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Space Templates

Space templates are a premium feature that make it easy to automate space creation & setup. They’re ideal for repeating projects & workflows; for example, a client project that involves similar docs & tasks to your other client projects.

Space templates automations allow you to automatically create all of the Google Drive Folders, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides (including from doc templates), & other app objects your team needs for a given type of project. That way your team will always have everything they need at their fingertips — right in the space.

When deployed across your team, space templates provide a helpful overview of all your shared processes in one place.

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How space templates work

Space templates provide a prebuilt starting point for a project or workflow. You can create space templates for personal use, or share them with your team so they can quickly and easily create spaces from your team’s templates.

Your templates can be managed in the template manager.

Your team’s templates can be managed from team template settings in the admin dashboard.

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Create a space template

  1. Open Workona.
  2. Click Templates at the top of the sidebar. If you don't see it, you may need to reenable the sidebar item within settings.
  3. In the template manager, navigate to the Space Templates section.
  4. Click the + in the top-right of the template manager.
  5. Choose between New template from space or New template from scratch, then the space template editor will open. All of your changes will be autosaved.
  6. Complete each of the steps below to set up your new space template. Click a step for more detailed instructions:
Create templates even faster
Create a template from an existing space by clicking “Save as template” in the menu on any space.
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Set up template: New space menu

Type in a name for the space template. You can preview how the space template will appear in the New Space menu on the right side.

We recommend using a short singular term like "Client", "Event", "Campaign", etc the represents the type of project the space will be used for:

  • New Client space
  • New Event space
  • New Campaign space

When you're done, click Next.

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Set up template: Space creation form

Next, set up the form that your team will fill out when creating spaces from the space template.

We recommended adding properties for any important properties of the project or client. For example, a Client space template might have the following properties:

  • Client Name - text property
  • Subscription Plan - single-select property
  • Start Date - date property

Any property fields that you add will appear within the space creation form you fill out to create spaces from the space template.

Properties play a critical role within space template automations — which help your team automatically create everything your team needs for each project or client: Google Drive folders, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, Slack Channels, task lists in apps like Asana, Monday, & ClickUp, & more. It's easy to add an additional property if you realize you need it for an automation later, so don't worry about adding all of the properties right now.

When properties are set on a space, if you create a Google Doc/Sheet/Slide from a doc template that uses the same properties, the property fields will be contextual autofilled within the doc creation form. This is similar to how CRMs autofill a contact's email & name into email templates when creating emails from the contact's record.

Properties can also be used to display key information about a project or client in the header of generated spaces. We recommend only keeping the most important information in the space header to keep things from getting cluttered.

Adding & managing a space template's properties:

  • Add a property field: Click + Property field, then create or select a property.
  • Reorder a property field: Click the ⋮ menu next to the field you want to reorder, then click Move up or Move down.
  • Set default property field values: Click into the field you want to set a default value for, then enter the value. The property field will always default to what you've specified, but it can always be adjusted when creating a space. Note that property fields (e.g. Client Name) within space templates are normally left blank, since the field's values (ClientA Inc., ClientB Co.) are typically filled in when creating a space.
  • Show or hide a property field in the space header: Click the ⋮ menu next to the field you want to show or hide, then click Hide in space header. Hidden property fields will still function the same with regard to space template automations & contextual autofill, but they won't appear in the space header.
  • Make a property field required: Click the ⋮ menu next to the field you want to make required, then click Make field required.
  • Edit a property field's label: Click the ⋮ menu next to the field you want to edit, then click Edit property. Note that any updates to the property's label will be applied to all locations the property has been used.
  • Remove a property field: Click the ⋮ menu next to the field you want to remove, then click Remove from space template.
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Set up template: Auto-create docs, task lists, & more

Set up space template automations within your space template to automatically create everything your team needs for a project or client — Google Drive Folders (and subfolders), Google Docs/Sheets/Slides (including from doc templates), Slack Channels, and task lists in apps like Asana, Monday, & ClickUp — then organize them all in one place within the generated space. Each space will have a unique copy of the folder, doc, or other app object.

If we find an app object with the same name (e.g. a folder named "Acme") in the same location (e.g. within the "Clients" Google Drive folder), the existing app object will be used. This prevents duplicate app objects from being created when a project or client already had one (e.g. the "Acme" client folder already existed).

Sometimes there are app objects (folders, docs, chat channels, task lists) that you only want to create within spaces that have certain properties, and conditional logic is the right tool for the job. To add a condition, edit the auto-created app object's automation, then click the + Conditional logic button that appears in the When a space is created from the space template... section.

Read the space template automations help article for more information & instructions about automations.

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Set up template: Space content & layout

You can edit the space template's content much like you would a normal space. This allows you to easily design your team's ideal work environment for the project or client.

If there are certain resources, notes, & tasks that you'd like to be the same in every space, add them to the space template's content. Each space created from the space template will contain an identical copy of each of the resources, notes, & tasks you set up (i.e. static content). For example, you might add documentation your team needs to reference while working on a project or client as resources, or add action items that need to be completed for each project or client as tasks.

If you want a given resource to have a unique link in each generated space, then add a dynamic resource. Dynamic resources are just like normal resources (i.e. similar to a bookmark), but their name & URL can be different in each generated space. To make a resource dynamic, simply leave the name or URL field empty, or insert a property into either of those fields. For more information & instructions, read the dynamic resources article.

If you've set up any auto-created folders, docs, chat channels, or task lists, you'll see them in the space alongside the other space content. You can organize these auto-created app objects via drag & drop just like you can normal resources.

Once you're happy with the content & layout of the spaces, click Done Editing.

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Set up template: Automatically create spaces

If you want to automatically create spaces from the space template when something happens in another app (e.g. when a Salesforce Opportunity is marked as closed won, or when a new row is added to a Google Sheet, or when a Notion database record meets a certain condition, etc.), you can use our Zapier integration do accomplish that. Best of all, you can set up everything right in the space template editor!

You can trigger spaces to be created when something happens in over 6,000 apps — including apps like Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Notion, Airtable, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Google Forms, Typeform, & more!

The Zapier integration is the perfect way to plug Workona into your team's existing workflows, so spaces will be automatically created, filled with everything needed for the project or client, and shared with the right team members.

We recommend setting up the Create Workona space from space template Zap Action to dynamically fill out the space template's properties using data from the Zap Trigger step. This will allow data to flow seamlessly from the external app into Workona — where it can then be populated your auto-created app objects, control what's created using conditional logic, & even share the space dynamically.

  1. Select the app that you want to trigger the space creation.
  2. Connect to Zapier if you haven't already done so. You can create a free Zapier account here if you don't have one yet.
  3. A preconfigured Zapier "Zap" (i.e. automation) will be created for the space template.
  4. Set up the trigger step:
    1. In the sidebar that appears on the right of the Zap editor, click App & event.
    2. Select the event that you want to trigger the creation of the spaces (i.e. an item is added/updated within the app you previously selected), then click Continue.
    3. Connect or select the desired account to use, then click Continue.
    4. Finish configuring the trigger as desired. For example, for Salesforce you might need to specify the type of CRM record (account, contact, etc.), or for Notion you might need to specify the Notion database.
    5. Click Test, then select an example record, and click Continue with selected record when you're done.
  5. Optionally set up a filter step:
    • In some cases you may want to add a filter step to the Zap between the trigger and the Create space in Workona action. For example, you could require a certain condition be met before a space was created (e.g. Status = Closed won, Customer Success = True).
    • To add a filter step, click the + (Add a step) button that appears between the two existing steps in the Zap in the center of the Zap editor, then select Filter.
    • Note that three step Zaps require a paid Zapier plan.
  6. Set up the Create a space in Workona step:
    1. Connect or select the desired Workona account to use, then click Continue.
    2. Finishing configuring the action step as you desire. Note that the space template will be selected for you automatically, and all of the space template's properties will appear.
    3. Insert data from the trigger step (i.e. Step 1 of the Zap) into the space name field. Typically this would be the name of the project or client.
    4. Then insert data into each of the space template's property fields to map the external app's data to the matching Workona space template's property field. For example, if your space template had a Client Name property, you might want to insert Salesforce: Account Name into that property's field. Repeat this process for each property until you have all of the space template's fields being dynamically set using data from the external app specified in Step 1 of the Zap.
      • For certain types of properties, like single-select properties, you may need to first click Custom in order to set the property field dynamically.
      • Alternatively you can always enter text or select an option to always set a given property exactly the same in every generated space (e.g. Subcription Level always equals Enterprise for all auto-created spaces).
    5. Optionally select the section that you want the spaces to be created within. If you select a team section, the spaces will be automatically shared with that team.
    6. Specify the teams & individuals that the created spaces should be shared with. If you share with a team, all team members will see the space appear in their sidebar as soon as the space is created. If you only share with individuals, only the specified individual(s) will see the space appear in their sidebar.
      • A common approach is to dynamically share the created spaces with the person assigned to the project or client in the external app. For example, share the space with whomever the account owner is set to in your CRM.
      • To set this up, click into the Share with individuals: Email addresses field, then insert one or more email address properties from Step 1 of the Zap. The field accepts multiple comma or space separated emails.
      • The following are examples valid configurations:
        • Email addresses: name@example.com (hard coded email address)
        • Email addresses: Salesforce: Account Owner Email (always one email address)
        • Email addresses: Asana: Project Assignees Emails (multiple email addresses)
        • Email addresses: HubSpot: Account Owner Email, HubSpot: Customer Success Manager Email (multiple data tokens inserted, each containing one email address).
    7. When you're done configuring the Create a space in Workona step, click Continue.
    8. Test the Zap by clicking Test step. Once the test has been run, a space will be automatically created from your space template, and it should appear for you (and any other users you've specified the space should be shared with) in your sidebar in Workona.
  7. Finally, click the Publish button to finish setting up your Zap. Once you've published, spaces should be automatically created from your space template whenever the trigger you've specified occurs in the external app.

Note that you can edit the space template's Zap at any time from the Automatically create spaces section of the space template editor. Only the person that set up the Zap will be able to edit the Zap.

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Set up template: Share space template

Optionally share the space template with your team. All team members will see the space template appear in the New Space menu when they click the + button. Once you're done, click Share Space Template or Skip.

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Create spaces from a space template

  1. Open Workona.

  2. Click the + button at the top of the sidebar.

  3. Click the name of the template you want to use, and the space creation form you configured in the template's settings will appear.

    • If you specified a default space name, it will be autofilled into the Space name field.
    • Fill out the space name & any property fields you've specified, then click Create (or Next if you've set up any space template automations).
    • If you've set up any space template automations, review the app objects that will be created (and make changes if desired), then click Set Up Space.

  4. Notice all of the content you set up in the space template editor is reflected in the space you just created, and any auto-created app objects will have been created and saved to the space as well.

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Edit a space template

  1. Open Workona.
  2. Click Templates at the top of the sidebar. If you don't see it, you may need to reenable the sidebar item within settings.
  3. In the template manager, navigate to the Space Templates section.
  4. Click any space template to open in the template editor, or hover over a space template and click the Edit template button (pencil icon).
  5. The space template editor will open. While here, you can edit all parts of the template. See the create space template section for a more detailed explanation of the available settings. All of your changes will be autosaved.
Edit templates as needed
After saving the template, you can re-enter the editor at any time to make additional edits.
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Manage space templates

  1. Open Workona.

  2. Click Templates at the top of the sidebar. If you don't see it, you may need to reenable the sidebar item within settings.

  3. In the template manager, navigate to the Space Templates section.

  4. To manage a template, hover over a space template and click the buttons that appear:

    • Share template (team icon)
    • Edit template (pencil icon)
    • Delete template (trash icon)
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Manage team space templates

  1. Open Workona.

  2. Click the Teams button at the top of the sidebar, or navigate to workona.com/admin/.

  3. Select the team you want to manage.

  4. Select Templates in the team settings sidebar.

  5. Select Space Templates in the sidebar, and the team’s space templates will appear.

  6. To manage a template, hover over a space template and click the buttons that appear:

    • Share template (team icon)
    • Edit template (pencil icon)
    • Delete template (trash icon)
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Delete a space template

  1. Open Workona.
  2. Click Templates at the top of the sidebar. If you don't see it, you may need to reenable the sidebar item within settings.
  3. In the template manager, navigate to the Space Templates section.
  4. Click the Delete template button (trash icon) that appears when you hover over the template.
Next article: Doc Templates ➔