Office and SharePoint 2007 User's Guide: Integrating SharePoint with Excel, Outlook, Access, and Word

11.7. Protecting Changes with Check-Out and Check-In Along with Versioning

At least when you are online and using Groove, you can easily tell whether other members of your workgroup are also online. When you work offline, you have no way of knowing not only whether others members of your workgroup are logged in to Groove, but also whether they are simultaneously editing the very file you have open for editing. Borrowing a feature you have seen in SharePoint, you can prevent others from editing the files you want to work on offline through the use of the Check-Out and Check-In features.

You can use Groove's Check-Out feature while online and connected to your SharePoint site to retrieve the latest copy of a document and place it within Groove. ...