OpenText Connected Workspaces (CWs) are powerful tools to manage work across teams. Using pre-built templates, you can quickly build collaborative hubs aggregating data, users, and tasks related to a common project.
But what if you need to modify existing CWs due to an organizational change, for example a new policy or procedure?
“We were one of the first companies to adopt CWs as we needed an effective way to organize our banking operations. We built 5 workspace templates, the “lending operations” one having over 2000 instances alone.
A new policy was released that required changes to roles, and the addition of new folders. Of course, adjusting the template for future workspaces wasn’t an issue, but what about the existing 2000 instances? The only viable option was a manual, one-by-one update“
Markos Dolopikos, IT Principal, Black Sea Trade & Development Bank
The Challenge
As crucial as CWs are to organizations, to date, there isn’t an automatic procedure to update the workspaces that you’ve already created.
In the best scenario, this will include a lot of manual work, especially when high volumes are involved. At worst, it will result in manual work and human errors that are hard to trace back.
In BSTDB’s case, it was estimated the update of 2000 CWs would have taken weeks to complete even employing a dedicated full-time resource. Time was indeed a critical factor as users were heavily relying on CWs for their daily work.
“We also considered writing our own script, but even that would have required too much effort (custom dev., testing, production…) plus, the script would have worked for that one time only. What I needed was a neutral tool for any update job without having to depend on coding“
The Solution
The Connected Workspaces Updater is an extremely intuitive tool powered by Module Suite that allows you to push updates from workspace templates to existing workspace instances.
“As a member of the OpenText Product Advisory Council for over 20 years, I have the experience to recognize what is unique. And I can confidently say the Connected Workspaces Updater is a true game-changer.
It totally streamlines the management of CWs. I didn’t expect such a utility to be so solid and user-friendly. This is too good to be true“
Markos Dolopikos, IT Principal, Black Sea Trade & Development Bank
The type of update operations can include:
- add / edit / remove folders
- add / edit / remove roles
- edit users & permissions (ACL = Access Content List)
Its custom form-based UI allows you to easily configure all the necessary steps for the update job.
The first required action is to specify a title for the operation and the workspace template that will serve as the basis for the update. In the example below, let’s say we want to add a new folder (“Drafts”) to the existing “Employee” workspaces. To facilitate users, an online guide is also provided in the left sidebar.
The next section shows a dropdown of the available operations (content, role, member, or ACL update). Once you’ve mapped the action type (in our case: Content Update –> Create Folder), you can specify which folder to add from the ones available in the template. The same update operation can encompass as many actions as you wish.
You could even create ad-hoc rules based on custom conditions, for example: if the existing workspace has more than “X” members, do not create the new folder.
The tool also offers the flexibility to choose between massive or batch updates via the “Target Type” field:
- Container: this will trigger a bulk update (all existing workspaces in the selected template)
- Workspace type: the changes will be applied to specified workspace IDs only;
- DB Query: workspaces can be selected via a custom DB query;
The system even allows you to perform a “Dry Run” of the operation to check how many CWs would be processed in the final execution.
You can also optimize execution times by selecting the chunk size (N. of processed workspaces) that will be elaborated in parallel. The smaller the chunk size, the greater the optimization.
Once you’ve triggered the execution, it’s possible to monitor its progress in real-time through the main dashboard.
Verifying Results
With every update job, comes an Excel Report providing an overview of the outcome per workspace ID. Specifically, the log will show you which action (mapping rule) was performed and will notify you about any occurred errors.
Everything Flows
Today’s world keeps evolving at a faster pace than ever. Time passes, scenarios change, new rules and regulations pop up. The Modern Enterprise cannot afford to be “stuck in static”, or else it’ll lose its competitive edge.
Utility-based tools that allows you to effortlessly manage your Connected Workspaces architecture are key to ensuring the continuing success of your business operations.
Not only Module Suite can help you build such tools, but thanks to its agile approach, it allows you to adapt them to your changing needs by defining your own business logic & rules and merging them seamlessly in the process.
Are you facing challenges with Connected Workspaces? If you’re a Module Suite customer, please get in touch with your Sales Rep. Alternatively, contact info@answermodules.com for a tailored demo
Watch this OpenText Webinar on the Connected Workspaces Updater:
