Structure spaces across your org

Advanced · ~15 min · Prerequisites: None

What you'll do

Think through how to partition your organization's shared content into Spaces so colleagues can find what they need without falling into an unmaintained tangle of overlapping rooms.

One space per group

The most durable heuristic: one Space per natural audience — a team, a department, or a project — not one per person or one per document type.

• Team Space — Engineering, Design, Marketing. Members are the team; content is the team's working knowledge.
• Department Space — a broader audience than a single team but narrower than the whole company. Use when content is relevant across multiple teams within a department.
• Project Space — time-bounded; archive or close it when the project ends rather than letting it drift.

Avoid creating a Space for an individual. Personal documents belong in Your content. A Space only adds value when more than one person is the intended audience.

Org-visible vs private by default

Default new Spaces to org-visible unless there is a reason to restrict them. Org-visible Spaces appear in everyone's sidebar and the /content hub, making your org's collective knowledge discoverable without requiring an invitation.

Reserve private for Spaces whose existence itself is sensitive — executive planning, HR matters, confidential client work. A Space that is simply "not interesting to most people" is not a good reason for private; use org-visible and let people self-select out.

See Choose space visibility for the full comparison and how to change visibility later.

The Organization space for company-wide

Every member of your organization belongs to the Organization space automatically. Reserve it for content that everyone genuinely needs:

• Company handbooks and policies
• Onboarding materials
• Org-wide announcements or reference

Do not use it as a dumping ground. If content is only relevant to one team, it belongs in that team's Space. A cluttered Organization space degrades trust and reduces the signal-to-noise ratio for everyone.

Keep it navigable

A Space that grows without maintenance becomes a liability. A few habits that keep your Space structure usable as the org scales:

Consistent naming — use the same naming pattern across Spaces (e.g. team name, not acronym) so colleagues can predict what exists before they search.

Home pages as front doors — give each active Space a home page that explains the Space's purpose, links to key documents, and shows recent activity. A new member who lands in an empty home page has no way to orient themselves.

Folders for depth, not breadth — use folders within a Space to group related documents, not to create sub-Spaces. If a folder grows large enough to feel like its own team's territory, consider splitting it into a new Space.

Retire dead Spaces — close or archive Spaces when a project ends or a team disbands. An empty or stale Space erodes trust in the whole content structure. Members who find three-year-old documents quickly stop treating Spaces as a reliable source.

Roles at the right level — most members should be editors so they can contribute without needing to ask an owner to make changes. Reserve owner for the person or small group responsible for the Space's health. See Members & roles for the full permission breakdown.

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