PBworks User Manual

Networks Workspaces

Page history last edited by John-Peter 4 days ago

Overview

Set up a workspace within your network so a teams of users can collaborate on a specific area. Here are some examples of good uses for a workspace (all of which might occur in the same network):

Project-based: Capture information, share files, establish milestones, and assign tasks for a specific project. Project team members can add themselves to the workspace. Invite contractors or clients to the workspace as guest users.
Department-specific: Build a knowledgebase of frequently used information and organizational know-how, or support standard workflows specific to your department, e.g. maintaining a list of pending accounts payable.
Organization-wide intranet: Publish HR information, company policies, useful forms to all members of your organization.

Access workspaces

To access workspaces, a network user simply needs to click on the "Workspaces" tab on their network navigation bar.

Workspaces view

At the bottom of your workspace view a user can chose a basic (default) or detailed view. Toggle between the views to find the setting that works best for your needs.

Basic

The basic workspace view contains workspace name, administrative contact, security setting, and last updated date.

Detailed

The detailed workspace view will provide users with more information about individual workspaces. A workspace theme image is included, the workspace description, and stats on the individual workspaces.

Workspace membership

The workspace view is divided into two sections: Your workspaces and All workspaces. Workspaces are marked as private if a user must be invited to join.

Your workspaces

Your workspaces is a list of all workspaces that a user current participates in or administrates. A user can go to that workspace by clicking on the workspace name, or they can leave the workspace by clicking "Leave Workspace"

All workspaces

All workspaces is a list of workspaces across the entire network, whether or not the logged in user has been added to the workspace. A user can join the workspace by clicking "Join Workspace"

Create a new workspace

Project Edition Network users can easily create new workspaces, and assign their own users and settings to it. Just follow these steps:

Click on the network name in the upper right corner when viewing any workspace. This will take you directly to the network home. If you find that you can't click this, then this means you are only a guest user on the network and will not be able to create any new workspaces on the network.

In this example clicking on "Data Bird Inc." will take the user directly to the network home.
Click on the word, "Workspaces" in the black bar.
Click the New workspace button.
Enter a name for your new workspace:
By selecting a template, you can have your new workspace auto-populated with the pages and files inside the template. Set this option to "No Template" to start from scratch. Click Next to go on to the next step.

For more information on making templates of your own, click here.
The third step allows you to set what network users will be part of this new workspace, and who on your network will be able to see the new workspace.

First, add the users that are already on your network that will be added.

Next, set the security settings:

When the Users and Security settings have been set, click the Create Workspace button.
Once the workspace is created, it will appear instantly in your workspace list.

Workspace Templates

Streamline project startup by using a workspace template to capture the standard part of your collaboration and execution process. More about using Workspace Templates.

Archive a workspace

Once a project is finished or a knowledgebase no longer active, the workspace administrator can archive it. You can choose to change the security settings at that time, if users should no longer be able to access archived workspaces.

How to archive a workspace

To archive the workspace, workspace administrators can go to workspace Settings, click on "Archive..." in the left panel.

Choose whether to change the workspace's security settings and click "Archive This Workspace".

To reverse this action, you can come back to this page, where you'll be given the option to "Remove from the archive".

Find archived workspaces

Archived workspaces are moved out of Your Workspaces and All workspaces and into Archived workspaces. To see your archived workpaces or all archived workspaces, click the Archived Workspaces link in the Workspaces view.

Milestones and tasks in archived workspaces

Incomplete milestones and tasks in an archived workspace no longer appear on the Tasks tab of the assigned user's dashboard nor in the weekly emails sent to users with their assignments due in the following week.

Search archived workspaces

Lastly, search results from archived workspaces will be excluded by default, though any network user can click a checkbox to search archived workspaces they are allowed to access.

Delete a workspace

Workspace deletion is the same for networked and non-networked workspaces. To delete a workspace, follow our deletion instructions. New network workspaces will not be able to reuse a deleted workspace URL, however, a workspace can have the same title as a deleted workspace.

Workspace security settings

When creating a network workspace, there are two standard security settings. Workspace security can be changed through the workspace security at a later time.

Anyone

In this security setting, anyone in the network can join this workspace instantly.

Invited

In this security setting, only users explicity invited by the workspace administrator will be able to join.

Be sure to chose your security setting appropriately for your audience. In order to help you troubleshoot, your network administrator has access to all workspaces on the network.

Join/Leave workspaces

Network uses can easily join or leave a workspace without having to leave the network. To the right of any workspace listing in the "Workspaces" menu is a link that will say either "Join this workspace" or "Leave this workspace" depending on the user's current permissions on that workspace. When a user joins a workspace:

The user will get notifications according to his/her notification preference for that workspace.
Activity in that workspace will appear in user’s Dashboard, under Recent Activity.
Milestones (all) and tasks (assigned to the user) from the workspace will appear in user’s Dashboard, under Upcoming.
If the user has writer permission, or greater, to the workspace, he/she can be assigned tasks and milestones and will appear in Assigned to: controls accordingly.

Guest users

Guest users are users who might not be part of an entire network, but collaboration is needed on a specific project. Instead of being added at the network level, individual workspace administrators can add guests to their workspaces. To do this, a workspace administrator can go to their workspace settings, click on "Users" and then "Add guests". These users will exist on the workspace but not the network.

Workspace Settings

Many typical workspace settings (found in Standard Edition workspaces) are now handled at the network level. This includes IP Restriction, Custom Domains, and License. "Share this wiki" does not appear on networked workspaces, as all user management is done at the network level