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.