These days, growing numbers of organisations are employing individuals who work from home or are away from the office on an almost permanent basis. OfficeTalk provides functionality for users, such as out workers, to work offline. When OfficeTalk is made to work offline, it copies part, or all, of the workgroup database to a separate computer. This computer may then be disconnected from the workgroup LAN and OfficeTalk may be used as normal. At any time, the offline user may choose to synchronise the offline database with the main workgroup database. The synchronisation may be performed either via a direct connection to the main workgroup database, using dial up networking, for instance, or the synchronisation may be performed using Internet mail.