Collaborating with Spaces in CWM

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Collaborating with Spaces in CWM

    Collaborative Work Management (CWM) enables ServiceNow customers to create and manage collaborative Spaces where teams can work together on projects, goals, or assignments. There are two types of Spaces: personal Spaces for individual use and shared Spaces designed for cross-functional team collaboration. This structure helps centralize work, reduce information silos, and streamline project management within the ServiceNow AI Platform.

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    Navigation and User Interface

    • Navigation Panel: Displays the contents of one Space at a time for a distraction-free experience. Users can switch between Spaces via an alphabetical dropdown menu, resize, or collapse the panel based on preference.
    • Search Functionality: Quickly locate any Space, Board, or Doc and access recent items to improve efficiency.
    • Keyboard Shortcuts: Facilitate quick actions such as creating Spaces, Boards, Docs, and navigating to personal work areas using platform-specific shortcuts.

    Personal and Shared Spaces

    • My Space: Each user starts with a personal Space and sample Board to explore CWM features, including task Boards, Docs, and folder organization.
    • Shared Spaces: Serve as centralized hubs for teams to collaborate on tasks and documentation, enabling project planning and coordination without data fragmentation across multiple apps.

    Managing Access and Permissions

    • Share Permissions Modal: Space owners and editors can manage collaborator roles (Editor, Viewer, Owner), remove users, and review or approve access requests.
    • Task Assignee Access: When assigning tasks, a lock icon identifies users without Space access. Owners/editors can grant Viewer access immediately or later via the Share permissions modal.
    • Role Elevation Requests: Viewers can request Editor access, which triggers email notifications to Space owners/editors for approval or denial.

    Getting Started and Best Practices

    • Create Spaces to unify team collaboration on projects and tasks.
    • Invite and manage cross-team members by sharing Spaces and controlling permissions.
    • Organize content within Spaces by creating folders for Boards and Docs to maintain structure and clarity.

    This functionality empowers ServiceNow customers to efficiently coordinate work, maintain clear communication, and leverage integrated AI platform records, ensuring a seamless and productive collaborative environment.

    Create collaborative Spaces for teams to work together on projects, goals, or assignments.

    CWM provides two kinds of Spaces: A personal Space that can be accessed only by you and shared Spaces to collaborate with other users in your organization.

    Navigation within the CWM workspace

    Navigation panel

    The CWM navigation panel provides a simpler and cleaner user interface. At a given time, the navigation panel shows the contents of just one Space to provide a distraction-free experience while you work.

    Use the Spaces menu to choose a different Space. The Spaces you are part of are sorted by alpha in the Spaces dropdown menu. Additionally, you can also choose to resize the navigation panel or collapse it altogether to increase the working area for your Boards or Docs.

    CWM navigation panel.

    When you expand or collapse the Spaces menu, it's saved as your user preference and will remain so until you change it.

    Search

    Use the Search option to quickly find and open any Space, Board or Doc.

    Also, the Search bar displays all the recent Spaces, Boards, and Docs that you've navigated to within the CWM workspace. You can quickly select from the recent items without having to search for them again.

    Quick search feature in CWM.

    Keyboard shortcuts
    Use the following keyboard shortcuts to quickly perform actions within the workspace.
    Table 1. Keyboard shortcuts for CWM
    Action macOS shortcut Windows OS shortcut
    Search for a Space, Board, or Doc Option + F Alt + F
    Create Space Option + S Alt + S
    Create Board Option + B Alt + B
    Create Doc Option + D Alt + D
    Navigate to My Work Option + M Alt + M

    My Space

    By default, a Space and a sample Board are created for you so that you can get familiar with the features and options in the workspace. From your personal Space, you can browse through the Intro to Docs and Welcome to CWM documents for a high-level overview of what you can do with CWM.

    Create more task Boards, docs, and organize them into folders to manage the work assigned to you.

    Shared Spaces

    Collaborating with Spaces

    Shared spaces act as a central location for cross-functional teams to come together and collaborate toward common goals. Plan for the next big release, prepare for a presentation, organize a conference, and do much more using task Boards and collaborative Docs.

    With the capability to connect to any record across the ServiceNow AI Platform, avoid the risk of having information scattered across multiple apps and missing unplanned tasks.

    Spaces menu in CWM.

    Managing access in the Share permissions modal
    As a Space owner or editor, you can manage access for existing users of your Space and review access requests from other users using the Share permissions modal.
    • People with Access section: Manage the access level of existing collaborators to Editor, Viewer, or Owner, or remove them from the Space.
    • Pending Access section: Review requests from users and choose to grant or deny them access to your Space.

    Share permissions modal of CWM.

    Managing Space permissions for task assignees and other users

    As a Space owner or editor, while assigning tasks to your team members, you can identify users who don’t have access to the workspace. A lock icon appears next to the user name for these users. This icon is visible in the List view of the Board in the columns of type People such as Assigned to, Additional Assignee, and Assignment group.

    Lock icon to indicate no access for a user.

    You can either use the workspace prompt to grant assignees Viewer access or choose to manage their access level later from the Share permissions modal. For more information on managing sharing permissions, see Share a Space in CWM and manage sharing permissions.

    Grant access to task assignees.

    Requesting to elevate user access role to Editor

    The Viewing mode indicator in the Board header indicates that you have only the Viewer role to the Space that you're in. As a Space viewer, you can send a request to Space owners and editors to request elevating your role to Editor by selecting the indicator.

    Viewing mode indicator.

    Space owners and editors receive an email request from which they can choose to grant or deny access to the user.

    Using the following sections, get started with shared Spaces in the workspace.