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Creating Effective Team Spaces (Workspaces)

Best practices to plan, set up and maintain the workspaces of your organization.

Last updated 9 days ago

Creating a workspace takes a minute. Structuring your workspaces well takes more thought, and it pays off: members find their conversations faster, and Mates get the right context. This article gives best practices to plan, set up and maintain workspaces. It is for members who create and manage workspaces.

To create your first workspace step by step, read "Creating Your First Workspace".

What a workspace holds

A workspace is a shared space inside your organization. It holds:

  • conversations between members and Mates;
  • folders, to group conversations, with subfolders if you need them;
  • context: a name, a description and a language that every Mate of the workspace uses.

Plan your workspace structure

Before you create workspaces, look at how your organization works. Common structures:

  • By department: "HR", "Sales Ops", "Engineering". Good for the ongoing work of a team.
  • By major project: "Project Phoenix Launch", "Q3 Website Redesign". Good for cross-team initiatives.
  • By client: "Client Acme Corp", "Client Globex Inc.". Good for agencies and client-facing teams.
  • By product line: "Product Alpha", "Product Beta".
  • By strategic goal: "Sustainability Initiatives", "Market Expansion Europe".

Choose one structure, or a mix, that matches how your teams work. Inside a workspace, use folders for sub-topics instead of creating many small workspaces.

Choose a clear name, icon and description

  • Icon: click the icon next to the name to choose an emoji. Pick one that shows the theme, for example 📈 for Sales or 💡 for Brainstorming.
  • Name: keep it short and easy to recognize. Avoid internal acronyms.
    • Good: "Q4 Marketing Campaigns"
    • Less effective: "Mktg_Q4_Cmpgn"
  • Description (What are you trying to do?): this is the main context for Mates. Describe the goals, the scope, the key people and the expected results. Use words that Mates can reuse.
    • Example: "This workspace centralizes the marketing campaigns of Q4. Focus: social media for Product X, email campaigns for the new service, coordination with the sales team. Mates should prioritize lead generation and brand awareness."
  • Locale: choose the language the team works in. Mates use it for their answers.
  • Include organization context: keep it on in most cases. Turn it off when the organization description does not apply, for example in a workspace dedicated to one client.

Choose the right visibility

  • Private (default): only the members you add can see the workspace. Use it for sensitive projects, client work and team-internal discussions.
  • Public: every member of the organization can see the workspace, without an invitation. Use it for company-wide initiatives and open topics.

You can change the visibility later. See "Changing Your Workspace Privacy Settings" for the steps and what each change does.

Manage members and roles

Organize conversations

  • Keep each conversation on one topic, and give it a clear name.
  • Group conversations in folders: by phase, by sub-project or by client contact.
  • Pin the conversations the whole team needs. A pin shows for every member of the workspace.
  • Archive the conversations that are finished. They move to Archived at the bottom of the workspace page.

Maintain your workspaces

  • Update the description when the goals change, so that Mates work on the current context.
  • Update the icon if the focus changes.
  • Delete a workspace that is no longer useful. The deletion is permanent: first move the conversations you want to keep to another workspace. See "Creating Your First Workspace" (who can delete a workspace) and "Managing Your Workspace Conversations" (move a conversation).
  • Review your structure from time to time and adjust it.

Good to know

  • Workspaces depend on your plan: Advanced and Expert in the default plan catalog. Your organization's plans may differ.
  • A Viewer of the organization cannot create a workspace.

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