Workspace is the page that is displayed firsthand when you log in to Exact Synergy Enterprise (ESE). The workspace concept allows you to organize the information in the form of widgets on the page based on your preferences, job scope, or responsibilities.
People with the Professional, CRM, or Employee self-service role, as well as customers, resellers, and suppliers are able to access to workspaces. However, certain features and widgets may not be available for people with the Employee self-service role, customers, resellers, and suppliers.
The following is an example of a workspace:
This document comprises the following chapters:
1.1 Types of workspaces
1.1.1 Personal workspace
1.1.2 Company workspace
1.1.3 Built-in company workspace
1.2 Introduction to top menu
1.3 Introduction to general navigation menu
1.3.1 Layout of general navigation menu
1.3.2 Features accessible via general navigation menu
1.3.3 Other simple but useful features
1.4 Introduction to search feature
1.5 Introduction to workspace header
1.5.1 Edit, Share
1.5.2 Copy template & create a new workspace
1.5.3 Pin to others
1.5.4 Pin, Unpin
1.5.5 Information
1.5.6 Add a Link widget to workspace
1.5.7 Help
1.6 How do I ...?
1.6.1 Create a workspace
1.6.2 View or search for a workspace
1.6.3 Modify my workspace
1.6.4 Add a widget to my workspace
1.6.5 Resize widget on my workspace
1.6.6 Remove a widget on my workspace
1.6.7 Customize my own widget
1.6.8 Share a workspace with another person
1.6.9 Modify a shared workspace
1.6.10 Pin a workspace to another person
1.6.11 Add a Link widget to my workspace
1.6.12 Delete an existing workspace
1.6.13 Rearrange order of sections and menu items in general navigation menu
1.7 What happens when I ...?
1.7.1 Change the type of an existing shared workspace
1.8 Related topics
There are two types of workspaces in ESE: personal and company. You can set the type of the workspace during the creation of the workspace, or when modifying existing workspaces.
A personal workspace provides freedom for everyone to organize the information based on their needs.
A company workspace appears the same for everyone in the company, providing a platform for everyone in the company to focus on the same strategies and to reach towards common goals.
The built-in company workspace is used in cases where there is no company workspace in the system, or the user is redirected to the default company workspace and none is available in the system. This built-in company workspace acts as a page that guides people on how to create a company workspace.
This built-in company workspace:
For an existing user, this built-in company workspace is pinned to the general navigation menu in the COMPANY WORKSPACES section by default. This workspace can be removed from the menu if preferred.
For a new user, this built-in company workspace can be accessed by clicking Company workspaces (when the menu is docked and collapsed). However, this built-in workspace will not be pinned to the COMPANY WORKSPACES section (when the menu is expanded). In this case, the user is able to access this workspace via the Workspaces catalogue menu item.
Return to top
The top menu on a workspace contains the following:
The general navigation menu contains menu items, which provide quick access to features, such as workspaces that you have created or pinned to the menu, workspaces catalog, your workflow, planning, documents, and history of documents viewed. The general navigation menu can be accessed via the icon at the top left of your screen. Upon clicking this icon, it will change to .
You can display this menu in a few different layouts.
a) Collapsed and docked layout
This is the default layout. This layout permanently displays the icons of the menu items at the left side of your screen. This is the only layout that does not provide you an access to reorganize the sections in this menu.
b) Expanded and docked layout
This layout permanently displays the icons and names of the menu items at the left side of your screen.
c) Expanded and undocked layout
This layout allows the menu to be displayed only when you click . This menu will collapse by clicking or anywhere outside of the menu.
The following explanations on the menu items will be based on the default layout of this menu, which is collapsed and docked.
Company workspaces
Clicking this displays the company workspace that has been set as default. If there is no company workspace in the system, you will be redirected to the built-in company workspace. More on this in section 1.1.3 Built-in company workspace.
To view other company workspaces that have been pinned to this menu, you have to change the layout of this menu to either expanded and docked, or expanded and undocked.
My workspaces
Clicking this displays the personal workspace that has been set as default.
To view other personal workspaces that have been pinned to this menu, you have to change the layout of this menu to either expanded and docked, or expanded and undocked.
Workspaces catalogue
Clicking this displays the Workspaces catalogue page, which offers an easy interface for you to search for, share, and create workspaces. More on this in Viewing catalog of workspaces.
My section
This section contains menu items that provide easy access to pages related to you, such as your workflow, calendar, planning, documents, groups, and projects of which you are the member.
The menu items that are displayed here match the items that you have selected at Preferences, in the My work and My work, create & search sections under the Menu tab.
Quick links section
This section contains menu items that provide quick access to features such as news, list of documents set as favorite, recent documents created or owned by you, and list of documents that you have viewed.
The menu items that are displayed here match the items that you have selected at Preferences, in the Quick access section under the Menu tab.
Clicking this arrow will change the layout of the general navigation menu to expanded and undocked.
You can easily set a personal workspace as default from the general navigation menu, or remove workspaces (that you have pinned) from this menu.
Hover your mouse over the preferred workspace. The following actions can be done:
You can easily search for an existing person, account, request, document, project, or even a workspace by typing the name in the search box. The search text corresponds to the entity that you have selected at the drop-down menu next to this box.
For an example, you have selected Documents as the entity, and typed “test”. The search results will contain only documents that have the word “test”. Other entities will not be included in the search results.
You can view a history of your search by enabling this feature at Preferences, in the Search section under the General tab. Simply select the Show history check box and save your preferences.
The next time when you type something in the search box, you will see a history of your search. See the following for an example:
In the event that you do not want to keep the current search history, simply click the Clear history hyperlink and the search history will be removed. Note that clearing your search history will not affect the search history by other people.
The header of your workspace contains the title of your workspace, the Check in or Check out button (if you have shared this workspace with another person), and icons.
The icons are only displayed when you hover your mouse over the header of the workspace. The following icons are available:
Click this to modify the information and sharing properties of the workspace. In the edit mode, the workspace area that contains the widgets will be greyed out, and the Information panel will be displayed on the right.
At this moment, you can modify the details of the workspace, set the workspace as default, or delete the workspace. The Sharing section in this panel provides an easy way for you to select the people with whom you want to share the workspace. More on modifying workspaces in sections 1.6.3 How do I modify my workspace? and 1.6.9 How do I modify a shared workspace?, on sharing workspaces in section 1.6.8 How do I share a workspace with another person?, and on deleting workspaces in section 1.6.12 How do I delete an existing workspace?.
Click this to use the workspace that you are currently viewing as a template to create another workspace. All widgets, settings, and sharing options defined for this workspace will be copied to your new workspace. At this moment, you can change the settings and sharing options. The widgets and the layout can only be modified once the workspace has been saved.
You can use any company workspace (that has been shared with you) as a template to create another personal or company workspace if you have the Company workspace administrator role. Without this role, you can use any workspace (that has been shared with you) as a template, but only to create a personal workspace.
More on this in section 1.6.1 How do I create a workspace — Using an existing workspace as a template?.
This feature allows you to pin workspaces to other people. This is useful when you have a shared group workspace that you want to set to their general navigation menu for easy access.
Right to pin workspaces
This icon is available at the header only if these two criteria are met:
See the following flow chart for further explanations on the people to whom you can pin the workspaces:
More on this in section 1.6.10 How do I pin a workspace to another person?.
You can pin a workspace to the MY WORKSPACES section under your general navigation menu by hovering your mouse over the header of the workspace, and then clicking Pin. This icon will then be changed to Unpin so that you can remove the pinning of this workspace from this menu later.
You cannot unpin workspaces that have been pinned to your general navigation menu by other people. When viewing these workspaces, the Unpin icon at the header will be disabled. The name of the person who pinned the workspace will be displayed as a tooltip when you hover the mouse over the icon.
Click this to view more information of the workspace. The Information panel will be displayed on the right, which contains information of the workspace as well as the Export workspace button. If you are the owner of the workspace, you can immediately reshuffle and resize the widgets in the workspace area, as well as add widgets to or remove widgets from the workspace area. Otherwise, you are required to have the Can edit right for this workspace in order to make changes to the widgets. More on this in section 1.6.8 How do I share a workspace with another person?.
You can add a Link widget from any Exact Synergy Enterprise page to your workspace. This Link widget provides quick access to a feature that you frequently used. For an example, you have to create project entries daily. Thus, you can add a Link widget that will redirect you straight to the menu path of the project creation, Modules > Projects > Entry > Project. With this, you can start creating projects with just one click on the Link widget.
More on this in section 1.6.11 How do I add a Link widget to my workspace?.
Note: If you have a screen reader installed in your system, such as NVDA, the screen reader will read out the title of the widget in the workspace when you tab through it.
Click this to display help files related to the selected page. You can also perform a search of documents using the available criteria.
This section provides a step-by-step guide on a list of actions:
You can create a person entry, account, request, document, or workspace via the +Create hyperlink at the top menu. As this document revolves around workspaces, only the creation of workspaces will be explained. More on the creation of other entities in Creating entries.
You can create a workspace via several ways. Before you begin, it is good to know the following requirements regarding company workspaces:
You can create an empty workspace, which you can then personalize by adding widgets and rearranging them according to your preferences.
Note:
You can access the workspace that you have created via the general navigation menu. If the layout of this menu is collapsed and docked, you can access only the default company and personal workspaces. You can access other workspaces only if a different layout is applied to this menu.
You can also access this workspace at the Workspaces catalogue page. More on this in Viewing catalog of workspaces.
You can create a workspace using an existing workspace as a template. Via this method, all widgets that are currently being displayed on the workspace will be copied over to the new workspace, saving you the time in adding and arranging widgets from scratch. The sharing properties are not copied over.
You can save a workspace as an XML file, which makes it possible for you to export and import the workspace between different Exact Synergy Enterprise databases.
Regardless of the type of workspaces, all imported workspaces will be set to Personal.
Other than the title and description of the workspace, it is not advisable to change other information via the XML file.
The following table lists some scenarios related to the exporting and importing of workspaces:
Scenario
Expected behavior after the import process
Workspace contains Me widget with a person selected.
If the person exists in the Exact Synergy Enterprise database to which the XML file is imported, the information of the person selected will be displayed. Otherwise, the information of the workspace creator will be displayed.
Workspace contains Document widget.
During the export of this workspace, the document defined will be excluded from the XML file. Therefore, this widget displayed on the imported workspace will be empty.
Workspace contains link or embed widgets with images.
Selected images will be created in the Exact Synergy Enterprise database to which the XML file is imported.
Workspace contains other widgets.
All filter criteria will be successfully exported to the XML file. However, if any of the filter criterion is not available in the Exact Synergy Enterprise database to which the XML file is imported, then the particular information will not be displayed on the widgets on the imported workspace.
Workspace contains customized widgets.
If the ascx files for the respective customized widgets are not present in the Exact Synergy Enterprise database, then error messages will be displayed for the respective customized widgets on the imported workspace.
Sharing and pinning information have been defined for the workspace.
The imported workspace will not contain the sharing and pinning information that were previously defined.
Workspace is a built-in company workspace or of type Company workspace.
The type of the imported workspace will be set to Personal.
Tom checks out the workspace, makes changes to it but has not check in the changes.
If Tom exports the workspace in an XML file, and imports it to a different Exact Synergy Enterprise database, the changes that have yet to be checked in will be available.
If another person other than Tom exports the workspace in an XML file, and imports it to a different Exact Synergy Enterprise database, the changes that have yet to be checked in will not be available.
In short, whatever that you currently see on the workspace that you exported will be available in the imported workspace.
In order to search for workspaces using this widget, you must first add this widget to your workspace. More on this in section 1.6.4 How do I add a widget to my workspace?.
If the workspace has been shared with other people, and one of them has checked out this workspace for editing, Add widget will not be available.
Depending on the role that you have been assigned with, certain widgets may or may not be available for your usage. More on this in Widgets available for different roles.
You can customize your own widgets by creating an XML file named “Webparts.Ext.xml”, and then add this file to the xml folder of your Exact Synergy Enterprise installation path. More on this in How-to: Defining custom widgets in widgets catalog.
You can select the person with whom the workspace is to be shared, and then specify whether the person can view or edit the workspace, or only use it as a template to create a workspace. It is also possible to share your workspace based on projects, divisions, job titles, et cetera. The following rights are available:
When sharing workspaces based on the Account option:
For an example, you would like to share a workspace named “My workspace 1” with James Brouw. You can perform the following steps:
As the Notify check box is selected at step 7, a Task request will be created for and sent to James Brouw once the Exact.Jobs.Workspaces background job is performed.
When the Task request cannot be created for the selected person, a Task request will be created for and sent to you (the person performing the sharing action) for notification purpose. This error will also be logged at Modules > System > Reports > Log > Errors
You can easily share the workspace to more people by clicking Add + New at step 8.
If the user becomes inactive, the shared workspace(s) that belong to the inactive user will be automatically assigned to the manager of the inactive user. If the inactive user does not have a manager, the shared workspace(s) will not be assigned to anyone.
The Notify check box is only available to the customers and partners if in the request type definition of the Task request, the All option is selected at Type for the Person field. See the following for an example:
When it comes to sharing, there is a slight difference between the default company workspace and other company workspaces. The default company workspace has to be shared with all employees. Thus, upon selecting the Set as default company workspace check box for a company workspace, the following message will be displayed depending on the situation:
Once a company workspace is set as default, the sharing option for the Internal entity will be automatically defined with the Can view right, as shown in the following:
For this sharing option, you can change the right to Can edit. However, you cannot change the right to Can use as a template. Upon saving with this right, the message “In order to set this workspace as default, it needs to be shared to view or edit with all employees. Please, change viewing rights for “Internal 10”.” will be prompted.
When a workspace is shared with one person or more, the check in and check out modes are applied to prevent the workspace from being edited by more than one person at the same time.
The Edit icon is not available at the header if you do not have the right to edit the workspace, or the workspace has been checked out by someone, thus preventing other people from editing the workspace at the same time.
Let’s look at the following example to understand how the check in and check out modes work.
In section 1.6.8, you have shared “My workspace 1” with James Brouw. At this moment, you are not able to add any widget to this workspace ( Add widget is not displayed at the bottom right).
To modify this workspace, you have to check out the workspace either by clicking the Check out button, Edit, or Share.
By clicking the Check out button, the following will occur:
By clicking Edit or Share, the following will occur:
When James Brouw views “My workspace 1”, the workspace will be displayed as follows:
At this moment:
With the Workspace pin role, you can pin a workspace to the general navigation menu of other people. Note that you can only pin a workspace to people with whom you have shared the workspace. More on sharing workspaces in section 1.6.8 How do I share a workspace with another person?.
For an example, you would like to pin a workspace named “My workspace 1” to James Brouw. You can perform the following steps:
As the Notify check box is selected at step 4, a Task request will be created for and sent to James Brouw once the Exact.Jobs.Workspaces background job is performed.
When the Task request cannot be created for the selected person, a Task request will be created for and sent to you (the person performing the pinning action) for notification purpose. This error will also be logged at Modules > System > Reports > Log > Errors.
If you pin the same workspace to the same person for more than one time, no request will be sent for the second time. If there is a need to send another Task request to the same person, you will have to unpin the workspace from his My workspaces, and then pin the workspace to the person again.
You can add a Link widget from any Exact Synergy Enterprise page to your workspace. If for an example, you have to create project entries daily, you can add a Link widget that will redirect you straight to the menu path of the project creation.
Once you have clicked Save at step 7, one of the following scenarios may occur:
No
Message displayed
1
You are the creator of the workspace defined at the Add to field, and the workspace is not shared with anyone.
The following message will be displayed:
Click OK.
2
The workspace is shared with other people.
Click Yes to change the workspace to the check out mode. The following message will then be displayed:
3
The workspace is currently checked out by someone else.
You can delete a workspace that you have created.
You cannot delete a workspace that you have set as default, or if the creator of the workspace is using it as the default workspace.
For a shared workspace, you can only delete the workspace if you have the Can edit right for the workspace. However, there are times when you cannot delete a shared workspace. See the following scenarios:
Scenario 1
Andrew creates “Workspace ABC”. He then shares the workspace with Kimi and Roy and grants them the Can edit right.
Person
Set Workspace ABC as default workspace?
Can delete Workspace ABC?
Andrew
Yes
Kimi
Roy
In this scenario, no one can delete “Workspace ABC” because the creator of this workspace, Andrew, has set this workspace as his default workspace. In order to delete “Workspace ABC”, Andrew has to first set a different workspace as default.
Scenario 2
In this scenario, Andrew, Kimi, or Roy is able to delete “Workspace ABC” because Andrew did not set this workspace as his default workspace.
Scenario 3
In this scenario, Andrew, Kimi, or Roy is able to delete “Workspace ABC” because Andrew did not set this workspace as his default workspace. As for Kimi, another workspace will automatically be set as default for him once “Workspace ABC” has been deleted.
The workspace that is automatically selected for Kimi will be based on the IDs of the workspaces under his My workspaces listing. When there is no other workspace in his listing, a default workspace will be automatically created for him and pinned to his My workspaces listing.
The order of the sections and menu items in the general navigation menu can be rearranged according to your preference. The Reorganize sections hyperlink is made available at the bottom of this menu when the layout is expanded and docked, or expanded and undocked.
When switching an existing shared workspace from one type to another, the message “This workspace is shared with others. Changing its type will remove all shares and pins. Are you sure you want to proceed?” will be displayed. The following will occur: