Tips & tricks for setting up workspaces

My team would like standardization on how we set up project workspace. In the root of a workspace, I expect we'd have a standard set of sheets for Schedule, RACI, RAID logs, Issues, etc. For folders within the workspace, we might have some kind of sysadmin folder for sheets where we could collect / aggregate metrics from the other sheets (example: trend report of # action items open for more than a week, or # of workplan tasks that are late or at-risk) which would be used to drive reports and dashboards.

Does anyone have tips, best practices, or just things you've learned to be good habit to help you organize workspaces and how you label / structure various sheets, reports, and dashboards? What's helpful for teams to standardize for all projects vs things left for individual users to follow their preferences?

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Paul Newcome

@brianwinter In addition to my last comment, the "typical" structure would be…

When you first open the workspace, there is an "Admin" folder and the dashboard(s).

In the Admin folder, I usually have "Reports", "Metrics and Metadata", and "Project" folders.

Inside the "Reports" folder are all of the reports that are actually displayed / used.

Inside of the "Metrics and Metadata" folder you will find metrics and metadata sheets and reports that are used for things like chart widgets on my dashboard(s). These reports are never meant to actually be viewed or interacted with which is why they are here as opposed to the "Reports" folder.

In the "Project" folder is where things like my Project Plan, Raid Log, etc.. This is similar in concept to the "Reports" folder except with sheets. Things that will be interacted with in some way.

Of course that is all "generally speaking". I have built a lot of solutions that don't fit within those requirements.

I also missed your very last question about standardizing. My answer to that is to standardize as much as possible. You can only reliably automate reporting on standardized data. Anything individualized has to be manually reported on which increases the risk of error.

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Amark

Hi,this might help

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/92517/what-are-some-best-practices-in-organizing-workspaces-folders-sheets-etc

Paul Newcome

Generally speaking, I try to limit users' access to sheets and reports. I like to have my dashboard(s) in the main workspace and then have all of my sheets and reports within folders. My dashboards will have shortcuts and web content widgets and whatnot that will take users to wherever they need to go, but the primary form of navigation for most users is typically through dashboards.

brianwinter

Thanks - I searched for posts titled "workspace" but surprisingly this one didn't come up for me.

Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to have the nitty-gritty I was looking for on how people tend to organize and name a standard set of folders used in all project workspaces. This thread recommends Groups which was not what I'm looking for.

Paul Newcome

@brianwinter In addition to my last comment, the "typical" structure would be…

When you first open the workspace, there is an "Admin" folder and the dashboard(s).

In the Admin folder, I usually have "Reports", "Metrics and Metadata", and "Project" folders.

Inside the "Reports" folder are all of the reports that are actually displayed / used.

In the "Project" folder is where things like my Project Plan, Raid Log, etc.. This is similar in concept to the "Reports" folder except with sheets. Things that will be interacted with in some way.

Of course that is all "generally speaking". I have built a lot of solutions that don't fit within those requirements.

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