Workspace App Overview

Workspace

1. What it is

Workspace bundles a message board, grouped to-do lists, a schedule, recurring check-ins, and Hill Charts onto one scrollable canvas per project. Each workspace also gets its own Shared Drive automatically the moment it is created.

• Enablement: Workspace requires a licence. An admin enables it for the business in Admin → Apps → All Apps; it is off by default.
• Edition requirement: Portfolio and Workload plan across projects and people (“advanced planning”). They need the Platform Standard edition or above. Everything inside one project — the Table, Timeline and Plan tabs, milestones and dependencies — works in every edition.
• What it is not: Workspace is not a standalone task manager. To-dos inside a workspace are the same task records the org-wide Tasks app uses, scoped to one project instead of living in a separate system.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps and enable the Workspace app. It requires a licence.
2. Open Apps → Workspace → Settings. Review who can create workspaces — the default is managers and admins, plus anyone with direct reports. You can widen this to everyone or specific groups, narrow it to the manager role or to people managers, or restrict it to app admins only. Some older businesses show Managers & admins — by role only selected instead.
3. Toggle canvas sections on or off. Every section (message board, tasks, schedule, check-ins, Hill Charts, linked tools, the Board view, and more) ships enabled. Disable any section your organisation does not need — workspaces will no longer show it.
4. Create the first workspace. Go to Apps → Workspace → Workspaces and click New Workspace. Give it a name, an optional description, and an icon/color. You become the owner.
5. Add members. Open the workspace and use the Members card on the canvas, or the Members tab (Add a member), to add people by name. Members receive a notification that they have been added.
6. Confirm it worked. Members see the workspace under My Workspaces on their Dashboard, which also lists what needs their attention (to-dos due or overdue, check-ins due, AI drafts to review) and a Catch up recap. On the home dashboard, the My Workspaces widget shows up to three of their workspaces with what each one needs from them: workspaces they bookmarked come first, then the ones they opened most recently. To bookmark a workspace, click the bookmark icon next to its name. Bookmarked workspaces are also listed first on the Workspaces page.
7. On Platform Standard or above, the app’s left rail also shows Portfolio and Workload. Below that plan the two rows are hidden, and a saved link opens an upgrade panel instead.

Silent-dependency note: The Shared Drive that each workspace provisions relies on the Drive app. If Drive is not enabled, the files section of the canvas will be empty.

3. How it fits together

Roles

Every workspace membership carries one of three roles.

• Owner — created the workspace, or was made an owner. Can edit the workspace, manage members, archive, duplicate, export, rearrange the canvas, and toggle per-workspace features. A workspace can have several owners: Make owner on a member’s row adds one without demoting anyone. The last owner cannot leave until someone else is an owner.
• Member — can post messages, create and complete to-dos, add events, answer check-ins, and add links.
• Viewer — read-only. Can browse messages, tasks, and events, but cannot create or edit content. Personal state (marking a message as read, muting, saving a filter) is not gated by this restriction.

Owners, members and viewers can leave an active workspace from its ⋮ menu (Leave workspace); their open tasks there become unassigned. People who are in through the workspace’s access rule cannot be taken out one by one, so they are offered Mute instead of leaving. App admins (business admins and users granted the Workspace app-admin role) can perform any owner action on any workspace, regardless of membership.

Canvas sections

A workspace canvas is a single scrollable page divided into sections. The owner lays out the sections in two columns with Rearrange canvas in the workspace’s ⋮ menu, and toggles sections on or off from Features in the same menu. Business-level settings control which sections are available at all; the owner can only disable within that set, never re-enable something the admin turned off.

Worked example. Suppose an admin disables Hill Charts business-wide. Every workspace loses that section. An owner who previously disabled and then re-enabled Hill Charts in their workspace will not see it return — the admin gate takes precedence.

Messages across workspaces

Messages in the Workspace navigation lists the message-board posts of every workspace you are in as one stream, the most recently active first, so you do not have to open each workspace to see what is new. Filter it to unread posts and new replies, to posts and replies that mention you, to announcements, or to one workspace. Mark all as read clears every unread post and new reply at once (on one workspace’s Messages page, that workspace’s only). You can react and reply from a post’s card where you can post in that workspace — posts, replies and to-dos offer your company’s reactions, the same set as the feed and every other app (your admin chooses it in Communications settings), and a reaction you gave before the set changed stays yours to remove; open the post for the whole thread, polls and attachments. It shows only what you could already read in each workspace: a workspace whose message board is switched off, and posts held for review or restricted to owners, stay out. Each workspace’s own Messages page shows its board the same way. People outside the company keep their access link to one workspace and do not see this page.

To-do lists and tasks

To-dos live inside named lists (e.g. “Launch checklist”, “Adoption milestones”). Each list holds tasks that are the same records as in the org-wide Tasks app. Tasks can be assigned to members, given a due date, and marked complete. When a member is removed from (or leaves) a workspace, their open tasks are automatically unassigned so they surface as unowned. The same tasks appear in columns on the workspace’s Board tab.

Planning one project: Table, Timeline and Plan

Three tabs inside a workspace turn its to-dos into a project plan. They work in every edition.

• Table — every to-do as rows you filter, sort, edit in place and save as a view. Owners add project-specific columns from Manage fields (for example “Budget code” or “Go-live wave”), up to 30 per project.
• Timeline — the dated to-dos over time. A to-do can wait on another (a finish-to-start link). When a to-do starts before what it waits on finishes, the tab warns you. An owner or member can click Shift n to-dos to move the late ones forward, whole. Nothing is ever pulled earlier, and nothing moves without that click. See what Shift will move, under the warning, lists each to-do with its dates before and after, so you can check (or copy) the plan before pressing it — a shift is not undone in one step.
• Plan — the project’s Health rating, the signals the data shows, its milestones, status updates and risks. A milestone is a to-do with the Milestone box ticked; its subtasks are its deliverables.

Health vs signals. The owner sets Health (On track, At risk, Off track, Not set) in Edit details or when posting a status update. The signals are computed and never overwrite it: overdue to-dos, missed milestones, open risks, and an owner’s check-in that is due. A project marked On track with two missed milestones shows both. Risks raised on the Plan tab are the same records as the Compliance Hub risk register. The Plan tab works whether or not Compliance Hub is enabled; where it is, the register lists these risks too.

Planning across projects: Portfolio and Workload

• Portfolio lists every project the viewer may see, with its health and signals. Filter by health, signal, kind, department, location or status, save the filters as a view, or export to CSV.
• Workload shows people against weeks. Each cell compares the hours of a person’s open to-dos with the hours they have that week. Their hours come from a manager’s hour target on a schedule, else their contracted hours, else their role’s expected hours, else a standard 40 — less approved leave.

What each person sees depends on who they are:

Viewer	Sees
Workspace app admin	Every workspace in the business
Someone allowed to open Workspace Analytics and Reports	Every workspace except private ones they are not in
Everyone else	The workspaces they can open

On Workload, anyone also sees the people who report to them. A person’s load counts every open to-do they hold. A to-do’s title is shown only when the viewer can open its workspace.

A to-do’s Estimate (hours) spreads evenly over the weekdays from its start (or today, if later) to its due date. A to-do with a due date but no start date lands all its hours on the due day.

Worked example. A team member has 40 hours next week. Their estimates for that week total 46 hours, which is 115% — the cell reads Stretched. At 50 hours (125%) it reads Over capacity. At 30 hours (75%) it reads Well loaded, and below 50% Room to spare. Clicking a cell that holds to-dos opens a drawer where you tick some of them and hand them to someone else.

Hill Charts

A Hill Chart tracks progress on a named scope as a single dot on a 0–100 uphill-then-downhill curve. The left half represents figuring out the problem; the right half represents executing the solution; reaching 100 means done. Every position change is recorded as a history point, so you can review how a scope progressed over time. When the AI agent is enabled and Auto-Propose Hill Chart Positions is on, the system periodically proposes a new position based on completed to-dos and recent activity. The proposal appears as a pending badge; the owner accepts (which commits the move) or dismisses it. The AI never moves a dot without approval.

Recurring check-ins

A check-in is a question asked on a schedule — daily, weekly, or monthly. A check-in can also have a set opening time (Opens at) in a chosen Time zone. A weekly check-in can be limited to the weekdays you tick. If you leave Opens at blank, the first check-in opens right away. When a check-in fires, each member gets a response form. If Auto-Draft Check-In Responses is on, the AI drafts an answer from the member’s recent workspace activity and notifies them that a draft is waiting. The member reviews, edits if needed, and approves. No AI draft ever posts without explicit approval. Check-ins can be paused and resumed. A paused check-in stays visible on the canvas with a “Paused” badge and does not fire until resumed.

A check-in’s Answer can be a written answer (the default) or a typed one: Pick one from a list, Yes / no, Number (with an optional lowest and highest value, such as a 1–5 rating) or Date. Typed answers are tallied on the check-in’s page under Results for each cycle and are never AI-drafted. The answer type is fixed once someone has answered.

Templates

A workspace template captures the structure of an existing workspace — its to-do lists, Hill Charts, and check-in questions — without copying messages, files, or members. Creating a workspace from a template pre-populates that structure so projects of the same shape do not start from scratch. Templates come in two kinds: system templates (shared across all businesses, managed centrally) and business templates (saved by your team, editable and archivable). An archived template drops out of the picker but is never permanently deleted.

A dated template also places each to-do and milestone relative to one date — for example Go-live date or Opening day. When you create a workspace from it, you pick that date and the plan counts back from it. You also choose who holds each role the template names. A role left empty keeps its to-dos unassigned, marked with the role’s name. Five dated system templates ship: Store or Site Opening, Technology Implementation, Operational Improvement Project, Compliance Initiative and People Team Program.

External access

External access lets you invite someone outside the company — a client, vendor, partner or contractor, without a MangoApps account — to follow a workspace. You issue an access link by email; it expires in 30 days and can be extended or revoked at any time, and an expired link can be renewed for 30 days after it lapses. The external guest sees messages, tasks, events, and Hill Charts, but never anything marked as internal-only. External guests can reply to messages from their link unless the owner switches off External guests can reply on the workspace’s External access card, which makes their view read-only for that workspace. Turning off Enable External Access in settings disables both new invites and existing access links.

4. Running it

Creating a workspace from a template

1. Go to Apps → Workspace → Templates. Your team’s saved templates are listed first, then the system templates. To add one from the central template library, click Browse Library and choose Use.
2. On the template’s card, click Create from template. The workspace takes the template’s name (rename it from Edit details afterwards), and its to-do lists, Hill Charts and check-in questions are pre-populated. A dated template opens a form first that asks for its date and who holds each role, with a preview of the dated plan.
3. The new workspace starts as a draft. Only its owners (and Workspace app admins) can see it, and nobody is notified yet. It is listed under Drafts at the top of your Workspaces page. Set it up, then click Launch workspace on the canvas. The launch form shows what will go out, and lets you confirm or change who holds each role before anyone is told. Click Launch workspace again to make it live. Members are then told they were added, each role’s to-dos go to its holder, and check-ins start on their schedule. A blank workspace can start as a draft too: tick Save as a draft on the New Workspace form.

Duplicating or exporting a workspace

• Duplicate workspace (⋮ menu) copies to-do lists (open tasks only), Hill Charts (reset to position 0), check-in configs and linked tools. It does not copy messages, files, events, completed tasks or memberships — you become the sole owner.
• Export to CSV (⋮ menu) asks you to re-verify your identity first. The file holds the workspace details, member emails, all messages and all tasks.

Inviting someone outside the company

1. Open the workspace and go to the External access card on the canvas, or choose External access from the ⋮ menu.
2. Click Invite someone, enter the person’s email address, and send. They receive an access link valid for 30 days.
3. To extend a link, click Extend on the invite row — it adds another 30 days from the current expiry. To revoke, click Revoke. A link that expired in the last 30 days is listed under the active ones with Renew, which reopens the same link.
4. To get a link again — to send it yourself, or because the email went astray — click Copy link on the invite row. It is the same link the person was sent.

Reviewing projects across the business

1. Open Apps → Workspace → Portfolio. Choose Sort: health, worst first to put the projects in trouble at the top.
2. Filter by a signal (for example missed milestones) and click Save this view… to keep the filter for next time.
3. Open Workload to see who is overloaded in the coming weeks. Pick 4, 6, 8 or 12 weeks; 6 is the default.
4. Click a busy cell to open the Reassign drawer and hand to-dos to another person. The new assignee must be an active member of that workspace.

The Workspaces list also has a Timeline view of your own workspaces. The first 100 (most recently edited) show in every edition; the pages after that need the Platform Standard edition.

Importing a project from Monday.com or a spreadsheet

1. Open the workspace. Choose Import from Monday.com / CSV from the Tasks card’s ⋮ menu (owners also have it in the workspace’s ⋮ menu). Viewers cannot import.
2. Upload a Monday.com board exported to Excel, or any spreadsheet, and map its columns.
3. Review the preview. It shows what each row will do before anything is saved.
4. Confirm. Each person assigned work gets one notice for the whole import, not one per to-do.

Adding items with the Create menu

The Create button at the top right of the canvas adds a Message, Task, Event or Linked tool. Each opens its form in a side panel. When the workspace has no to-do list yet, Task reads Task list instead. An item appears only while its section is on. Viewers do not get the button, and neither does anyone on an archived workspace.

A message that starts with a slash shortcut creates an item instead of a post: /task, /msg, /link or /event. Dates and assignees in a shortcut are read by the Workspace AI agent. With Enable Workspace AI Agent off, a /task keeps its text but gets no date, and /event adds nothing. A shortcut is refused when the post has Internal only, Leads only, Post as announcement or attachments set, because the plain item it creates would drop them.

5. Settings

All settings are at Apps → Workspace → Settings. Only business admins and Workspace app admins can reach this page.

AI features

Setting	Default	What it changes
Enable Workspace AI Agent	On	Master switch for all AI features in the app
Auto-Propose Hill Chart Positions	On	Whether the agent periodically proposes Hill Chart dot moves based on completed work
Auto-Draft Check-In Responses	On	Whether the agent drafts a response from recent activity when a check-in fires
Enable External Digest Generation	On	Whether workspace owners can generate an external digest — a summary of recent activity for external guests, with internal-only items left out
Email a weekly digest to external guests automatically	Off	Emails each workspace’s external guests the digest every Monday. Off by default because it sends mail outside your company

Canvas sections

Each of these can be toggled off to hide the section across all workspaces in the business. All default to On.

Setting	What it hides
Enable Message Board	The message-board section on the canvas
Enable Tasks	The to-do lists section, and with it the Table and Timeline tabs
Enable Schedule	The schedule / events section
Enable Recurring Check-Ins	The check-ins section
Enable Hill Charts	The Hill Charts section
Enable Linked Tools Section	The “Linked tools” section for pinned external URLs
Show Wikis Section on Canvas	The Wikis section (requires the Wikis app)
Show Library Section on Canvas	The Library section (requires the Libraries app)
Show Forms Section on Canvas	The Forms section (requires the Forms app)
Enable External Access	External access invites and existing access links (turning it off disables outstanding links)
Enable Board View	The Board tab, which shows a workspace’s tasks in columns
Enable Reports Tab	The Reports tab in the sidebar (visible to managers and above)
Enable Comments on To-Dos	Threaded comments on individual tasks
Enable Recurring Tasks	Recurring task creation
Enable Emoji Reactions	Emoji reactions on messages and tasks
Enable iCal Feed for Schedule	iCal feed export for workspace events

Capacity limits

Setting	Default	What it changes
Max workspaces per business	Blank (unlimited)	Maximum active workspaces in the business. Drafts count toward it
Max members per workspace	Blank (unlimited)	Maximum members per individual workspace

Access control

Setting	Default	What it changes
Who can create a workspace?	Managers & admins, plus anyone with direct reports	Controls who may create a new workspace. Options: everyone, managers and admins plus people managers, managers by role only, people managers only, app admins only, or specific groups

Notifications

Each of these toggles one notification channel. All default to On.

Setting	What it controls
Notify on New Message	Email and in-app notification for new message-board posts
Notify on New Comment	Notifications for new comments on messages
Notify on @Mention in Message	Notifications for @mentions in messages
Notify on @Mention in Comment	Notifications for @mentions in comments
Notify on Task Assigned	Notification when a task is assigned
Remind Assignees About To-Do Due Dates (due soon, overdue, milestones)	Reminds the assignee before a to-do is due and once when it goes overdue, and a milestone’s owner a week and a day before it is due
Notify on Check-In Due	Reminder when a check-in is due and no AI draft was created
Notify When AI Draft Ready for Approval	Notification when the AI has drafted a check-in response
Notify on Member Added	Notification when a user is added to a workspace
Notify on To-Do Comments (assignee, creator and earlier commenters)	Notification to the person assigned, the to-do’s creator, and earlier commenters when someone comments
Notify on @Mention in Task Comment	Notification for @mentions in task comments
Email the Access Link to the Person Invited	Whether the access link is emailed to the person you invite (the URL is still issued and shown in the UI regardless)
Notify when an event is added	Notification for new schedule events
Remind before an event starts	Reminder before a schedule event starts

Content governance

Setting	Default	What it changes
Enable Content Governance	On	Whether message-board posts are subject to the platform’s content-governance pipeline

6. More help

• Workspace FAQ — specific setup and operating questions
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Workspace from these articles.