Using workspaces

Workspaces are private Web sites where you can collaborate on projects and documents with coworkers, clients, business partners, or anyone to whom you grant permission. You can have as many workspaces as you want, and each workspace has separate permissions, which means that people can access only the workspaces that you want them to access. With Business Applications, the Team Workspace is already added to your account. You can also create new workspaces. For more information on adding a workspace, see Add an application to your account.

Say your company is working on a big project. You can set up one workspace for your team, one for your client, one for your each of the different vendors you work with, and one central project workspace that everyone can access. Workspaces are as flexible as you want them to be.

Workspaces are also customizable, so you can adapt them to meet your specific business needs. Add lists, libraries, and calendars; change the views; and edit the dashboard to display the information most useful to your organization.

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• A tour of the Team Workspace application

• Adding users and setting permissions

• Uploading a document

• Adding a new workspace

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A tour of the Team Workspace application

When you start using Business Applications, a Team Workspace has already been added to you account and you can start using it immediately. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click More, and then click Business Applications. On the left navigation bar, click Team Workspace.

The following shows the main elements of the Team Workspace.

1. The Dashboard acts as a home page for a Team Workspace, and provides a quick overview of the information contained there. The dashboard opens when you click Team Workspace on the left navigation bar.
2. A Team Workspace lets you switch between two different ways of viewing the information in the dashboard:
   • Company view is the view of the dashboard seen by everyone who has access to Team Workspace. The account owner or administrators can configure the company view to show the information that the organization uses most often.
   • Personal view is your own customizable view, which you can use to set up the dashboard to show the information you need to do your job every day.
3. The Add link is the way to add lists, libraries, and calendars to Team Workspace.
4. The edit link allows you customize the dashboard by adding, removing, or modifying items.

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Adding users and setting permissions

Before you can begin collaborating using a Team Workspace, you must have someone to collaborate with. If you are an account owner or administrator, you can grant other people access to your workspace, and set their permission levels. The easiest way to do this is with the Sharing sidebar, which appears on the left side of the page.

When you grant someone access to your workspace, you assign them a role, which defines the level of permission that person has for changing information in the workspace. Each workspace has its own permissions, so that a user may be an administrator in one workspace, but only a reader in another.

Roles and permissions:

Role	Permissions
Administrator	Users with this role can set user permissions and have full access to add, modify, and delete information.
Editor	Users with this role have full access to add, modify, and delete information.
Reader	Users with this role have limited read-only access.
Owner	Some features are available to the account owner only. These include: billing, purchases, and creating e-mail accounts.

To add a user to your workspace:

1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click More, and then click Business Applications.
2. On the left navigation bar, click Team Workspace.
3. On the Sharing sidebar, click Users, and then click Manage permissions for this application.

   

4. In the Users and Permissions dialog box, in the Users pane, click Add user.
5. In the dialog box that appears, type a valid e-mail address and display name for the user, and then click Add user. The user's name appears in the Users pane.

 Note   Users are not added to your account until you assign them a role in the Users and Permissions dialog box.

6. In the Users and Permissions dialog box, click the arrow that corresponds to the role that you want to add them to. The user's name moves from the Users pane to the selected role pane.

See also: Manager permissions using the Sharing sidebar.

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Uploading a document

A Team Workspace contains a library that lets your organization share documents in one central place. To upload a document to a Team Workspace:

1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click More, and then click Business Applications.
2. On the Business Applications Home page, on the left navigation bar, click Team Workspace.
3. Click the Shared Documents tab at the top of the page.
4. On the actions bar, click Upload, and then click Upload Document.

   

5. On the Upload Document page, type the path to the file and its name in the Name box; or, click Browse to find the file on your computer.

    Note   Large files sometimes fail to upload properly when using Upload Document. To upload a large file, click Upload Multiple Documents and follow the instructions below.

    Caution   If you select the Overwrite existing files check box and the library contains another file with the same name as the one that you are uploading, the existing file in the library will be overwritten and lost.

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Adding a new workspace

In addition to the Team Workspace that is already added to your account, you can create additional workspaces for any purpose you want. Create a workspace for a specific project or event, or to collaborate online with your business partners.

To add a new workspace to your account:

1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click More, and then click Business Applications.
2. On the Business Applications Home page, on the left navigation bar, click Add Application.
3. On the Add Applications page, click Team Workspace, and then click OK.
4. In the dialog box, type in a name and URL for your new workspace, and then click OK. The workspace is added to the Business Applications left navigation bar.
5. Click OK.

See also: Add an application to your account.

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