Stump the Panel: SharePoint Q&A

I think that I am in need of something more than the standard permissions. Is there a way to restrict a group to only have Check Out access to a particular document?
(also noticed that none of the pre-defined groups address the Check Out feature..?)

By Check Out only do you mean check out and read only or check out and edit?

'check out' control is a feature of a library, not permissions, and as I recall cannot be changed per folder or document.

Permissions profiles do not include a 'check out' option.

Have a look at the permissions matrix by Mark Arend

That should be correct because you must have edit list/library items set on a permission setting in order to check-out.

Have you considered a document workspace to the file in question?

If a temporary arrangement is required for group editing of a document a Document Workspace may solve the problem. When done with, the final document can be moved to a Library, and the Workspace deleted, capturing any versions or subsidary documents. Permissions and library settings are configurable like a team site.

Office 2007 help

Check Out isn't a function that stands alone- the only reason to check out a document is to edit it (or its properties) and lock it against conflicting edits. From the question I'm guessing that your business requirement is something other than document editing... care to elaborate on what behavior you're looking for?

The doc is a sales target list that each rep must update each month. It's important that it's easy for the reps to access, but not easy to accidently create another version of.

Thanks for the additional feedback :-)

What we do for situations where mutiple userse are updating a document or file (with Contribute permissions) is to "Require Check Out" via the "Document Library Versioning Settings". This still requires the users to understand that they should not try to edit a document or file that opens up with "(Read-Only") above the browser tool bar.

Better yet, what we try to do is to convert a spreadsheet or document table list into a portal list, where mutiple users can edit different items at the same time. It depends on what your sales target list looks like.

Another advantage of the using it as a list is that you could leverage that list in a Report Center to make some KPI or use SPD to create some KPI dashboards.

This prevents conflicts accessing the document because people are either adding a new list item or updating an existing one. They don't need to access a whole document to do that. The list data can be downloaded via Excel or Access and a final report be built and distributed.