How many Projects do I need?

10 Feb 2010 in Support, Usability

Within ProjectSpaces, you can set up various projects (or workspaces), each of which has its own set of documents, announcements, calendar events, etc. You can then allow different users access to these projects and easily manage their levels user access, as well as organize all of your work. However it is sometimes confusing to know when you should create a new project instead of using folders or other functionality to separate the content within it. Here are some tips to follow to help you decide which approach is best

Tip #1: Setup a new project when you need to restrict access

You can use groups to help restrict access to specific documents in a project (see our support page on this topic here); however it is easy for someone to forget to only allow access for a particular group. If you have any concern about someone in one of your projects seeing a document he/she is not supposed to see, set up a new project and restrict user access to that entire project. This is more secure than relying on users to remember to set group permissions for each document.

Tip #2: Use more than one project to avoid having too much content in one place

As mentioned above, you can use folders or other pieces of functionality in ProjectSpaces (e.g. Topics) to help filter your content, and organize it so that each piece of content belongs to a specific area, even within that one project. However, for activities that are completely separate where groups of users don’t need to see all of the content, consider setting them up separately to reduce information overload.

Tip #3: Don’t use separate projects if it really is simpler to have all the content and users in one place

In some cases it can actually make things harder for users if you segment your content and users into too many separate spaces. If your situation doesn’t match the scenarios outlined above, avoid setting up too many projects and instead rely on foldering and groups to keep things well organized.

For more general help on creating new projects please see our support page on the topic here.

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