Using Workspaces to organize your Projects

Available on: Web, iOS and Windows apps

Workspaces help your team more easily see and collaborate on multiple projects, by letting you focus on relevant projects one workspace at a time. As you work on more projects or your team grows, workspaces can also make it much faster and easier to give your team and your business partners access to many projects, with workspace-wide access control.

In this section:

1. Using workspaces
2. Creating a new workspace
3. Changing workspace settings
4. Adding workspace members
5. Workspace roles and permissions
6. Workspace-wide project roles
7. Moving projects between workspaces
8. Some examples of configuring and using workspaces

Using workspaces

A workspace is a home for multiple projects. Workspaces can be used for many purposes, such as:

• A "project library" workspace shared by the entire company
• Every department, division or team having a workspace for its projects
• Using a workspace per client to enable easy collaboration with your clients
• Using workspaces to temporarily enable easy collaboration with specific sets of subcontractors or partners

Every Projects account has a Default Workspace. Every new user added to your account is automatically given access to this Default Workspace.

When viewing the project list, use the workspaces list on the left to switch between workspaces. The icon to the right of a workspace means you're a Workspace Admin for that workspace, and you're able to change settings and manage members.

There are three different workspace icons:

Your organization's Default Workspace. Always at the top of the list, everyone in your organization is automatically added to this workspace. You can rename it if you wish.

A workspace that's owned by your organization. Either you, or someone else who works for the same organization, has created this workspace.

An external workspace that's been shared with you by someone from another organisation. You'll typically only see this when a business partner or other party with a totally separate Drawboard Projects account invites you to a workspace they've created. Every project, drawing, markup, issue and conversation in this workspace is viewable by folks from that organization, and your own organization and workspace admins don't have any governance or control over this workspace.

Creating a new workspace

1. To create a new workspace, click + New Workspace while viewing the project list
2. Enter a name for the new workspace, and optionally choose an image
3. Click Create

Changing workspace settings

Available on: Web app

1. To edit the settings for a workspace, ensure that you have it selected in the workspace list on the left of the the project list screen
2. Click the Settings icon in the top-right (the cog)
3. To edit the workspace name and image, navigate to the Settings screen
4. Change the desired settings
5. Click Save

The workspace image and name can be changed here.

The "Only Workspace Admins can create projects" setting prevents non-admin members from creating projects in this workspace if checked.

Deleting workspaces

Available on: Web app

1. To delete a workspace, ensure that you have it selected in the workspace list on the left of the the project list screen
2. Click the Settings icon in the top-right (the cog)
3. To delete the workspace, navigate to the Settings screen
4. Click the Delete Workspace button at the bottom of the screen
   Note: Workspaces can only be deleted if they contain no projects. Transfer valuable projects to a different workspace, and delete unnecessary projects, before attempting to delete a workspace
5. Click Delete

Adding workspace members and admins

Available on: Web app

Workspace members can see and access any public project in that workspace. Workspace Admins can also manage workspace members and change workspace settings.

1. Open the settings for the appropriate workspace, then navigate to the Members screen
2. Click + New member
3. Enter the email addresses of the people you wish to add to your workspace in the email field (to type in multiple emails, separate them with a comma or press Enter to separate the email addresses)
4. Choose the permission level to apply to these people
   Administrator - able to manage workspace members and other workspace settings
   Member - can see and access any public project in that workspace
5. Click Send Invites

Inviting an entire team at once

We're working on making it possible to invite your whole team at once by importing a CSV file. We'll have this ready soon, and if you'd like to be notified when this feature is available please let our support team know!

Workspace roles and permissions

There are two permission levels for members of a Workspace:

• Admin: these users can access the workspace settings and can manage the members of the workspace. Workspace Admins can always be identified by the blue ring and the star next to their avatar.
  
• Member: these users can see and access projects within the workspace

Workspace Admins can use the Web app to change the permission level for any user:

1. Open the settings for the appropriate workspace, then navigate to the Members screen
2. Click the More (three dots) icon for the desired person, and choose Project settings; or
3. Click Make Admin or Revoke Admin privileges

Click here to see an explanation of what actions each role can perform

Workspace-wide project roles

On the workspace members screen, every user listed has a Default Project Role.

If Reader, Collaborator or Admin is shown next to a workspace member, this role will be used on all public projects in the workspace which are set to "inherit project access roles from the workspace".

If None is shown next to a workspace member, they won't get access to any public projects in the workspace which are set to "inherit project access roles from the workspace".

To change this role for any member:

1. Open the settings for the appropriate workspace, then navigate to the Members screen
2. Click the More (three dots) icon for the desired person, and choose the desired new role

Tip: Workspace Admins don't have a dropdown for selecting a role, as they always have Admin access to all projects in the workspace.

Moving projects between workspaces

To move a project to another workspace:

1. Open the Project settings
   1. On the project list, click the More (three dots) icon for the desired project, and choose Project settings; or
   2. From within a project, click the More (three dots) icon in the top-right of the screen, and choose Project settings; or
   3. In the iOS App, on the project list long-press on the desired project, and choose Settings
2. In the Select workspace dropdown, select the desired workspace
   
   • To check the members of this new workspace, click View project access role details here after selecting a workspace. This will show you the members of the selected workspace
3. Click Save to save your changes

In the Web app, you can also move projects between workspaces another, quicker way:

1. On the project list, click the More (three dots) icon for the desired project, and choose Transfer to other workspace
2. Choose the destination workspace and click Confirm

Some examples of configuring and using workspaces

A "project library" workspace shared by the entire company

1. Create the workspace, perhaps named "Project Library"
2. Add everyone in your company as workspace members, and decide what role each workspace member should have
   • Giving everyone Reader access to all Public projects protects them from accidental markup
   •  Remember that on individual projects, this "workspace-wide" default role can be overridden, so you can "upgrade" certain people to have Admin access on a single project to upload drawings, or you can "downgrade" everyone in the workspace to Reader access on a single project if you want to share early drawings but prevent markup from the wider team
3. Transfer your existing projects into this workspace
4. As new people join the company, add them as workspace members, and they'll automatically gain access to all the public projects

Using a workspace per client to enable easy collaboration with that client

1. Create the workspace, perhaps with an obvious name like "Client G Projects"
2. Transfer your existing projects into this workspace
   • For projects that you want to share with the client, set these Public with Inherit Access
   • For projects that are still at early stages, aren't ready to share with the client, or which should have restricted access, set these Private
3. Add the members from both your team and the client team as workspace members, and decide what role each workspace member should have
   • The main members of the review team should be given Collaborator access, so they can mark up drawings
   • There might be principals, directors or others who need visibility for governance purposes and who could be given Reader access to the workspace
4.  Remember that on individual projects, this "workspace-wide" default role can be overridden, so you can "upgrade" certain people to have Admin access on a single project to upload drawings, or you can "downgrade" everyone in the workspace to Reader access on a single project if you want to share early drawings but prevent markup from the wider team
5. If new team members join, or as members leave, they can easily be managed from the workspace members screen

Using workspaces to temporarily enable easy collaboration with specific sets of subcontractors or partners

If you repeatedly work with certain partners a lot at different stages of your projects, rather than having to continually add and remove these same people from project team, you can move a project between workspaces to temporarily "add" groups of people to it.

1. Create the workspace(s), perhaps with obvious names like "Collab with Partner A" and "Collab with Partner B"
2. Add the members from the subcontractor teams as members of the appropriate workspaces, and decide what role each workspace member should have
3. Add your team members as members of the projects you wish to collaborate on, and make sure these are Public with Inherit Access.
4. Transfer the projects you wish to collaborate on into one of the new workspaces, e.g. into "Collab with Partner A"
   • While the project is in this workspace, all the folks from Partner A who were added to the workspace can see and collaborate on the project
5. When the need for collaboration is over, transfer the project out of this workspace
   • Transfer it into the "Collab with Partner B" workspace to involve yet another set of partners in a review; or
   • Transfer it back to an internal-people-only workspace if there's no further external collaboration required