New Planning Portal functionality: Workspaces

In this preview of new Planning Portal functionality I want to take the wraps off a new feature we’re calling Workspaces.

A workspace is a flexible area on the Portal you access once you’ve signed in. From here you can create and submit applications as well access previously submitted projects. This should sound familiar so far.

Where Workspaces differ on the new Planning Portal is in their flexibility. You can set up your workspace just for you.

In addition, if you need to collaborate on an application or project, you can set up another workspace to share with colleagues.

So if you need to work on applications with one or two others, the Portal lets you do that. Likewise, if you need to collaborate with a large number of people, maybe on a larger or more complicated project, our new Workspaces functionality lets you do that, too.

We’ve had basic agent admin functionality on the Planning Portal for years – we think of Workspaces as the grown-up, more sophisticated version of that feature.

Workspaces are simple to set up for colleagues and teams.

Firstly, you add and name your workspace and give it an optional description.

Secondly, you add users to the workspace by adding their email address and inviting them. Your colleague can be internal or external to your organisation.

The new user needs to sign in to the Planning Portal to accept the invite, then he/she will be able to view the applications associated with the workspace.

Thirdly, as the owner of the workspace you can control what each member can do. In other words you can control whether they can view, create and/or submit applications.

Workspaces can be adapted to how you and your team works.

To begin with we will limit the feature to one shared workspace per user while you try it out. However, shortly after we go live we’ll be offering you the chance to buy and upgraded experience with a greater number of workspaces and a richer feature set, such as data reporting dashboards for users with multiple workspaces and much more besides.

We’ve created another video to show you the basic functionality of Workspaces. As usual the video has no sound so no need to reach for the headphones.