If project is on C, how do multiple authors share?

Hi all,

I've been a lone author, and soon I will not be. We're going to be installing either RoboSource Control 3 or a third-party version control system in order for all four of us to access and work in the same help projects at the same time. However, I'm rather confused about something. I keep reading in the user forum that each author still needs to have the help project on their C drive and run it and RoboHelp from there, but you check in/out topics from the server. But how do the other parts of the help project work, like the TOC and index?

Is the help project merely a "manager," and the TOC and index and all of those other bells and whistles outside of the individual html topics stored in separate files out on the server, which you check-in/out every time you make changes to the TOC or index? If that's so, what happens if one author makes changes to the index from Topic Properties (Index tab), and another author is modifying the index at the same time?

I don't really understand how this works, and the Adobe articles do a poor job of really explaining how this works.

I appreciate any help or explanations!
Lisa