Introduction

The Community hub area of your platform helps you engage learners by fostering the exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Spaces let you organize community content by topic. The visibility of spaces can be customized to make them visible only to specific groups and/or branches. Members can choose to join or leave spaces, thus subscribing or unsubscribing from the space’s posts appearing in their community newsfeed and email digests. Once a member unsubscribes from a space, administrators cannot add them back. 

This article explains how you can create and manage your community spaces. Spaces can only be created and managed by Superadmins and Power Users (with the necessary permissions). Superadmins and Power Users are referred to as administrators in this article.

Creating a community space 

Before creating spaces, start by creating a community as outlined in the corresponding article.

To create a new space, follow these steps:

1. Create a community or edit an existing one.
2. Go to the Spaces tab.
3. Click the Create space plus button in the top-right corner.
4. Enter the space name and configure its settings.
5. Click Create and edit to open the space configuration page.

Configure the space by navigating through the following tabs:

• General settings
• Visibility
• Space managers

Please note! Once you click Create and edit, the space will be created in Unpublished status. To make the space visible to members, change its status to Published from the publishing bar.

Managing spaces

The Spaces page lists all the spaces you have created. The Spaces page displays both published and unpublished spaces.  

The following options are available: 

• Filter spaces to display only active or archived spaces using the Space category filter on the left side of the table.
• Search for a space using the search field.
• Reorder spaces or place a space under another to make it a sub-space.
• Select and edit the space emoji by opening the emoji picker in the corresponding column.
• Edit the space visibility settings.
• View and manage space managers.
• Apply posting restrictions by clicking the left icon in the Flags column and turning it from gray to green.
• Make members automatically join the space by clicking the right icon in the Flags column turning it from gray to green.

Editing spaces 

Additional options are available by clicking the ellipsis menu on the right side of the space’s row:

• Go to space: Open the space’s page as it appears to members.
• Edit: Configure the space settings. More details on the space’ settings in the following chapter.
• Remove emoji: An emoji can be added back by opening the emoji picker in the corresponding column or editing the space.
• Archive: Archived spaces can still be accessed by members. To activate back the space, find it on the Archived space tab, click on the ellipsis menu and select Unarchive.
• Delete: Deleted spaces are permanently removed from the system, and cannot be restored. 

Spaces can be published or unpublished. Unpublished spaces are not visible and accessible to members. More information on space publishing in the Publishing spaces chapter of this article.

Configuring the space settings

General settings tab

From the General settings tab, you can:

• Edit the space’s name. The name is required and can be changed at any time.
• Enter a description. The description is visible to members and helps them understand what topics are discussed in a space. Adding a description is not mandatory but is strongly recommended.
• Choose an emoji that will be shown next to the name. Remember that the emoji can also be changed from the emoji picker.
• Restrict members from posting: If this option is enabled, only administrators, space managers and moderators can post in this space. Space members can still access the space, but they are not able to add posts. They will only be able to comment on posts created by administrators. The posting restriction option is disabled by default. 
• Make all members automatically join the space upon registration. Members are then free to leave the space. This option is enabled by default. If it is disabled, members will not automatically be added to the space and will not see it unless they click on See all in the navigation panel of their community.

Visibility tab

From the Visibility tab, select which users will have access to this space. You can choose to give access to: 

• All members
• A custom selection of members: You can decide which branches and/or groups will have access to the space. Members should belong to at least one of the selected groups or branches to access the space. If you are editing a sub-space, some visibility options might not be available because a sub-space cannot have a wider visibility than its parent space. If you enable cohorts for multiple groups, members belonging to a specific group will only be able to see posts from the same group’s members. Please note that cohorts do not work with branches. If you enable the Cohorts functionality, you will no longer be able to select branches and any previous branch selection will be lost.
• Only Superadmins and Power Users with granted permissions. 

Space managers tab

Space manager creation

Assign one or several managers to oversee spaces, sub-spaces and content moderation. Setting space managers allows administrators to empower members whose knowledge adds value to the space and delegate some of their moderation and management tasks.

To add a space manager, follow these steps:

1. Open the space whose settings you want to manage.
2. Go to the Space managers tab.
3. Click Add space managers in the top-right corner of the Space managers page.
4. Select the space managers from the drop-down menu. The menu only shows the users that are already members of the space you are editing.
5. Configure the space managers’ permissions. All permissions are selected by default — uncheck the ones you do not want to grant.

Space managers can have the following permissions. They only apply to the space you are editing. 

• Customize the space name, description, and emoji.
• Pin and unpin posts to the space.
• Delete and hide posts, delete and lock comments.
• Receive notifications for reported content and new posts to approve.
• Review posts in the pre-moderation queue. This option is only available if moderation is enabled in the community. 

Notes on creating and editing space managers

• Power Users can manage existing space managers regardless of the permissions associated with their profile in the platform. They can view, edit, and remove any space manager created by a Superadmin.
• Space managers who are removed as members of a space by a Superadmin or Power User will remain visible in the drop-down menu, but you will no longer be able to select them.

Space manager settings

• You can edit and delete space managers using the corresponding icons in the manager’s row. Deleting a space manager only removes their permissions, it does not unsubscribe them from the space. 
• You can choose to show or hide the space managers’ name to space members. 
• A space manager automatically has the same permissions in the space’s sub-spaces.

Sub-spaces managers

Sub-spaces automatically inherit the space managers and their permissions from the parent space if the inheritance option is selected in the Moderation and management tab of the community.

You can directly assign managers to a sub-space. In a sub-space, if you assign a manager who was already inherited from the parent space, that manager will automatically be assigned with the same permissions and you cannot edit them.

If you move a sub-space to a different parent, the sub-space will inherit the new parent’s managers and lose those of their previous parent. Managers that were directly assigned to a sub-space remain with the same permissions. 

Space managers and permissions inheritance

When a community includes spaces with sub-spaces, the assignment and management of space managers work in one of the following two methods: granular or inherited. 

The preferred mode is set in the Space managers tab of the Moderation and management area of the community:

• To use the granular method, disable the option Sub-spaces automatically inherit the space managers and their permissions from their parent space.
• To use the inherited method, enable this option. It is disabled by default. 

The method you set applies to the entire community and cannot be configured at space-level.

1.  Granular method

In this method a parent space and its spaces have their own set of space managers and permissions.

• Managers assigned to a parent space manage only that space.
• Managers assigned to a sub-space can have different permissions, configured independently from the parent space.
• Removing or editing a manager in one space has no impact on other spaces.

Choose this method when sub-spaces require independent moderation and management.

2. Inherited method

In this method, all sub-spaces automatically inherit the managers and permission sets defined in their parent space. 

The space managers area of the sub-space displays a section called Inherited space managers. Inherited managers cannot be edited or removed. You can still directly assign managers to the sub-space, they will be displayed in a section called Assigned space managers.  

Notes on manager inheritance

If a manager is assigned to a parent space, you cannot manually assign it to the corresponding sub-space. 

When a space is moved under another space (becoming a sub-space), any manager assigned to both the sub-space and its parent is handled as follows:

• Only the permissions assigned to the manager in the parent space apply.
• Managers originally assigned to the sub-space become non-editable and display the permissions inherited from the parent space.

If a sub-space is moved under a new parent while inheritance is enabled, the system automatically:

• Applies the new parent’s managers and permissions.
• Removes any previously inherited managers from the previous parent.
• Keeps only the managers that were directly assigned to the sub-space maintaining their permissions.

Publishing spaces

Spaces can be published or unpublished:

• Unpublished spaces are not visible and accessible to members.
• Members will not see the unpublished spaces and their content anywhere in the community or their notifications.
• Administrators will see the unpublished spaces in the community with the Unpublished status.

As a community administrator, you can change the status of a space from the Community hub area of the platform.

• Go to the Spaces tab
• Click on a space name to access and edit it
• Look for the publishing bar at the bottom of the page.
• Choose Published or Unpublished and click Save changes to apply your selection.

Space publishing works as follows in relation to sub-spaces:

• When you publish a space, you can either publish the space only or the space with all its related sub-spaces.
• If you unpublish a space, all its related sub-spaces will automatically be unpublished.
• If you unpublish a space, you cannot publish its related sub-spaces.
• Moving a published space to make it a sub-space of an unpublished space will automatically change its status to Unpublished.

Please note! Publishing works differently from archiving. When you archive a space, it will disappear from the members’ My spaces left panel. It will also disappear from the My spaces page when clicking on See all in said panel. However, archived spaces remain accessible via a direct URL. On the contrary, unpublished spaces will disappear in the same way but also become inaccessible via a direct URL.