Collaborative Workspaces and Meeting Spaces in Sharepoint Online
Collaboration workspaces in SharePoint Online are now available to all users and will replace groups in the previous Staff Portal. The service offers flexible, accessible and effective digital collaboration.
The service Collaborative Workpaces will contribute to:
- ensure a more efficient way to manage, share and collaborate on documents
- sharing and spreading information, plan and collaborate on common tasks within different types of collaborative groups
- improve security by introducing authentication via multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- digital collaboration with external contacts
Read more about collaborative workspaces and how to get started here
Once logged in to the service, all users have access to videos (in Swedish) with information on how to get started as well as an online forum where experienced users can collaborate to help each other and answer all kinds of questions.
Secure Log In
Please note that collaborative workspaces require multi-factor login (MFA) via your mobile phone and the Microsoft Authenticator app.
What opportunities do collaborative spaces offer today?
Among other things, the following functions are offered:
- document management - the ability to collaborate in Office files
- news/information dissemination - publish news, alternatively create pages with information content
- shared calendars
- planning of activities (so-called "kanban boards")
- shared notebooks using OneNote
- discussion forums, image galleries and much more.
Collaborative Workspaces Replaces Group- and Unit Spaces
Groups and unit spaces can now be moved to the new service. Depending on the target group for your collaborative workspace, participants can be linked to an organizational unit or managed manually. Each department, centre and division of the Administration also has its own intranet in the Staff Gateway (local information area).
It can be difficult to know when it is preferable to use your local information space on the Staff Gateway and when it is best to use a collaboration workspace in SharePoint. These two spaces complement each other very well and together can provide excellent support for internal communication.
Collaborative workspaces in SharePoint Online can be created as needed, but collaborative spaces for units (an organizational group) need to be ordered separately.
Meeting Spaces
A replacement for meeting spaces (special groups) is planned to be launched in March 2024. The solution will enable a common and efficient case processing tool for the entire university with a direct connection to the public registry. More information will be available as the service is implemented.
Where can I find previous group, unit and meeting spaces?
All groups are accessible in the old Staff Portal until the end of April. An easy way to reach them is to pin the link under My tools on the start page. There is also a link to the groups in the website footer.
It can be a bit difficult to identify what exactly is meant by groups. You will find the groups of which you are a member under the Groups menu on the Staff Portal home page. There you will find Departments (unit spaces), Special Groups (meeting spaces) and Groups (group spaces).
What happens to the previous groups I've been working with?
Each group owner has had to make an active choice about what they want to happen with the group space, whether it should be replaced by a collaborative workspace in SharePoint Online or discontinued completely. In both cases, it is the group owner's responsibility to move the content to the new collaborative space or save and archive it elsewhere. It is possible to get help from the project to migrate documents.
To get information about the groups you have been involved with, contact the group's owner. The project communicates with the group owners via email. If the group has no owner, the administrator is contacted instead. In the group's member list, you can see who is the group owner or administrator.
Our group does not have an owner, what should we do?
If the group has no owner, please contact samarbetsytor@uu.se to receive assistance.
If the project has not received a response on what to do with a group, the group will be phased out in late spring 2024 and its contents and documents will be deleted.
How will the transfer be carried out?
The project is in contact with all owners of group spaces as well as administrators of meeting spaces. They have been informed about the transition to collaborative workspaces in SharePoint Online and are responsible for choosing what to do with each surface. Contact them if you have questions about the space you are a member of. It is clear in the "Members" tab of a space who is the owner.
The transfer of group spaces to collaborative workspaces needs to be completed by April 2024.
Regarding Meeting spaces: existing cases, documents and meeting administration in meeting areas will not be moved over at launch.
Project Organization
Client: The University Director
Project Owner: Måns Östring
Steering Group: Måns Östring, Annika Ohlsson, Daniel Gillberg, Rolf Springfeldt, Malin Dahlén
Project Support: Patrik Wallin
Project Manager: Henrik Envall
Public Registry Document Code:
UFV 2021/2834
For more information, contact the project at samarbetsytor@uu.se.