workspaces: create, modify, delete, workspace links

The Workspaces tab

The Workspaces tab is where you create and maintain a common work area so that members of a team can easily access, share, and discuss project ideas, details, and associated documents.

Please note that administrators can enable the following Workspaces options in the My Account > Company > Settings dialog:
• "Require a document category when checking in documents";
• "Require a comment when checking in document revisions";
• "Require a message body when creating a new message or replying."

Also note that you can create custom fields for your workspace, folder/document, and discussion dialogs.

To create a new workspace:

1. Click on the Workspaces tab.

2. Click on the "Create..." drop-down menu and select "workspace."

3. Enter a name for the new workspace (mandatory).

4. Enter a description and notes if desired.

5. Click on "Save."

6. You will immediately see a Dashboard associated with the new workspace, along with links to Documents, Discussions, Search, Edit, Members, Alerts, and Links.

NOTE: When creating a new project in OpenAir, you can also create an associated workspace simultaneously. Check the box to “Create associated workspace” when creating a new project.
The workspace will be created upon saving the project, with the project owner as workspace owner.
You can quickly navigate to the new workspace from the new project by clicking the workspace icon
(in the form of a folder and document) that appears to the right of the project name, below the Dashboard link.

Dashboard: The workspace dashboard contains a "Messages" section where workspace owners, administrators, and other enabled users can post messages pertinent to workspace members. The fields associated with "Documents," "Discussions," and "Links" provide listed links to all the respective items to which the user has access; clicking on any links provided within each field takes the user to the selected item or function.

• Documents: Click on the "View Documents" link to see a list of all documents associated with the workspace you're in.
Click "Copy/move documents" to copy or move documents from the current workspace to another workspace. Users must have role privilege "Copy and move documents" to have access to this feature.
Click "Download all documents" to generate a ZIP file containing all the workspaces documents, which can then be downloaded with another click. Users need the role privilege “Download all documents” to have access to this feature.
An internal switch lets users download and delete all documents from the existing workspace. Please contact OpenAir support to have the bulk document delete feature enabled.

• Discussions: Click on the "Discussions" link to see a list of all discussion threads associated with the workspace you're in.

• Search: In the top-level Workspaces tab, clicking on the "Search" link calls up the "Search workspace" dialog box, and permits searching across workspaces. Enter one or more keywords, designate in which fields the search should be conducted (choices are "All," "Workspaces," "Documents," and "Discussions"), and click on "Search workspace." All occurrences of the keyword(s) in file names within the selected parameters will be displayed. Within a selected workspace, the choice of search parameters is limited to the documents, discussions, and messages associated with the selected workspace.

• Content Search: Documents are searchable by content across all workspaces, within a particular workspace, or from the Documents tab in the Workspaces module. To enable this feature, administrators navigate to My Account > Company > Settings > Workspace options. Check the box to "Enable document content searching" and save.
File types that are searchable currently include .csv, .doc, .html, .pdf, .ppt, .rtf, .txt, and .xls. To search, enter keyword(s) of at least 4 characters and select the items to be searched. In addition to document file names, the search will now also look for matches in the content of files of the above types. If there is a match in the body of the document, the search result list will display a small [content] hint next to the document.
The document list can be customized to include a column that shows if a particular document is content-searchable.
Please note that the search excludes partial words. Hyphenated words are treated as two words. Common words are excluded from the search.

• Edit: Click on the "Edit" link to call up the "Edit workspace" dialog, where you can change the name of the workspace, and add or modify notes as desired.

• Members: Click on the "Members" link to call up a picker list from which you can add members to or remove members from the selected workspace. The picker list includes individual users and assignment groups. There is also a dropdown under the "available" list that you can use to select the level of functionality for each user or group of users you add to the workspace.
Levels available are "read-only," which allows members to see uploaded documents and discussions, but not add any documents nor contribute discussion messages in the workspace; "read/write," which allows members the ability to add documents and messages as well as read them; and "administrator," which allows members to perform such workspace functions as adding or removing members, and deleting discussion messages (the latter must be enabled in Company > Settings > Workspaces Options).

Note: "Guest" users (clients) are permitted to be members of workspaces. To allow guests to be members of a particular workspace, you must enable the "Allow guests to be workspace members" check box on the "Edit workspace" dialog box (Workspaces > Workspaces > [workspace name] > Edit link) for that workspace. In order to have access to the Workspaces module, the "Guest" roles to which your guest users are assigned must have the "Guest can view Workspaces" option enabled. (See Account > Roles for more information.)

Note: You can synchronize workspace members with users assigned to an associated project. When creating or editing a project, check the box to "Synchronize the workspace users". This will cause users who are booked or assigned to the project to be automatically added to the list of workspace members, with read/write access. When bookings or assignments are modified, deleted or added, the list of workspace members is automatically updated. A hint at the bottom of the project Edit screen provides a hyperlink to let you manually synchronize the workspace users. To enable this option, administrators navigate to My Account > Company > Settings > Projects options. Check the box to "Enable workspace member synchronization" and Save. Please note that if the project has “synchronize the workspace users” checked, you would not be able to edit members for workspaces in the workspace Members form. The form would display a message that “ You do not have change permission for this form”.

• Alerts: Click on the "Alerts" link to call up a dialog that will allow you to choose one or more types of workspace-associated events that will automatically trigger alerts that will be emailed to all workspace members.
Both "Documents" and "Discussion" alerts can be created. "Documents" alert choices include: Folder added /Folder deleted /Document added /Document deleted /Document replaced /Document rolled back to an earlier version /Document revision deleted.
"Discussion" alert choices include: Discussion added /Discussion deleted /Discussion opened or closed /Message added /Message deleted /Reply added.

• Links: You can create internal or external links from the "Create" dropdown menu. Choose "Internal link" to call up a dialog that will let you associate a workspace to any client, estimate, deal, department, envelope, event, invoice, project, proposal, prospect, timesheet, to do, or user record in your account. To link a workspace to an item, select an item from the "Type" dropdown, then select the specific item from the "Record" dropdown. (Note: The name of the "Record" dropdown will change to whatever type you selected in the "Type" dropdown.) Enter a description if desired, and then click on "Save." After a link has been created, you can access the workspace from the associated item. For example, if a workspace has been linked to a client, you can go to Account > Clients, and click on the name of the client. At the top of the page, next to the client's name, you will see a little "folder" icon. If you click on this icon, the associated workspace will open in a separate pop-up window.

Choose "External link" to call up a dialog that will let you create a link to an external url that will appear in that Workspace dashboard. Simply type in the url, making sure to use the correct prefix (e.g. http://), and the description you want to appear in the dashboard. Clicking this link from the dashboard will launch a new browser to this url.

To modify a workspace:

1. Click on the Workspaces tab.

2. Click on the name of the workspace you want to change.

3. Click on the "Edit" link.

4. Make your changes to the "Edit workspace" dialog.

5. Click on the "Save" button.

To delete a workspace:

1. Click on the Workspaces tab.

2. Click on the name of the workspace you want to delete.

3. Click on the "Edit" link.

4. Click on the "Delete" button.

Note: You cannot delete a workspace that has any documents, discussions, or discussion messages associated with it (even if the discussions have been marked "closed.") Instead, uncheck the "Open" box at the bottom of the "Edit workspace" dialog, and click on "Save." This will move the workspace out of the "Open" sub-tab listing. (You can still access the workspace by clicking on the "All" sub-tab; you can also re-open a closed workspace by re-checking the "Open" box and clicking on "Save.") When you close a workspace, any associated discussions will also be closed.