The Synchronous method involves opening the database of the remote workgroup in order to transfer data between the workgroups. The data transfer is synchronous which means that when the local OfficeTalk synchronisation server sends and receives changes to and from the remote workgroup database, it does it there and then.
The advantage of the Synchronous method is that OfficeTalk only needs to connect once to the Remote Workgroup database in order to send and receive changes and any changes are made immediately to the remote workgroup.
A disadvantage of this method is the fact that the OfficeTalk synchronisation server machine must have either direct or dial-up access to the Remote Workgroup's database. Also this method requires the highest network bandwidth of the three methods and as a result is the slowest in terms of data transfer.