Capability presentation

Workspace Compass

Everyday document problems, solved where the documents already live.

A small set of extensions that add navigation, context, access control, activity and lifecycle signals to a document workspace. Deployed once, configured by the business, with no custom development for each change.

See how it works The engineering principles

01 — The spine

Six everyday problems

Each one is a sentence someone actually says, what they see once the extension is in place, and what it costs to run.

“I can never find the right library.”

What people see

A single navigation bar appears at the top of every workspace, with a full-width menu that opens left to right across the page. It supports many levels of hierarchy and colour-codes each level so people can see how deep they are.

What it costs to run

Reads its structure from an ordinary list; no code change to add or move a link.

Workspace navigation bar

OperationsEngineeringQualityProcurement

Level 1

Reports
Templates
Procedures

Level 2

Drawings
Specifications

Level 3

Approved
In review

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

“Who actually owns this workspace?”

What people see

A context card floats over the page (it never pushes the content down) showing the workspace's key details plus owners, members and visitors side by side.

What it costs to run

One request when the card is opened, not on every page load.

Workspace context card

Workspace details

Engineering workspace

Created: 14-03-2024
Type: Team workspace

Owners

Members

Visitors

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

“One owner is a single point of failure.”

What people see

If a workspace has only one owner, the card raises a governance warning and prompts for a second one. Owners can add and remove people with a directory search that shows each person's card and photo. Every removal asks for confirmation first: nothing is ever removed on a single click.

What it costs to run

Editing is offered only to people who already hold the permission; the platform itself enforces it.

Owner governance

Governance warning: this workspace has a single owner.

Add a second owner so responsibility is not held by one person.

Search the directory

A. Operations leadAdd
R. Quality managerAdd

Confirm removal : removal always asks first.

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

“What else is connected here?”

What people see

One panel lists the document libraries, the lists, the group applications and the sub-workspaces attached to the workspace, all clickable, each showing how many items it holds.

Connected content panel

Document libraries

Reports412
Templates38

Lists

Procedures94
Health & Safety27

Group applications

Planner board6

Sub-workspaces

Procurement3

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

“Dead workspaces pile up and nobody notices.”

What people see

A small coloured indicator sits in the bar on every workspace, showing at a glance whether it is active, ageing, dormant or was never used at all, and raising an alert to the owners when it becomes a candidate for offloading.

What it costs to run

One inexpensive request per workspace, cached for the working day.

The signal reads the last change made by a person, not by a system job.

Activity indicator in the bar

OperationsActive
EngineeringAgeing
QualityDormant
ProcurementUnknown

The indicator reads the last change made by a person, not by a system job.

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

“I can't see what changed recently.”

What people see

A component that surfaces the most recently modified documents from the workspace's main library, colour-coded by file type, with paging.

Recently modified documents

DOCSite survey notesmodified today
XLSCost breakdownmodified today
PDFHandover packmodified today
PPTKick-off deckmodified today

PreviousNext

Simplified mock-up. Labels are illustrative only.

02 — The model

The lifecycle model

Every workspace sits in exactly one state. Each state carries its colour, its rule in plain words, and the consequence for its owners.

State

Ageing

Rule

The last change made by a person is between 90 and 365 days old.

Review recommended.

Message an owner receives

This workspace has not been changed by anyone for several months. Please confirm it is still needed.

Deeper document-level rules, such as file types, document control states and version counts, are assessed by a scheduled background job, never by the browser.

03 — Discipline

Engineering principles

Runs as the person using it.: No elevated service account; the platform trims what each person sees.
Configured by the business, not by developers.: Structure lives in ordinary lists, so a change takes a minute and no deployment.
Deliberate request economy.: Every surface is costed in requests before it is built; shared requests are made once and reused.
Nothing disappears silently.: Broken or misplaced configuration is promoted, not dropped, so adding an entry can never make it vanish. Every removal is confirmed.
Never disturb the page.: Panels float above the content and leave the host page's layout untouched.
Installed once.: Deployed centrally and available everywhere, with no per-workspace installation.

04 — Boundaries

What this is not

A capability is easier to trust when its edges are stated plainly.

Not a migration tool.: It does not move, restructure or copy content between workspaces.
Not a records management or compliance system.: It records no legal determination and holds no retention schedule.
Not a replacement for the platform's own retention and security features.: Permissions and retention remain where they already are, enforced by the platform.
Not an analytics product.: It surfaces signals the platform already holds; it builds no separate measurement store.

05 — Adoption

How a rollout works

Pilot on a small set of workspaces.

Deploy the extensions to a handful of workspaces with willing owners. Watch how the navigation and context surfaces behave against real everyday use.

Configure the structure from lists.

The business fills in the navigation list and the workspace details it wants shown. No developer is involved in this step.

Observe the activity signals and agree the thresholds.

Run the lifecycle signals in read-only observation first. Agree what ageing and dormant should mean for your estate before any alert is sent.

Extend across the estate.

Once the thresholds hold up, the same central deployment covers every workspace. New workspaces inherit the behaviour with no installation step.

06 — Close

Request a walkthrough

A short, quiet session: the six surfaces in a sandbox workspace, the lifecycle rules, and the request cost behind each one.