft 365 for the web
• If I make an edit and immediately close the application, occasionally my edit is lost - why?