First of all; GoogleApps is a great application and Google is most generous in providing it at no cost. That being said, some of the documents we need to share have formatting that needs to endure beyond successive edits and Google doesn't support this to the degree that we need it. The alternative has been to mail around copies to each editor in a chain of emails but this approach has its problems too... Sure the formatting is preserved but the 'edition' can quickly become out of whack if two people have edited the same document at the same time on different computers.

The functionality of this program is similar to that of “checking out” a book from a library. This is a web based program that allows us to download (to view) a centralized scheduled as well as “check it out” to make any edits or changes. “Checking out” the document locks the document from being checked out by another user for editing but still allows for the downloading of the last checked in document for printing and distributing. The process of checking out the document enables us to use all of the excel formats we would like. All of the formatting that we would include in a document would be downloaded and uploaded as you would see it in Excel. It is almost as if we were simply saving the document on a memory stick...but in this case it would be on the web site which would allow all of us to view and ensure the most up to date version is on the web.

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Answer to: How is formatting preserved?

A library doesn't write books or reformat them it stores them, nothing more. Your formatting stays as it is until you or someone else on the site checks out you document and edits it. That subsequent edit will not be visible to others until you check it back in.

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Answer to: How do I check a document in and out?

I have made an instructional video you can watch here provided your browser supports FLASH video.

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Answer to: Am I limited to just checking in and out schedules?

No. We called it em2Schedule.com because schedule formatting was the problem that necessitated the creation of this app. You can spawn and share other documents too.

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Answer to: What file formats are supported?

Word
Excel
PDF
Text
Powerpoint

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Answer to: If I mess something up how do I fix it?

I have built in gratuitous ways to cancel edits on the document pages. The commands are context sensitive and worded appropriately. You also always have the 'fallback' option of flushing a document sharing project altogether and then re-uploading it again as a new document sharing project. These thing take seconds not minutes once you are up to speed. Just remember to not delete off you local computer the documents you bring down for editing once you have checked them back in and you'll always have the backup you need right there on your own hard drive. The video shows you how to back out of mistaken edits here.

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Answer to: Can unregistered users download these documents?

No. It's easy enough to add but we have a CMS (content management system) called Reddot that does this already (ie. our academic site ). This application is a place to help coordinate the collaborative process of making the documents but once they are ready you then download and distribute them the usual ways either by email or by posting to some other site.

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