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Create and choose a Workspace

What Workspaces are, how to choose a useful boundary, and where to create one in In Parallel.

Written by Topi Järvinen

A Workspace is the boundary around a team, project, program, operation, or account in In Parallel. It groups the people, meetings, pages, documents, and other context that belong together.

Before you create one

Start with the area where you most need a shared, current understanding of the work. A useful Workspace normally has:

  • one accountable owner or a clearly accountable leadership group;

  • a coherent set of outcomes and priorities;

  • meetings and source material that refer to the same area of work;

  • members who should share access to that context.

If two streams have different owners, cadences, or success measures, use separate Workspaces. A very broad Workspace makes briefings, pages, and AI answers less focused.

Create a Workspace

  1. Open the left navigation.

  2. Expand Workspaces.

  3. Select Add workspace.

  4. Enter a Workspace name.

  5. Add a short description of the Workspace's responsibilities. The field is optional, but a clear description helps people and In Parallel understand which meetings and other context belong in the Workspace. The current field allows up to 240 characters.

  6. Select Create.

Use a name your team already recognizes, such as Platform Migration, Revenue Operations, or Customer X Delivery. Avoid names such as Everything or Miscellaneous that do not communicate a clear boundary.

After creation, open the Workspace's settings to review its type, parent, appearance, purpose, access, members, pages, integrations, notifications, and glossary.

Review a Suggested Workspace

In Parallel can also suggest a Workspace from connected calendar context. This is separate from the direct Add workspace flow above.

  1. Expand Suggested workspaces in the left navigation.

  2. Open a suggestion and review its details, proposed goals, and proposed members.

  3. Select Activate workspace when the suggestion has the right boundary and participants.

  4. Select Ignore when the suggestion is not useful.

Review the proposal before activating it. Calendar-derived suggestions can need a clearer name, description, or membership than the initial proposal provides.

What belongs in a Workspace

Depending on your account and rollout stage, a Workspace can include:

  • a Workspace briefing;

  • maintained pages such as a Charter, Runbook, Objectives page, or Retro Log;

  • meetings and their Notes, Transcript, and Actions;

  • maintained pages for Action Items, Risks, Decisions, and other useful context;

  • documents and other connected context;

  • Topics and Chat conversations that use the Workspace as context.

These surfaces have different jobs. Meetings provide sourced records of what happened. Pages maintain useful narrative and structured context. Briefings and Chat help people understand and act on that context.

Add context after creation

After creating a Workspace:

  1. Connect the relevant meeting series or add the Workspace to individual meetings.

  2. Add members who should see and contribute to the Workspace.

  3. Add relevant documents and maintained pages.

  4. Check the Workspace briefing and ask a focused question in Chat to see whether the boundary is producing useful context.

You do not need to reconstruct everything on day one. Start with the sources that explain the work and add context as it becomes useful.

When to create another Workspace

Create another Workspace when:

  • ownership is materially different;

  • priorities cannot be ranked together;

  • meetings cover unrelated work;

  • access should differ between the groups;

  • briefings or AI answers repeatedly mix unrelated context.

Most teams should start with one well-scoped Workspace and expand after the first one is useful.

Organize parent and sub-Workspaces

Open Settings → [Workspace] → General and use Parent to place the Workspace beneath another Workspace when your account permits it. The left navigation shows a disclosure control beside a parent so you can expand its sub-Workspaces.

Use hierarchy for navigation and roll-up context, not to merge every source record. Each sub-Workspace keeps its own members and context boundary.

Frequently asked questions

Can one person belong to multiple Workspaces?

Yes. Home can bring together relevant priorities and actions across the Workspaces you can access.

Does every Workspace need the same structure?

No. Use the pages, meetings, documents, and other context that help that group understand and run its work.

Can I rename or reorganize a Workspace later?

Open Settings → [Workspace] → General for the current administration controls. If the control you need is not available there, contact your In Parallel administrator or Customer Success contact.

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