4.3 Managing a Team Workspace

Team workspaces are the key to helping you and your team accomplish tasks and meet objectives, together.

As the owner of a workspace, you are primarily responsible for workspace administration. You can create other containers for information (sub-workspaces and folders), adjust access controls to determine who can do what in the workspace, and provide some initial content to assist team members to get started.

4.3.1 Creating a Team Workspace

By default, everyone in Novell Vibe has rights to create a team workspace.

Team workspaces are the most common type of workspaces. They facilitate team objectives by enabling team members to quickly share files, share ideas, and work together more efficiently and effectively.

Vibe enables you to create a highly visible team workspace in the Team Workspaces directory, or you can create a nested team workspace, which is a team workspace inside of an existing team workspace.

Creating a Highly Visible Team Workspace

If you want your team workspace to be highly visible and easy to find in the workspace tree, create the team workspace in the Team Workspaces directory, as described in Section 1.5, Creating a Team Workspace.

Creating a Team Workspace inside of an Existing Team Workspace

Vibe enables you to create nested workspaces, which are workspaces inside of other workspaces. You can create a team workspace inside of any existing workspace where you have appropriate rights.

You might want to do this if you are not concerned about having high visibility in the workspace tree, and if the team workspace that you want to create consists mostly of members who already belong to a certain workspace.

  1. Navigate to the workspace where you want to create the new team workspace.

  2. Click Workspace > New Workspace.

    The New Workspace page is launched.

  3. In the Workspace section, select Team Workspace.

    You can also create a basic workspace, a project management workspace, and a discussions workspace.

  4. Specify the following information:

    Workspace Title: Specify a title for the workspace.

    Workspace: Select Team Workspace.

    Team Members: Specify the team members.

    You can specify individual users, entire groups, or add names that are on your clipboard. For more information about using the Vibe clipboard, see Section 9.5, Using the Vibe Clipboard.

    You can also click Team Members. This displays a list of all of the members of the team workspace where you are creating your new team workspace. Select the names of the users that you want to include in your new team workspace.

    Workspace Folders: Select the folders that you want the workspace to contain.

    If you later decide that you want to add additional folders, you can add them at any time.

    For information on how to add folders to an existing workspace, see Section 4.1.8, Adding Additional Folders to a Workspace.

    Announcement: (Optional) Select the check box, then type a message in the Announcement Text field.

    This message informs team members about the existence of the workspace, and can also explain the value of the workspace.

  5. Click OK to create the new workspace.

4.3.2 Adding Additional Team Members to Your Workspace

After you create your workspace, you can add other Vibe users who need to join your team.

  1. Navigate to the team workspace where you want to add the additional team members.

  2. Click Workspace > Edit Team in the Action toolbar.

    The Add or Delete Team Members page is launched.

  3. (Conditional) If this workspace is currently inheriting its team membership from a parent folder, click Yes.

  4. In the Users field, specify the names of the individual users that you want to add to the team.

    You can also specify entire groups in the Groups field, or you can add names that are on your clipboard by clicking Clipboard User Names. For more information about using the Vibe clipboard, see Section 9.5, Using the Vibe Clipboard.

  5. Click OK.

You can announce the workspace to the new team members. For information on how to do this, see Section 4.3.3, Sending E-Mail to Team Members and Announcing the Workspace after Its Creation.

4.3.3 Sending E-Mail to Team Members and Announcing the Workspace after Its Creation

Vibe enables you to send e-mail messages to your entire team. Also, if new team members join the team after the team workspace has already been created, you can use this functionality to announce the workspace to the new team members.

To send mail to team members:

  1. Navigate to the team workspace.

  2. Click Workspace > E-Mail Team in the Action toolbar.

    The Send E-Mail page is displayed.

  3. Fill in the appropriate fields.

    For information on filling in the rest of the Send E-Mail form, see Section 9.4, Filling Out the Send E-Mail Page.

  4. Click OK.

4.3.4 Viewing Team Members

Viewing Team Members from Any Page within The Workspace

You can view the members of the team from any folder within the workspace:

  1. On any page within the workspace, click Workspace > View Team in the Action toolbar.

Viewing Team Members in an Accessory from the Workspace Home Page

Accessories are sections at the top of workspaces and folders that provide summary information for you. For more information on working with accessories, see Section 8.0, Managing Accessories.

By default, Vibe includes a team-membership accessory on the home page of your workspace. This accessory displays all team members.

4.3.5 Allowing Visitors to Your Team Workspace

By default, only team members can view and participate in the workspaces and folders contained in the team workspace. There might be times when you want to allow other people to visit your team workspace (which, by default, means that they can read entries and comment on them, but they cannot create entries).

For information on how to allow visitors to your team workspace, see Allowing Visitors to Your Team Workspace in the Novell Vibe 3.4 Advanced User Guide.