Sharing and collaborating with Group Workspaceas.exeter.ac.uk/codebox/portal/guides/Group...
Transcript of Sharing and collaborating with Group Workspaceas.exeter.ac.uk/codebox/portal/guides/Group...
Sharing and collaborating with Group Workspace
The Group Workspace lets you work together on projects and presentations with your peers, sharing
and editing documents online, in a secure space.
Taking full advantage of Microsoft’s Office365, you can edit a document in real-time with anyone
else who is in your group. You can also use the powerful Lync client to chat, phone or even video call
whilst working on the document.
In this guide, we will outline how you setup a group, invite members and create a simple document.
Creating a group
1. In the Group Workspace screen click “Add New”
2. In the “Add New Group Workspace” dialogue box, enter a title for the workspace and a brief
description. Click New to create the workspace. This may take a few moments.
3. Once you have created your workspace you are taken directly to it:
Selected workspace Members
Documents Discussion board
Inviting members
1. To invite a member to join your workspace click “Add New Members”
2. Type the name (in the format: surname, first name) of the person you wish to add to your
group, or type their email address. When you have invited all the members you wish, click
“Save”
*Note: If you wish to review new / pending members, refresh the page and a notification will appear
next to members. Click on this to see a dialogue box detailing any changes to Group Workspace
membership.
Accepting an invitation
To join a workspace, you must first accept the invitation which is sent to you when the group creator
invites you to join the group. We have covered this from the Group creator’s perspective in the
previous section.
To join a group:
1. Navigate to your Group Workspace page.
2. Under “Group Workspace invitations” will be an invitation to the group.
3. Click the green tick to accept the invitation and join the Group Workspace.
4. Once you have done this the page will refresh. Expand “Members Group Workspaces” and
choose the group you have just accepted the invitation for. As a member you add
documents and comment on the discussion board, however, only group owners can add and
remove members
Selected Workspace Members (note there are now two)
Creating and sharing an online document
1. Under Documents, click New and choose the type of document you wish to create. These
documents will be created online and will be saved directly to the Group Workspace. They
are only accessible for members of the group.
2. In this case, we have chosen to create a PowerPoint presentation. You can edit the
presentation direction online, if your peers are also available, they can also edit with you at
the same time. Your work is automatically saved, to return to your workspace click the
Group Workspace link.
3. When you return to the Group Workspace, you will see that the presentation appears under
the Documents section. This is editable by all members when they open the document and
choose to edit online. Please note you can also edit this document in full PowerPoint by
choosing the edit in PowerPoint option.
4. You can also use the Discussion board to update group members with what you’ve done.
Over to you…
There are many more features available in Group Workspace than what we’ve covered here. This
feature will grow and develop with use and we encourage you to explore the functionality and offer
any feedback. There is a feedback link on the footer of every main page in the portal.