Taking inspiration from Slack’s “Invite External Collaborators”, it could be quite nice for those invited as guests automatically get their own workspace with their own domain, which is integrated (2 way) with the entities that are shared with them.
In general, the way in which multiple workspaces work is a bit confusing right now. Since your inbox is scoped only to one workspace, if you (company) are on Fibery, and you are working with another company which is on Fibery as guests, it is quite clunky…
Having the “Shared with me” and “Inbox” be scoped across all workspaces could be nice.
And then a central “Personal Workspace”, where the user sees all the data they have access to and add their own fields, views, etc to it. As an alternative to the planned “Private Databases” maybe? Not sure about exact mechanics, but I think there needs more thinking here for a future where everyone uses Fibery. (It’ll come!!!)
I can see the value to this, but I wonder if it would be quite difficult technically speaking. Different workspaces can be housed in different servers (and different regions).
Hm… Yeah I have no idea how hard it would be to implement, but! I know there’s the Fibery to Fibery integration. Although just for enterprise, and I don’t know if it’s 2-way.
But if it is indeed a 2 way integration, does it matter they are on different servers? Genuinely curious. Also don’t know of its enterprise because the tech is expensive, or if it’s generally only a need for enterprises. Also never used the 2 way Jira integration. Can you create Jira entities in fibery or is it 2-way just in the sense of editable entities? But yeah Idk what tech you’d need, and it could make things a bit more complex, but I think for collaboration it makes sense. If you compare it to Google Workspace, where sharing things with people just adds it to their own workspace’s “Shared with me” instead of being invited into the workspace itself. Could be a good difference with “Guests” and “Members”
It is not 2-way. It behaves like an Airtable or Notion sync, whereby the entities in the source are created as read-only copies in the destination.
I think behind the scenes, the item is not being ‘added’ to the user’s workspace but rather the user is in fact invited into the ‘source workspace’ as a collaborator, and it is merely a UI thing that the item (that lives in the source workspace) shows up in the same view as other items (that live in the user’s own workspace). There is no ‘syncing’ AFAIK and there is no connectivity possible between items in a user’s own workspace and items that have been shared from somewhere else.
I suppose it would be analogous to having a single account login that allowed you to simultaneously operate in multiple workspaces (as admin in one, guest in another, etc.)
Exactly! It kind of already works in this way. A single “Fibery Account” has access to multiple workspaces. But each is its own separate thing at the moment.
I see, and if it would be a 2-way integration, the item would really be added into the workspace as opposed to Google Drive’s “Shared with me” that just queries things from other workspaces? I thought I understood, but after writing it down it sounds still very similar…
Indeed, and this is where Fibery could really stand out!
Imagine “Workspace” is a Google drive’s “Shared Drive” I think that is the most similar in terms of analogy. You can either add external people into the shared drive itself (with different role types - Workspace), or into a specific folder (With different role types - Spaces), or invite to specific docs/slides/sheets (With different role types - entity access). All your Shared Drives live inside of your google account. And it’s not so hard to switch between them. In Fibery they are very disconnected from each other. Again, maybe the tech doesn’t allow it, but in any case I think it’s important to give it some deep thought for a future where everyone uses fibery.
If I’m partnership with another company that also uses Fibery. Should I invite them into my workspace or they invite me? Neither of us want to be jumping across workspaces in order to collaborate. I hope I’m able to illustrate the problem… Idk about a clean solution, but definitely a problem for scale.
“Internal systems” are also used by external people sometimes. This needs more work.
FWIW I use browser tabs (and if necessary, browser profiles) to be signed into multiple workspaces simultaneously.
It’s not the same as having views from both workspaces in a single sidebar, but it’s not too bad.
IT manager perspective here, yes, yes I do. It is preferred to choose a clear owner of the information and collaborate exclusively in one space.
I think of collaborating across workspaces as either “travelling” to the client or pushing finished products out GIT style.
Even if you’re working on a few projects at the same time? I’m not sure if you’ve ever used the Slack Connect, but the way it does it is really really neat. In the channel settings is still tells you which workspace is the channel owner, but also tells you access from other workspaces and members in those workspaces.
I’m struggling to understand why it is preferred to collaborate exclusively in one space. Even just having the “Shared with me” be consolidated across all workspaces you’re in?
Git is a popular version control system (GitHub and GitLab) are based on it. In this comment, I’m alluding to how when collaborating with Git, you store versions of shared data locally and then push a stable version out - as opposed to real time collaborative editing.
The decision of whether to manage a product in your workspace or the client’s is, in my opinion, a workflow question. Is this something I own until the client pays their last invoice? My workspace. Is this a subcontract/collaboration where I work directly in their workspace? (and in that case I might copy the finished product back to mine for documentation, work completion tracking). I try to avoid ever managing tasks in two systems at once. One is always the source of truth, the other a simplified mirror.
When I consider seat management, data security, and context switching the UX friction of having to change browsers or accounts is good for indicating to a person where they are at and who owns the data.
For a collaborative editing platform, changes are stored every second something changes. The permissions are expansive. And it’s much easier to forget or lose track of the owning workspace for a comment or an entity. VS Slack or Email, a finished version of a message is shared at a fixed point in time with external parties.
I see. So to you the friction of changing accounts makes things clear as to where the data really lives. Makes sense from an IT perspective! Maybe a shared inbox across spaces then? I’m thinking about how Fibery can replace the Google Workspace. Including Email. Ideally everyone is on Fibery and there’s no need for email notifications or slack. But then moving around different inboxes to see if I have any updates isn’t ideal. It is like having separate emails.
As I’m writing I also see it in a different way: Each workspace is like an Email. You need to change accounts to see different emails from different places. I’m not sure. You wouldn’t need a separate email if you’re working with a client or partnering with someone. Not just as client and contractor, but also as partner or collaborator. I wouldn’t need to make another ron@clientemail.com just to have access to their stuff. They send it to my email (workspace) and I can see it right away.
Like, I see what you’re saying that from a data point of view it’s more clear where everything is. But from a collaboration point of view I feel like it adds a lot of friction.
If each student in the class had a fibery workspace to take notes. And they wanted to share notes around (invite as guest), each student would need to log into eachothers workspace just to see other notes. And search works on everything you have access to, not limited to things you own. While thats not Fibery’s exact use case, as businesses grow and work with more people and businesses, I think its analogous.