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 the Apps Marketplace; it is off by default.
• 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 Marketplace 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.
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/colour. 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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

Client portal

The client portal lets you invite an external party — someone without a MangoApps account — to follow a workspace. You issue a magic link by email; it expires in 30 days and can be extended or revoked at any time. The client sees messages, tasks, events, and Hill Charts, but never anything marked as internal-only. Clients can reply to messages from the portal unless the owner switches off Clients can reply on the workspace’s External access card, which makes the portal read-only for that workspace.

Turning off Enable Client Portal in settings disables both new invites and existing magic links.

4. Running it

Creating a workspace from a template

1. Go to Apps → Workspace → Templates.
2. 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.
3. On the template’s card, click Create from template. The workspace takes the template’s name (rename it from Edit details afterwards), and the template’s to-do lists, Hill Charts, and check-in questions are pre-populated.

Duplicating a workspace

1. Open the workspace you want to clone. Click the ⋮ menu on its tab bar and choose Duplicate workspace.
2. The duplicate 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.

Exporting a workspace

1. Open the workspace. Click the ⋮ menu and choose Export to CSV.
2. You will be asked to re-verify your identity (step-up authentication). The export is a CSV containing workspace metadata, member emails, all messages, and all tasks.

Inviting a client

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 client’s email address, and send. They receive a magic 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.

Adding items with the Create menu

The Create button at the top right of the canvas is how members and owners add things. It lists:

• Message — a post on the message board (markdown, attachments, @mentions).
• Task — a to-do in the workspace’s first list. When the workspace has no list yet, this item is Task list instead, because tasks live in lists.
• Event — a date on the workspace schedule.
• Linked tool — a URL your team keeps coming back to.

Each opens its form in a side panel. An item only appears while its section is on, and Linked tool also disappears when the owner hides the Linked tools card. Viewers do not get the button, and neither does anyone on an archived workspace.

Slash shortcuts in a message

There is no quick-add bar on the canvas. Instead, start a message’s body (Create → Message) with a shortcut and it creates that item instead of a post:

• /task <title> [@person] [by <date>] — a to-do in the first list (or an auto-created “Inbox” list). The @mentioned person is assigned if they are a member of the workspace.
• /msg <title> -- <body> — a post, exactly as typed.
• /link <url> <title> — a linked tool.
• /event <title> <date/time> — a schedule event; members are notified.

Dates and assignees are read by the Workspace AI agent. With Enable Workspace AI Agent off, /msg and /link still work, a /task is kept as typed with no date, and /event adds nothing.

A shortcut creates a plain item that everyone in the workspace can see, and so can clients with a client link (except for links, which the client portal does not list). So when the post has Internal only, Leads only, Post as announcement, the location copies, or attachments set, the shortcut is refused and a note under the body says what it would drop. Remove the command to post with those settings.

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 Client Digest Generation	On	Whether workspace owners can generate a client-facing digest summarising recent activity
Email the weekly client digest to invited clients automatically	Off	Puts digest delivery on a weekly cron that emails people outside your company. Off by default because no tenant consented to external outbound by enabling the app

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
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 Client Portal	Client portal invites and existing client 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
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
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 Magic Link to Client Invitee	Whether the magic link is emailed to the client (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.