Is it possible for SMEs to directly edit files on SharePoint Online without a RoboHelp license?

[OhioanHeart22]

We are developing our first help system using RoboHelp 2019. The project is currently stored on a server, but if I use SharePoint Online instead, is there a way for SMEs without a RoboHelp license to make emergency changes to topics (e.g., if there is an emergency software update that affects a task step and they can't wait for us to update the help file)? The request is that SMEs be able to make emergency changes (knowing that we technical communicators would need to still re-publish the project), and then we technical communicators would come back to review the topic for our standards and update tagging, expressions, etc. when we are able. 

I suspect you need to have RoboHelp to avoid breaking links, but would editing the topic file in Notepad or something else might work? This may be an obvious "no," but I'm fairly new to the more technical aspects of RoboHelp projects. Thank you in advance!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Your chances of somebody messing up your project are extremely high - let them play around with the published HTML output, not your source RH project files.

[Stefan-Gentz]

I second @Jeff_Coatsworth, here. However, as so often: It depends 😉

After all, the published RoboHelp topic itself is "just" an HTML5 file. So, I tend to say: Everyone who understands XML and HTM, has some good feeling about being "responsibly careful" towards the code of others, and some "normal level of intelligence" should be able to do such last-minute changes. And for sure with a quick briefing and syncing among each other.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

@Stefan-Gentz I considered answering this question that way, but the risk of somebody messing up your source outweighs somebody screwing up the output (at least imho).

If they goof it [the output] up - no big deal; make the changes desired in the source project & republish again - low investment. The reverse scenario is a lot more weighty - somebody's messed up your source - can it be fixed? do we have to restore the whole thing from a backup? did we lose anything by doing that? See? much bigger investment there.

So to be safe - let them tinker with the output & let you know what's to be changed - at worst, the situation you could be in is not getting all their precious "emergency" changes into the source project.

[AthensSlim]

Without diminishing anything the others have said to this point, it would absolutely be possible. Good idea? Unless someone really understands HTML, probably not. But possible. 

If your organization goes this route, I would be sure that versioning is set up on your SharePoint Online site. By default, it should be. This would allow you to more easily roll back changes to a 'last known good' version if they really did screw something up beyond repair.