Use this list of frequently asked questions to get help on how to do things in Clearspace. For a step-by-step tour of Clearspace, be sure to see the Clearspace Quick Tour.
Getting Started| Creating Content| Collaborating| Finding People and Content
Clearspace is a collaboration application that you use through a web browser. In Clearspace you can:
You have access to Clearspace menus through the keyboard. The exact keyboard combination will vary depending on which browser you're using, as show in the table below. Note that once the menu is open you can use the up and down arrow keys to navigate; press ENTER to select an item.
| Menu or Command |
Firefox 2.0 |
Firefox Before 2.0, Internet Explorer 6 and 7 |
Firefox 2.0 on Max OS X |
|---|---|---|---|
| New | ALT+SHIFT+N | ALT+N | CTRL+N |
| Your Stuff |
ALT+SHIFT+Y | ALT+Y | CTRL+Y |
| History | ALT+SHIFT+H | ALT+H | CTRL+H |
| Browse | ALT+SHIFT+B | ALT+B | CTRL+B |
| Search | ALT+SHIFT+S | ALT+S | CTRL+S |
| Login | ALT+SHIFT+L | ALT+L | CTRL+L |
| Register | ALT+SHIFT+R | ALT+R | CTRL+R |
| ALT+SHIFT+P | ALT+P | CTRL+P |
You can personalize the Clearspace home page so that it shows the things you care about most. As you and others use Clearspace, the amount of content there will grow. You'll develop a preference for certain people's blogs, for discussions in certain areas, and you'll learn that some areas just rarely have something you need. When personalizing your view, you use widgets, which are windows on content either inside and outside of Clearspace.
To start personalizing your home page, click the Your View tab, then click the personalize link. Clearspace will display a layout screen with a set of widgets listed at the top and a default layout beneath it. Here are a few simple steps for customizing:
You'll probably spend a lot of time in your personalized page, but if you ever want to see the full view of content again, click the All Content tab.
Content you create in Clearspace includes wiki documents, uploaded files, blog posts, discussion posts, and the comments people associate with these. (In a way, profiles are also content because when you search for something, you get profiles, too.) You'll probably find that each of these types of content is best for particular uses. Be sure to see recommendations for documents, blogs, and discussions. You can also read more about the differences between them.
To create new content, click the New menu, then click the type of content you want to create.
Wiki documents, blogs, and discussions were born and raised on the Web, so you use them in Clearspace as you would there. The following table suggests ways to think about the content types.
| Document |
Blog |
Discussion |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Purposes | Collaborate with others on a single document; capture information that should be available for a while; create a report, agenda, or meeting notes. See What can I do with documents? |
Express a point of view; call something timely to others' attention; make a proposal to get feedback from others; ponder an idea. See What can I do with blogs? |
Ask a question of the community; ask for suggestions; make a short observation or assertion to get feedback; report a problem. See What can I do with discussions? |
|
Format
|
Most of the content is in the document itself, with some added in comments by readers and authors. | Most of the content is usually in the initial post, with other content added through comments by readers. |
Most of the content tends to be in responses to the initial question. |
| Style | More formal, often in the third person. |
Informal, usually in the first person. | Informal, usually in the first person. |
|
Authoring
|
Clearspace editor — rich or plain text with preview. Same as for blog and discussion posts. | Clearspace editor — rich or plain text with preview. Same as for documents and discussion posts. | Clearspace editor — rich or plain text with preview. Same as for documents and blog posts. |
Clearspace is a place to create and keep track of documents. You can use the built-in wiki documents to author and edit content or you can upload files from outside Clearspace.
For wiki documents and uploaded files, you can:
To create a new document, click New > Document.
Posting to a blog is a great way to say something individual to other people on Clearspace. Use a blog to express an opinion, call attention to something noteworthy you've seen (such as an article on the Internet), or make a proposal. Other people can comment on your blog posts, so that a blog is a great way to pitch ideas that could impact the team or the company. Of course, you can comment on posts, too.
Your Clearspace setup might include several blogs, each allowing posts from specific people. For example, you might see "Bill's Blog" (with posts from Bill) or "Human Resources Blog" (with posts from people in the HR department). Your Clearspace administrator creates blogs, associating them with particular people. If you've got something to say, get a blog going!
With blogs, you can:
To view blogs, go to the Clearspace home page and click Blog Posts. To post to your blog, click New > Blog Post, select the blog you want to post to, then click Create new blog post.
To create a new blog post, click New > Blog Post.
If you've got a blog, you can use its Blog Management page as a kind of dashboard to manage it. To manage your blog, click the Your Stuff > Blog menu, then click the name of your blog.
The kinds of things you can do there include:
Discussions are made for brief questions or ideas you want the community to see. Usually you make a discussion post when you want to get quick feedback or know the answer to something. You can specifically mark a discussion as a question, such as when you have a specific question that another person probably has the answer to. That will help ensure that your question gets the kind of attention it needs.
When a discussion thread collects information that you want to preserve for other uses, you can save the discussion as a document. For more information, see How do I convert a discussion thread to a document?
With discussions you can:
To make a new discussion post, click New > Discussion, select the space you want the discussion to live in, then click Create New Discussion.
You can include an image in the text of wiki documents, blogs, and discussion posts. Here's the step-by-step process:
button on the toolbar. Uploading a file is a great way to include an externally-authored document or track its progress using Clearspace. For example, you can upload a document, then add collaborators so that it gets reviewed by other team members.
You can also attach files to other content, such as documents, discussion posts, and blog posts.
To upload a file, click New > Document, then click Uploaded File.
You can view the differences between two versions of a wiki document that has been edited and published multiple times. You can also delete specific versions or restore a previous version so that it is the current version.
To manage a document's versions, navigate to the document and then click Manage Versions. On the Manage Versions page you can view changes in one version from the preceding by clicking the Changes icon for the later version; you can select the check boxes for any two versions to compare them. You can also restore and delete previous versions.
To move a discussion thread from one Clearspace space to another, navigate to the discussion and click Move Thread.
When you want to save a discussion into another format — such as to preserve its information for another use — you can convert the discussion thread to a wiki document. When you do, Clearspace will create a new document that contains the original post and all replies in the discussion. You can edit the new document and save it.
To convert a discussion to a document, navigate to the discussion, then click Convert thread to document.
To ensure that no one will be able to add more replies to a discussion thread, navigate to the discussion thread and click Lock Thread.
Clearspace is designed for collaboration. Over time, as you and others use Clearspace -- adding and tagging content, capturing ideas in documents, expressing ideas in blogs, asking and answering questions in discussions -- you'll find that the application shapes itself to your needs. Through your collaboration, you'll develop a list of tags that describes your content intuitively, a group of people who seem to always have answers when people ask, and a batch of ideas that arrive because you can see what others are thinking and working on.
In more concrete terms, with Clearspace you can:
By default, when you create a new wiki document, the new document allows multiple authors. In other words, by default anyone else can make changes. You can also limit the list of people who can make changes.
You can create a wiki document that only certain people can see or edit. You can add editing collaborators at any time before you publish the document -- such as when you first create it or after you've saved it as a draft. You can also
While you're editing the document, click the Collaboration Options link beneath the tags box. Under Users who may edit, click Specific Users (to allow others to edit) or Just <MyName> (to allow only yourself to edit). If you want to allow specific users, click Select Users to browse for the names of people you want to be able to edit the document. For each person able to edit the document (including yourself), they'll be able to reach the document from their Your Stuff menu or in their profile on the Your Stuff tab.
While you're at it, you can also choose people who must approve a document before it can be published. (The space in which the document lives might also have people who must approve documents there. Their approval will be needed, too.)
Note: If you want to keep your document hidden, don't publish it! Once you publish it, it will be visible to anyone who can see documents in the space holding the document.
You can create a wiki document that someone needs to approve before it can be published. You can do this at any time before you publish the document -- such as when you first create it or after you've saved it as a draft.
Note: An administrator might already have chosen someone to approve documents in a space.
While you're editing the document, click the Collaboration Options link beneath the tags box. Under Users who may edit, click Specific Users and enter the Clearspace user name of the person who should approve. You can also click Select Users to browse for the person's name.
If your Clearspace community supports document sharing, you can share a document with people who aren't in your Clearspace community. On the document you want to share, you'll find a Shared Document area (typically on the right side). Click the Add a person link and enter the email address of the person you want to share the document with. After you click Invite, they'll be sent an email that invites them to view the document.
If this is the first time that person has been invited to view content, they'll briefly register before they can view the document. They won't become part of your Clearspace community, but they will be able to view and comment on the document (and other documents shared with them). You'll be able to see their comments.
Also, the person you're sharing with might be interested to know that they can view content shared with them by people using other Clearspace communities. They only need to register once.
You can post an announcement that will appear on the home page for a particular space.
To create an announcement, navigate to the space's home page and click Create Announcement. On the Post Announcement page, you can set the announcement text as well as when and for how long the announcement will be visible.
Ask a question by posting it as a discussion. There might be another person who has the answer to your question and can post a reply. You can mark a discussion post specifically as a question when you create the post. (If you don't initially mark the discussion as a question, you have 15 minutes to change your mind. Within that time, you'll see a link in the discussion post.)
To post a question, click New > Discussion, then click Create New Discussion. Under Post New Thread, after titling and describing your question, be sure to select the Mark this thread as a question check box before clicking Post Message.
Note: You can also ask a question as a poll.
If you post a question and someone replies with information that you can use, it's a good idea to mark the reply as either helpful or correct. That way, others who have the same question can quickly see which replies might be most useful for them. A helpful reply is on the right track, while a correct reply answered your question. Keep in mind that you and others get more status points for posting replies that are marked as helpful or correct!
When you feel that your question has been answered, you should mark the original question as answered. That way, people will know whether or not to keep trying to answer your question.
A poll is a way to ask a multiple choice question of other people in the community. When you create a poll, you define the question and the possible answers. The poll appears on the home page for the space it's created in. As people respond to the poll, results are shown graphically as colored bars. (Clearspace ensures that a person has only one opportunity to vote in the poll.)
To create a poll, navigate to the space where you want the poll to live. Under Actions, click Create Poll.
You can search for people based on the content in their profiles, very much as you would search for content. This works even better when you and other people add to your profiles information that the rest of the community might be interested in. For example, you could add a list of the things you're skilled at, a list of your interests, and so on.
To find people, click Browse > People. On the People page, enter the terms you want to search for, then click Search. You can click More options to tell Clearspace what parts of profiles you want to search. If you get a lot of results from your search, you can narrow the list further by using the filter options to the right of the list.
When you click the name of someone in the search results list, you can get their profile and a lot more. You also get lists of the person's content, tags they commonly use, and more.
There are three main ways to find things in Clearspace: by browsing, by searching, and by tags.
Browsing. One of the easiest ways to browse for content is to use the menus at the top of each page:
Tags. When people assign tags and tag groups to content you can use the tags to find the content again. Clearspace displays tags in a "tag cloud" where you can click a tag to see the content associated with it. For example, if you navigate to a space home page (click Browse, then click the name of the space), you'll see a tag cloud of popular tags (by default, on the lower left of the page). Notice that the tags listed there are in alphabetical order, but that they're displayed in different font sizes. A larger font means a tag that is assigned to more content.
To help other people find the content that you create, you can do two important things:
Don't forget that you can make yourself easier to find by adding information to your profile that other people might be interested in looking for. What are you good at? What do you know? Add these to your expertise list.
Tags are like index keywords you and others assign to content and use to look for content. When you create or edit content, it's a good idea to make sure that the list of tags assigned to the content accurately describes what's in it. One way to do this is to ask yourself what tags you would use to look for this content if you were searching for it.
Tag groups collect tags so that you can find content by or assign all of the collected tags at once. For example, if you wanted to browse content via a tag group that collected the tags new_products and research, you'd get all content to which either tag had been assigned (rather than, say, any content to which both tags had been assigned).
As a general rule, always try to make sure that content you edit has a useful set of tags and tag groups assigned to it.
You can assign tags and tag groups to the following content types when you're creating or editing them:
To assign tags, open the content for editing and scroll to the bottom of the page. Beneath the editing window, in the Tag box, type the tags you want to assign to the content you have open. Where possible, it's best to use tags that already exist. That way, you stand a better chance of assigning tags that people are already familiar with and that might be assigned to related content. The easiest way to apply existing tags is to just click the name of a tag in Popular Tags list; if you know the name of an existing tag (or if it's not listed), you can also just type it.
To avoid having to keep checking back for changes to content in Clearspace, you can use RSS feeds and email notifications.
RSS is a way for you to keep track of changes or additions to content you care about. (The acronym RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.) By "subscribing" to the RSS feed for content in Clearspace, you're asking to have easy access to information about content changes or additions. An RSS feed brings you a list of updates that you can view in an RSS reader (also known as an aggregator). See How do I use the RSS feeds I get from Clearspace? for more info. Subscribing to RSS feeds is an alternative to receiving email notifications, in which an email is sent each time content is changed or added (although you can also do both). You might prefer email notifications if you want to receive updates in a more "passive" but immediate way.
You can subscribe to RSS feeds for content lists (such as a list of blogs, discussions, or documents you'd view in Clearspace), spaces, or for discussion threads.
To view RSS feeds you use an RSS reader (also known as an aggregator). A reader is designed to collect information about content from the places whose RSS feeds you've subscribed to. This could be as simple as using your web browser to collect the feeds (recent versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari support this). To
try this out, simply go to a Clearspace community (or piece of content) you want to receive updates on and click the RSS icon 
there. There are also reader applications that are specifically designed to help you collect RSS feeds.
Note: When you're adding Clearspace RSS subscriptions to your RSS reader, you might have to associate your Clearspace user name and password with the
subscription. That's because the RSS reader is getting information from Clearspace on your behalf. Clearspace needs to know it's not giving the information to just anyone!
For the feeds you've subscribed to, you'll typically get a list of summaries for content that has recently been added or changed. You can view the content itself or mark it in the list as having been "read."
To subscribe to the RSS feed for content, you add the link URL for the RSS feed to your RSS aggregator. One way to get the URL is to click the RSS Feed icon when you're viewing content, then copy the URL out of the address bar at the top of your browser. You can also get the URL from a list of all the available RSS feeds for a space by clicking Subscribe via RSS under Actions.
Note: Some browsers will display an RSS feed symbol at the right side of the address bar (at the top, where the page URL is). If you click the symbol, you'll get a list of the RSS feeds available. This is a good way to get feeds for wiki documents, for example.
You can have Clearspace send you email when content you care about is added or changed. This is an alternative to RSS feeds, which require an RSS aggregator (although you can use both RSS and email notifications, of course). Because an email is sent for each notification you request, you might prefer subscribing to RSS feeds if you'd rather not get all the email.
To begin receiving email notifications, navigate to the area you care about — a space or document or blog, for example — and click Receive Email Notifications under Actions. To stop receiving email notifications, click Stop Email Notifications instead.
With a project, you collect people's content in a way that focuses their work along a schedule toward a specific goal. A project is a great way to give collaborative work a context that's time-based and outcome-based.
Like a space, a project can contain discussions, blog posts, and documents. To these, projects add tasks. You can create tasks with titles and descriptions, assign them to people, set due dates, and mark them as complete. As with other content, you can assign tags to tasks, too.
You can add checkpoints to a project as a way to focus efforts to make sure your project is going as you intend. A checkpoint is merely a named place in the schedule.
To help you manage your project's progress, Clearspace provides visual cues that snapshot the project. On a project's home page (which you can customize with widgets, as with other main pages in Clearspace), you'll get a checkpoint timeline that shows where your checkpoints are between the project's start and finish, and where the current date falls on the timeline. A project calendar captures task due dates and checkpoint dates in a traditional calendar style.
To create a project, navigate to a space's main page, then click Create a Project in the Actions list. Give the project a name and include descriptive details, then add a target date for completing the project. Click Save to enter your new project's home page.
Projects are different from spaces in that projects can contain tasks and the time-based information you can use to track the project's progress. A project can also have checkpoints and an overarching outcome associated with it. In other words, a project supports the tools you need to focus collaboration along a schedule toward specific goals.
But the projects and spaces are similar. Like spaces, projects are containers for content people create, including blog posts, documents, and discussions. In one sense, a project is like a space that's inside another space. A project gets its permissions from the space containing it. In other words, people who can get into the containing space and view, edit, or create content there can do the same in projects inside the space. Note that posts to project blogs are visible outside the project in the way that posts to space blogs are visible outside the space.
You can only see content for a project outside the project if you're able to get into the project itself. If you are, then project content will show up in your searching and browsing, as with other content. You can also use widgets as windows on project content. For example,
you could personalize your home page with the Your Tasks or Your Projects widgets so you can stay on top of the things assigned to you.