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
How can I use the keyboard to control Clearspace menus?
How can I personalize my view of content?
How can I set default preferences for things like notifications, time zone, and locale?
How do I invite people to join Clearspace?
How do I send private messages to other people in Clearspace?
How do I change a group's details?
How do I customize my group's overview page?
How do I invite people to join a group?
How do I invite people from my contact list to join a group?
How do I add, delete, or ban new members?
How do I change, add, or remove group administrators?
What are friend connections in Clearspace?
How can I add someone as a friend?
How can I see what my friends are up to?
How can I group people to make them easier to keep track of?
What kinds of content can I create?
What's the difference between a document, a blog post, and a discussion?
How can I decide which comments and trackbacks appear with my blog?
How do I import content from another blog into my Clearspace blog?
What can I do with discussions?
How can I use HTML in my content?
How do I display an image within content text?
How do I display video within content text?
How do I upload a file (such as a Word or Excel file) so that other people can see it?
How do I see how a document was changed between versions?
How do I move a discussion thread to another space?
How do I convert a discussion thread to a document?
How do I lock a thread so others can't comment on it?
How do I post new content without logging in to Clearspace?
How do I post a reply without logging in to Clearspace?
How can I make the most of the content editor?
What does it mean to collaborate in Clearspace?
How do I create a document that other people can work on?
How do I limit who can edit a document?
How do I make it so that someone must approve a document before it's published?
How do I share a document with someone who doesn't use Clearspace?
How do I announce something so that other people are more likely to see it?
If someone answers my question, how do I say so?
How do I make something easier to find?
How do I apply tags and tag groups?
How do I get notified about changes to content?
How do I use the feeds I get from Clearspace?
How are projects different from spaces?
How can I see project content outside the project?
How can I copy task information between a project and another project management tool?
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.
Go to Your Stuff > Preferences. On the Your Preferences page, you'll be able to set your locale and time zone. You can also set whether a discussion thread and its replies should be displayed all on one level (flat) or indented hierarchically (threaded).
You might want to ensure you have the right locale chosen here if you intend to use Clearspace from web browsers set to another locale — such as in an Internet cafe in another country, for example. Your preference here takes precedence. By the same token, if you want to make sure you use the locale set by an administrator for the entire community, make sure that your web browser doesn't have a locale set (or else the browser locale will override the community setting).
In the email notifications preferences you can set whether you should automatically get an email when you create or comment on content.
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.
If it's enabled for your application, you can invite people from outside the application to join. When you invite them, they'll receive an email with instructions on how they can join.
Go to your profile (at Your Stuff > Profile) or to a space home page. In the Actions list click Invite friends to join. Fill out the short form to build the email that they'll receive, then click Invite Friends.
If the private messaging feature is available for your site, you can send messages to other people who use Clearspace. Click Your Stuff > Private Messages, then click Compose Message.
Notice that you can manage private messages in the way some applications let you manage email. In addition to receiving and replying, you can create new folders for storing messages, save drafts of messages in progress, and so on.
A group is a place for you to connect with people who share an interest. A group can be about anything you like, such as a work-related interest or a favorite sport. People join a group to connect with discussions, keep track of things with documents, and have their say with posts to the group's blog.
When someone creates a group, they say what kinds of content the group can contain and who can join. Here are a few things to know about groups:
You can view a directory of groups by clicking Browse > Groups to get to the main groups page. On that page, you can also search for groups. Of course, you can also search from anywhere in Clearspace by using the seach box at the top of each page.
A group can be easier to find when the group's owner has added tags that help describe what the group's about.
Here are the steps to create a group:
| Setting | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Group Name | The name you want to show up at the top of the group page. This will be used at the end of a URL that links to the group (though you can change the URL by clicking the Edit link). |
| Group Description | This will show up on the group's main page. Capture what the group's about in a way that will attract other people who might be interested. |
| Tags | Enter words or short phrases that will help other people find your group. Enter words that describe your group's focus. To separate the words, put a space between them (you don't need commas). |
| Group Image | A picture to display on the group's main page. |
| Group Type |
Choose a type that will determine whether your group can be seen by others and whether they can participate. With an open group, anyone can view content or participate at any time. In a members only group, anyone see content, but only those who've joined can participate. A private group is known to non-members, but only members can see content or participate. People can only become members after being invited or approved by the group's owner. A secret group is invisible to all but its members. People can become members only by being invited. |
| Additional Features | What kinds of content should the group contain? |
If you're a group owner, you can edit details such as the group's name, description, and so on — pretty much the same things you entered when you created the group. To edit this information, go to the group's main page, then click Edit group details in the Actions list.
If you're a group owner or administrator, you can customize the group's Overview page with widgets. Go to the page, then click the customize link on the Overview tab. You can drag widgets from the list at the top of the page, then arrange them on the page as you want them. For more information on customizing, see Designing Pages with Widgets.
A group's owner can invite other people by using Clearspace to send them an email. Go to the group's main page. In the Actions list, click Invite people to join this group. In the form you get, enter the email addresses of people you want to invite and feel free to edit the message however you like. Keep in mind that if you're using a private version of Clearspace, people who aren't already using it might not be able to join your group.
If people you want to invite are in your email address book, you can import their contact information. First, export contact information from the email application as a CSV file. After you've exported, on the Invite People... page, click the Import Contacts link to import the information into Clearspace.
Depending on how the group's set up, the group's owner might need to approve the new member.
You can import contacts from your email program or other contact tracker. You'll need to first export the contact list as a comma-separated values (CSV) file from your email program. Most email programs give you the ability to do this.
Once you have the contact list as a CSV file, go to your group's main page and click Invite people to join this group. There, click the Import contacts link and browse for the CSV file.
If you want to delete or resend invitations, you do so while managing group membership. This can be handy if you've got a lot of outstanding unanswered invitations. Go to your group's main page, then click Manage group members. On the Manage group members page, click the Open Invitations link and select the names of people whose invitations you want to delete or resend. Use the dropdown above the list to select the action you want to take.
Go to your group's main page, then click Manage group members. On the Manage group members page, select check boxes for the members you want to manage.
For the members you've selected, you can ban them from participating, delete their membership, send them messages, and more. You can also export their member information as a contact list you can then import into another application, such as an email address book.
You can change a selected member's role from administrator to member, or back the other way. An administrator role lets the member make the same kinds of changes you can make as the group's owner (except delete the group).
A group's administrator has almost all the same abilities to management a group as the group's owner does.
Go to your group's main page, then click Manage group members. On the Manage group members page, select check boxes for the members you want to manage.
For the members you've selected, choose an option from the dropdown, such as Change Role to Administrator or Change Role to Member.
You can add people as friends went you want to keep up with what they're working on. When you create friend connections, Clearspace will show you the things they've been doing — posting to discussions or their blog, creating documents, and so on. You can also send messages to your friends.
This information appears on the Connections tab of your profile. You can also add a widget to follow friends when you personalize your home page.
When you add someone as a friend, you're said to be following them. On your Connections tab, you can see a list of the people you're following as well as a list of those who are following you.
To get started, go so someone's profile and add them as a friend.
To add someone as a friend, go to their profile, then click the Add <person's name> as a friend link. If you've created labels to group your friends, you'll be prompted to apply a label to the friend you're adding.
You can remove a friend on your connections page. Go to Your Stuff > Connections, then find the person you want to remove in the list of people you're following. The remove them, click the Remove link on their listing.
The easiest way to keep up with friends is on your home page. When you personalize your home page, you can add the Connection's Recent Activity widget. This one is like the Recent Activity widget except that it lists activity by your friends only. As your friends create new documents, make discussion or blog posts, and so on, what they do will show up in the widget.
You can also see what your friends have been doing by going to the page at Your Stuff > Connections.
You can create labels to group your friends. When you apply a label to multiple friends, the label becomes a way to group those friends and filter your friends list to include only people with certain labels.
To create a label, first view your connections by going to Your Stuff > Connections. Under Labels, click Add/edit labels, click Add new label, enter the label text, then click Save.
To apply a label you've created to a friend, start by going to Your Stuff > Connections. Locate the friend in the list of people you're following, then click the Labels link on their listing. In the box that appears, under Apply label, click the label you want to apply. To remove a label, click the Labels link, then click the label under Remove label.
Content you create in Clearspace includes 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.
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 rich text editor. Same as for blog and discussion posts. | Clearspace rich text editor. Same as for documents and discussion posts. | Clearspace rich text 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 documents to author and edit content or you can upload files from outside Clearspace.
For 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:
You can moderate your blog, choosing which comments and trackbacks associated with a post are visible to others. For example, you might want to remove a comment that includes language that's inappropriate to the spirit of your blog.
Also, there might be some trackbacks that you don't want displayed with a blog post. When someone links to your blog post from another application (such as another blog) that supports trackbacks, your blog displays a trackback link to the other application. In most cases, trackbacks are a great way to give your readers links to other related posts (without any work on your part!). But in some cases, someone might link to your post from a site that's inappropriate or unwanted.
Your community's system administrator can enable or disable features related to blogs, including comments and trackbacks. As the blog's owner, you can manage whether comments and trackbacks should be held for your approval before they're published. To set these options, go to your blog management page by visiting your blog, then clicking Manage Blog. To set moderation options, click the Options link under Blog Shortcuts. To moderate, use the Comments and Trackbacks links under Blog Shortcuts. There, you can view information about each comment or trackback, approving or deleting each as you choose.
Note: If your community is visible to the public, chances are trackbacks and comments are enabled by default. If a system administrator hasn't disabled them, you might consider turning on moderation for these features — at least for a while, just to be on the safe side.
If you've got a blog in Clearspace, you can import content from your other blogs. You'll need to first export content from those blogs into the Movable Type import format. Some blogging tools offer the ability for you to do that pretty easily.
Once you've got your exported content, you can import it into your Clearspace blog using the following steps:
Note: If you export content from Wordpress, you might need to do a little editing of the exported content before you import it. When your Wordpress blog posts include HTML tags, the file exported from Wordpress omits tags needed to tell Clearspace that the HTML is there. You'll need to enclose the content in <body> tags before importing. Here's an example:
This is my <b>BOLD</b> HTML example.
<body>This is my <b>BOLD</b> HTML example.</body>
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 use the Insert Raw HTML menu (from the content editor's toolbar) to add HTML markup to your documents, blog posts, and discussion posts. When including HTML, switch to the plain text editor. You can type text before and after your HTML.
Some kinds of HTML markup can cause the site to be less secure. For this reason, certain HTML tags aren't supported by default. When you use these tags in the code macro, Clearspace will remove them before displaying the content (although they'll be there when you return to edit the content). Here's a list of what's not supported:
Tags: <embed>, <html>, <head>, <iframe>, <link>, <meta>, <object>, <script>, <style>
Attributes: action, class, method, on* (such as onClick), *src*
You can include an image in the text of documents, blogs, and discussion posts. Here's the step-by-step process:
Note: Keep in mind that big images don't scale to a smaller size when you view content as a PDF file. If you think it's likely that someone will want to view or save your content as PDF, then you should make sure that the image displays completely in the content in your web browser. You can also test the display by viewing the content as a PDF yourself.
You can have video from another site, such as Vimeo.com or YouTube.com, displayed in your content. The video itself isn't attached to your content, but linked from the site itself.
<object width="425" height="344">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mji4nAk_8ZY&hl=en&fs=1"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mji4nAk_8ZY&hl=en&fs=1"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"
width="425" height="344"></embed>
</object>
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 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 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. The discussion itself will not be removed.
To convert a discussion to a document, navigate to the discussion, then click Convert thread to document.
If you're an administrator or moderator, you can ensure that no one will be able to add more replies to a discussion thread. Navigate to the discussion thread and click Lock Thread.
You can post new content simply by sending an email to Clearspace (if the feature is enabled). You can view a list of the email addresses for spaces, projects, and groups that you're watching or are a member of, along with addresses for blogs you're an author on. To post content, send an email to the address you want. The subject line of your email will be the posts title, while the email's body will be the post's body. To view the addresses, in Clearspace go to Your Stuff > Mailing Lists.
This can be especially handy for posting when you're away from your computer and can't open Clearspace in a browser. For example, you could add your mailing list email addresses to your email address book. if you have a mobile device (such as a cell phone) that sends email, you'd have access to the addresses to make new Clearspace posts when you've got only your phone to do it with.
If you're subscribed for email notifications to content, you can post a reply simply by replying to notification email. For example, imagine you're subscribed to notifications on a discussion thread. When someone posts a reply to the discussion, you'll get an email about it from Clearspace. Reply to the email, type your discussion reply just as you'd type a reply to any email, then send the email. If Clearspace is set up to receive replies via email, your reply will be posted as if you'd logged in and posted it.
When posting this way, be sure to leave the special code at the end of the subject line. The code will be numbers and letters in square brackets, like so: [Xxxxx-xxx-xxxx].
Note: The post-from-reply feature isn't supported when the reply is a digitally-signed email.
When you create or edit discussion posts, blog posts, documents, and the like, you use the content editor built into Clearspace. The editor includes many of the features you'll find in other word processing programs. Using its buttons and commands, you can format text to look as you want it to, embed images and video, insert links, and more.
This topic lists some of things you can do in the editor.
The content editor's toolbar is pretty similar to what you'll see in many word processing programs. Use these tools to format text and images, video, and insert special formatting. The things you can do are described in more detail below.
The editor includes a way to check spelling when you want to. Click the Toggle spellchecker button at the far right of the toolbar to check spelling for the content that's currently in the editor window. When it's on, misspelled words will be underlined with red lines.
Click a misspelled word to view suggested alternate spellings, then click the suggestion that matches what you want. Click outside the Suggestions list, somewhere else in the window, to make the list go away.
Click the Toggle spellchecker button to turn off the red lines. Note that the feature won't check spelling as you type. Click the button again to recheck spelling.
You can change the size of the editor window by clicking the window's lower-right corner and dragging the corner up or down. (You can't make the window wider or narrower except by resizing the browser window itself, but you can make it taller or shorter.)
As you're writing your content, the editor is behind the scenes creating HTML code so your content can be displayed in the web browser. If you're well-versed in HTML, you can create more ambitious formatting effects by editing that underlying HTML directly. You click the HTML link at the right of the toolbar to display the HTML markup; click Show Full Editor to go back.
Be careful with this feature, though. It's actually not all that difficult to mess up the way your content looks by incorrectly editing the HTML. If you're going to be doing a lot of editing this way, you might want to have a full-featured HTML editor handy. You can copy the generated HTML markup out of the content editor HTML window and paste it into your HTML editor while you work on it. When you're finished, copy the edited markup back into the content editor's HTML window.
Pretty much all of the basic formatting tools you see in word processors are available in the content editor.
To format particular characters, select the text in the editor, then click the button for the kind of formatting you want.
You can insert links to sites on the web and to content in your community.
One way to start creating a link is to select the text you want people to click when they go to the place you're linking them to. You can also put your cursor anywhere, without selecting, then click the Insert Link button. If you do that, then the text people click will be the title of the community content or the URL to the external web site. Even after you insert the link, though, you can still change the text people see. In the editor, click inside the link text, then start deleting or typing to enter text you want.
When you want to link to community content, you can search for the item you want to link to or browse the list of content you've looked at lately. Click the item you want, then click Insert.
You can embed emoticons, which are little images you can use when text alone just isn't enough. Click the Emoticons button to see the list of images you can embed.
Some formatting effects larger blocks of text, such as paragraphs. That's what you're doing when you're making lists, indenting, or aligning.
You can create numbered or bulleted lists. One way to start is to type the items you want for your list, then select and format them (by clicking the list button you want). To remove the list formatting, select the list text, then click the list button you clicked to format it originally.
If you want to make a list that has indented sub-lists, start by making your list, including a sub-item or two at the same level as the others. Then select the sub-items and click the indent button. You can also have sub-list items use a different character than their containing list -- such as letters instead of numbers. See the section below on list style for more information.
You can align text in a paragraph left, right or center. You can also justify paragraph text so that both its left and right edges follow straight lines. To change alignment, simply put your cursor anywhere in the paragraph you want to format, then click the alignment button you want.
Indenting can be a handy feature to have. Of course, you can use it to call attention to blocks of text. But you can also indent items in a list to have them become part of a sub-list. To indent text, select the text you want, then click the Indent button. When you want to outdent in order to "undo" indenting, put your cursor in the section and click the Outdent button.
If you're indenting a paragraph because the text is quoted from somewhere else, keep in mind that the editor has a special way to handle quoted text. See that section for more information.
Sometimes you want to call out sections of text (such as paragraphs) with different formatting.
When you quote paragraphs of text you found somewhere else, such as in another person's post, it's a good idea to format it as quote text. That way, other people can easily see what's yours and what's someone else's.
When you format text as quoted, the published text will appear in a box that has grey shading. To do this, highlight the text you want to format, then click the Insert button and select Quote.
The editor provides special support for formatting text that's from languages used by programmers, or text that needs to look plain and unformatted. To apply the formatting described here, select the entire block of text you want to format, then click the Insert button and point to the formatting style you want. Note that these commands are intended for use with entire paragraphs, rather than just a few words. Trying to use these commands with a few words inside a paragraph will
Here's a list of what you can do:
Once you've got a table, you'll find that you can make a lot of the changes you want by right-clicking the table. When you right-click, you'll get a set of menu commands you can use to insert, remove, and change settings for rows, cells, and columns.
To add a table, put your cursor in the place where you want the table to appear, then click the Insert Table button. The editor will display a box where you can set your table's properties -- how many rows and columns, etc. You can also change these properties after you've created the table. To do that, right-click the table, then click Table properties.
Right-click the table to view commands for adding and removing rows and columns. For example, if you want to insert a row between two rows, right-click the second row, point to Row, then click Insert row before.
You move a row or column by cutting or copying it, then pasting it before or after another row or column to get it where you want it. For example right-click the row or column you want to move, point to Row, then click Cut table row. Next, right-click the row you want the first row to appear beneath, point to Row, then click Paste table row after.
You can merge two cells into one or split cells you've merged back into two. For example, to merge cells, select the cells you want to merge, right-click the table there, point to Cell, then click Merge table cells.
The editor includes a feature that automatically generates a hierarchical table of contents based on the headings in your content. When you insert the table of contents in your content, the editor looks at the headings your content uses, including their levels (Heading 2, Heading 3, and so on). Based on the heading levels, the editor creates links to the headings, indenting the links at similar levels.
To insert the table of contents, click Insert, then click Table of Contents. While you're editing the content, the presence of the table of contents will appear as an icon.
In the saved or published version of the content, the icon will be replaced with a hierarchical list of links to headings in your content.
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 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 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 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.
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:
Searching. You can search for content using the search box in the upper right of each Clearspace page. Enter your search phrase and click Search to view a page from which you can filter your search results. If your search doesn't return the results you want, you can refine your search. On the Search page, click More options to choose the kinds of content you want to search, where the content you're searching for it, when it was created, and who created it.
Note: When you're on the Search page, the search box in the upper-right corner and the main search box behave slightly differently. The box in the upper-right corner invisibly appends an asterisk (*) so that it lists more results. This is a convenience feature.
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.
Note: When you have tags and tag groups whose names have more than one word, be sure to separate the words with something like an underscore character. If you use a space, you'll turn each word into a separate tag or tag group.
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 feeds (such as RSS) and email notifications.
Feeds are a way for you to keep track of changes or additions to content you care about. (RSS is a popular feed type Clearspace supports; "RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication.") By "subscribing" to the feed for content in Clearspace, you're asking to have easy access to information about content changes or additions. A feed brings you a list of updates that you can view in a feed reader (also known as an aggregator). See How do I use the feeds I get from Clearspace? for more info. Subscribing to 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 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 feeds you use a
feed reader (also known as an aggregator). A reader is designed to collect information about content from the
places whose 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 feed icon 
there. There are
also reader applications that are specifically designed to help you collect feeds.
Note: When you're adding Clearspace feed subscriptions to your feed reader, you
might have to associate your Clearspace user name and password with the subscription.
That's because the feed 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 feed for content, you add the link URL for the feed to your feed aggregator. One way to get the URL is to click the 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 feeds for a space by clicking Subscribe via RSS under Actions.
Note: Some browsers will display a 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 feeds available. This is a good way to get feeds for documents, for example.
You can have Clearspace send you email when content you care about is added or changed. This is an alternative to feeds, which require a feed aggregator (although you can use both feeds and email notifications, of course). Because an email is sent for each notification you request, you might prefer subscribing to 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, and it's often used as a point at which to take stock.
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.
Note: By default, the project feature isn't included in Clearspace Community.
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 provides 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.
You can import and export tasks between a Clearspace project and other project management tools. To import task information, first export the information from your other project management tool, saving it as a comma-separated values (CSV) file. After exporting, go to your project in Clearspace and click Import/Export Tasks in the Actions list. On the Import/Export Tasks page, under Import tasks from a CSV file, click Browse to locate the CSV file you exported, then click Upload File. The next page shows the column titles for Clearspace tasks (such as "Description Field," "Assigned To Field," and "Due Date Field"), with dropdowns that list column titles found in the CSV you're uploading. Use the dropdowns to map a different CSV column title to each of the titles in the Clearspace project. This will determine where the information will go in the Clearspace project. The page displays a preview using information found in your CSV file. Click Proceed to accept the mappings. On the next page, you can clear check boxes for those items you don't want to import. You can click the edit link for a task to edit task information before you import it. Click Import Selected Tasks to import the information.
When you export task information from a Clearspace project, you begin by clicking Import/Export Tasks, then choose Export or Choose Tasks.