eXo Platform 3.5

## Chapter 4. Work with Spaces

The concept "team work" becomes very familiar in business environment. By establishing one specific team or group, you and your collaborators can work together on important projects. Based on the importance of team working, eXo Platform develops the Space application, allowing you to collaborate with specific people. This means that if you want to work on a team project, you can create a space for your team members to make organizations, share links and information related to the project.

To access a space, click My Spaces on the Administration bar.

The My Spaces page appears as below.

The Space navigation includes the following tabs:

- All Spaces: all spaces, including your spaces, visible spaces, and hidden spaces where you are invited to become members.

- My Spaces: spaces where you have the role as a member or a manager.

- Invitations Received: spaces where you are invited to become members by space managers.

- Requests Pending: spaces where you have requested for becoming their members.

### Note

Administrator, who has the highest permission, can see all spaces regardless of the member role.

## Create a space

After redirecting to the Space application, you can add a new space so that you and your collaborators can work together or discuss specific topics as follows:

1. Click at the left corner of the Space page.

2. Enter a space name, description and select the priority level in the Settings tab of the Add New Space form. There are 3 levels: High, Intermediate, and Low with textual explanations corresponding to each selected preference value.

3. Select an access level in the Access & Edit tab.

- Visibility: By default, the Visibility value is set to be Visible.

  - Visible: The space is always visible in the public spaces list.

  - Hidden: The space is not visible in the public spaces list.

- Registration: By default, the Registration value is set as Validation.

  - Open: The users sending their requests can join the space without any validation.

  - Validation: The membership must be validated by the space manager.

  - Close: The user cannot request for joining, but only the space manager can invite him.

4. Select all members of a specific group for your space where you are already 'manager' in the Invite users from group tab.

One of the two following cases occurs when you select this tab.

- The first instance: You have been already the manager of a group. It means that you have created at least a space.

The Invite users from group tab will be displayed as below.

i. Tick the Select a target group for this space checkbox to open the selection form.

ii. Select the group in the left pane, then its child group in the right pane.

You will see your selected group as below.

### Note

To remove the selected groups, untick the Select a target group for this space checkbox.

After you have selected one existing group, all users in that group will be invited to join your newly created space.

- The second instance: You have not been a manager of any group yet. It means that this is the first time you create a space, so you cannot select a target group.

5. Click Create to finish adding your new space.

The new space appears.

- Click each application on the space Navigation bar to use its functions.

- When a new space is created, a forum with the same name as this space is also created in the Forum application. In case this forum is removed from the Forum application, all members of the space cannot see the space's forum anymore when clicking Discussions on the space Navigation bar.

### Note

When more than two space characters are input between words in the space name, these spaces will be converted to ONLY ONE space when being displayed. With space characters at the beginning and end of space names, these space characters will be also omitted.

After being created, your space will be automatically added to the My Spaces button on the Administration bar. Therefore, you can access your space by clicking My Spaces --> [Space Name] from the drop-down menu.

## Join/Leave a space

Join a space

Click My Spaces on the Administration bar, then click the All Spaces tab to display all your spaces and ones whose Visibility is set to "Visible".

There are two cases to join a space:

- The first instance: For spaces without validation required, click Request to join corresponding to your desired space. You will automatically become their members.

- The second instance: For spaces with validation required, after clicking Request to join, you have to wait for the validation from the space's owner who can accept or deny your request.

Revoke your request

- To revoke your request for joining a space that has not been validated by its owner, simply click Cancel.

Leave a space

- To leave a space, simply click Leave.

If you are the only leader of that space, the message which informs that you cannot leave a space will appear as below.

### Note

After you have left a space, the space will not exist in the My Spaces tab, but in the All Spaces tab (for the "visible" space only).

## View details of a space

To view one detailed page of a space, you must become its member first. Then, do either of the two following ways to view the space.

The first way

- Hover your cursor over My Spaces on the Administration bar, and select your desired space from the drop-down menu.

The second way

- After entering the My Spaces pane within the Spaces application, click the name of your desired space.

The detailed page of the space displays information about the space. The functions you can perform depending on your granted permissions or whether you are the space's creator or not.

As a normal user, you can:

- Ask for joining the public space or leave the space.

- Accept or deny to join a space.

- Invite new members to take part in your space.

Besides the actions above, as a space manager or creator, you can:

- Edit the space settings, including description, priority level, and avatar.

- Change the visibility of your space.

- Promote/Demote roles of space members.

- Remove members from your space.

## Delete a space

Only the space managers can delete their spaces by clicking Delete under the space name. All information and navigations related to that space are also deleted.

## Search for spaces

The Search function in the Spaces application helps you easily find spaces from one of the tabs in the Space navigation.

After accessing your desired spaces tab, you can search for spaces by Name and Description or Alphabets.

Search by name/description

1. Enter the key word into the Find Space field.

2. Press the Enter key or click Search.

The found spaces will be listed in the Spaces Found pane.

Search by alphabets

Simply click a specific letter.

Only spaces whose names start with the search letter are listed in the Spaces Found pane.

## Accept/Ignore invitations

This function allows you to accept and/or deny invitations that you received from others. You can see all spaces which are being waited for your acceptance in the Invitations Received tab, or in the My invitations tab in the left pane of the Intranet homepage.

1. Access the Intranet homepage, then click Space in the My Invitations tab on the left of the Intranet homepage. A list of spaces which you are invited to join appears.

2. Click the space name to open the Invitations Received tab.

- Click Accept to accept joining the space.

- Click Ignore to deny joining the space.

### Note

You can also go to the Invitations Received tab by clicking My Space --> Invitations Received.

## Edit a space

This function allows you to change the initial settings of a space if you are the creator or have the Manage permission on it. With this function, you can do the following actions:

- Change space information

- Change visibility

- Manage members

- Manage space applications

- Edit space navigation

To perform the actions above, first access the Space Settings by following one of 2 ways:

The first way

1. Click My Spaces on the Administration bar to direct to the My Spaces page.

2. Click Edit corresponding to the space which you have the Edit permission.

3. Click next to the space name.

The second way

1. Hover your cursor over My Spaces on the Administration bar, then select one space from the drop-down menu.

2. Click next to the space name.

### Note

You only see for spaces which you have the Edit permission.

### Change space information

This function allows you to edit the basic information of a space.

1. Select the Settings tab in the Space Settings page.

2. Change information in the Description and Priority fields, and the space avatar.

- To change the space avatar, click , or directly click the current space avatar to open the Upload an Image form. For more details, see the Upload your profile avatar section.

### Note

You cannot change the space name.

3. Click Save to accept your changes.

### Change visibility

1. Select the Access & Edit tab in the left pane of the Space Settings page.

2. Change values of Visibility and Registration if you want. For more details, see here.

3. Click Save to accept your changes.

### Manage members

Select the Members tab in the left pane of the Space Settings page to open the Manage members form.

Here, you can do many actions on members as stated below.

#### Invite new members

You can invite other users to join your spaces as follows:

The first way

- If you know the username of a person, simply enter his/her username in the textbox, then click .

To invite multiple people, use commas to separate your multiple entered usernames.

The second way

1. Click to open the Select Users form.

2. Select your desired users by ticking their corresponding checkboxes, and click Add.

You can also search for your desired members in eXo Platform, do as follows:

i. Enter a search term into the Search box.

ii. Select a criterion you want to find in the combo box next to the Search box.

iii. Click to perform searching.

3. Click to invite your selected users.

After that, you will see the list of invited users.

#### Revoke your invitations

If your invited users have not accepted your requests yet, you can revoke your invitations by clicking . The users will be removed from the Invited list.

#### Validate/Decline request

As a manager or creator of a space, you can validate other users' requests for joining your space.

- To accept a user's request for joining your space, click in the Action column.

- To decline a user's request for joining your space, click in the Action column.

#### Promote/Demote a member

- To promote a member to the manager position, click in the Manager column. The user will be automatically promoted as a manager in the current space.

- To demote a member, click .

### Note

Be careful not to remove the rights for yourself; otherwise, you will not be able to edit your space's settings anymore, except that you are an administrator.

#### Remove a member

Click corresponding to the member you want to delete in the Members list.

### Manage space applications

Select the Applications tab to go the Applications page which allows you to manage space applications.

#### Add a new space application

1. Click Add Application to open the Space Application Installer form.

2. Select the application you want to add by clicking .

If there is no available application, ask your system administrator to gain the access right.

#### Delete applications

To remove an application, click corresponding to the application name.

### Note

You cannot delete the Space Setting application because it is configured as a mandatory space application.

### Edit space navigation

You can easily edit a space navigation, such as adding a new node, editing a node, replacing in the navigation, moving up/down a node, and taking other actions in the context menu as follows:

1. Click the Navigations tab to open the space navigation.

You can take the following actions:

- Right-click a node name (space name) and take actions in the context menu, such as adding/editing/deleting a node, editing a node's page, copying/cloning a node, and more.

- Click Add node; Or right-click any white area to display , then select this button. The Add/ Edit Page Node form appears and allows you to add information to your new node.

For more details, see the Manage Navigation Nodes section.

2. Click Save to accept all changes.

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