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Joining and creating WorkflowHub Spaces, Teams & Organizations

When you have registered and logged in, the next step is to either create, or join, a team. To do this, you need to have either selected, or created, both a space and an organisation. This page provides additional details for each of these concepts.

Terminology

What is a Space?
    Spaces are umbrellas for one or more Teams. They are a self-administered area that describes a broad activity (usually related to a funded grant), such as a consortium, or a long-running activity that needs multiple Teams. Once approved, the Space will have its own administrator who is free to immediately create additional Teams without requiring additional approval from WorkflowHub administrators. The Space must have a title, and can optionally also have a description, funding details, website, and avatar graphic. For users that just require a single Team, and don’t require a Space, they can choose to just have a site managed Space. They will then just administer their Team without needing to worry about Spaces. Their Team can be moved to their own Space in the future if necessary.
What is a Team?
    A Team represents a group of one or more people collaborating together on a particular activity. The team provides the ability to describe and promote the activity and also give credit back to the team. The Team needs to have a title, and it is optional to add a description, public website and avatar graphic. - Users need to be a member of a team before they can register items, which will then be related to that Team. - A user can be in many Teams, without limit. - As well as providing credit, a Team also has useful abilities such as default Sharing permissions and licence, and the ability to easily set sharing permissions across all members. The Team will have its own Administrator - usually this is the user that initially requested the Team. The administrator can add and remove members, set their roles and define additional administrators. They may also define new Organisations, Profiles (to describe members that have not yet registered) and Organisms.
What is an Organisation?
    Your Organisation is your affiliation within the context of the Team. It can be an academic institution, company, department, club etc. An Organization only requires a title, and it is optional to add city and country information. - You will be asked to choose or create a new Organisation when you join or create a Team. - You can be linked to different Organisations for different Teams.

Fig 1. Structure of spaces, teams and organizations. Note that there is flexibility in how spaces are structured, and that you can be part of multiple spaces, teams and organizations.

Would you like to join a Team?

You can join a Team (or even join multiple teams!) by:

Joining an existing Team after registration
    After registration, you will be prompted to either join or create a Team. When selecting to join, you can type to automatically search for the Team and candidates will appear which you can select. You can select up to 3 at one time. You can also browse, and join by requesting membership directly from a Team page (see below). Once the Team(s) are selected, the process is the same as requesting membership directly from a Team page.
Requesting membership of an existing Team
    If a Team has an administrator, and you are not already a member - then a "request membership" button will appear on the Team page. You can browse, filter and search Teams from the Browse menu at the top of the page. After clicking this button, the Team will automatically be selected, and you then need to provide your Organization. Start to type the name of **your** Organization, and existing options will be displayed that contain the text you type (or information related to the Organization such as city or country). Hopefully, your Organization is found, and you can just select it. If not, you can choose the top option to define a new one. - Only the title is required for a new Organization, but you can also provide details about its website, city and country. - You will be able to edit and add additional information afterwards. Finally also have the option to provide a comment to describe why you wish to join the Team. This is particularly important if you are not already known by the Team administrator. Once submitted, the administrators of the Team will be notified and will either approve or reject your request, and you will be notified by email.

Create your own Team

You will first be prompted to create a Team when you register a new account. If you are already a member and wish to create additional Teams, you can choose to create one from the Create menu in the top bar.

First a Space will need to be chosen or created.

  • By default, the site managed Space is selected (called Independent Teams), but if unchecked there is an option to provide the title of a new one.
  • If you already administer an existing Space, a dropdown box will be shown instead allowing you to select it.
  • Only the title is required at this stage, and further details can be added once the team has been created.

You next need to define the Team. At a minimum a title is required, but you can also here provide a description and webpage. Once created you can edit and add additional details and add members.

You then need to define your Organization. Start to type the name of your Organization, and existing options will be displayed that contain the text you type (or information related to the Organization such as city or country). Hopefully, your Organization is found, and you can then select it. If not, you can choose the top option to define a new one.

  • Only a title is needed for a new Organization, but you can also provide details about its website, city and country.
  • You will be able to edit and add additional information afterwards.

Once submitted, relevant administrators will be notified. They will review and either accept or reject the new Team. If you are creating a new Team within your own Space, you can review and approve it immediately yourself.

Wizard for creating spaces, teams and organizations.

Fig 2. Wizard for creating spaces, teams and organizations.

Approval

If you are creating a Team within a Space you administer, then there is no approval step. You will be shown a page to review the details and then can create straight away.

Otherwise, an appropriate administrator will be notified by email about your request. They will also be notified directly within WorkflowHub. The administrator will be shown a page that allows them to quickly review the details and either accept or reject the request, and in either case you will be notified by email. During the working day (according to the timezone of the member notified) this will normally be a quick process.