Collaborating with Spaces in CWM

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • 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, and assignments. There are two types of Spaces: personal Spaces for individual use and shared Spaces for team collaboration. The workspace is designed to provide a simplified, distraction-free environment for managing tasks and documentation.

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    Navigation and Usability

    • Navigation Panel: Displays the contents of one Space at a time, with options to switch Spaces, resize, or collapse the panel to maximize the workspace.
    • Search: Quickly locate any Space, Board, or Doc within the workspace. The search bar also shows recent items for faster access.
    • Keyboard Shortcuts: Accelerate actions such as searching, creating Spaces, Boards, Docs, and navigating to personal work with shortcuts available for macOS and Windows.

    Personal and Shared Spaces

    • My Space: Each user starts with a personal Space including a sample Board and introductory documents to familiarize them with CWM features. Users can create and organize additional Boards, Docs, and folders to manage their tasks.
    • Shared Spaces: Facilitate cross-functional collaboration by centralizing work on projects such as releases, presentations, or events. Shared Spaces integrate with ServiceNow AI Platform records to keep information unified and prevent task oversight.

    Managing Access and Permissions

    • Share Permissions Modal: Space owners and editors can manage user access by assigning roles (Owner, Editor, Viewer), removing users, and reviewing or approving access requests.
    • Task Assignment Access: When assigning tasks, users without access are indicated with a lock icon. Owners/editors can grant Viewer access directly or manage permissions later.
    • Requesting Role Elevation: Viewers can request an upgrade to Editor role through a simple interface, triggering email notifications to Space owners/editors for approval.

    Getting Started and Organization

    • Creating Spaces: Enables teams to establish collaborative environments for managing tasks and documentation.
    • Sharing Spaces and Managing Permissions: Allows inviting members and controlling access levels to ensure appropriate collaboration rights.
    • Organizing Content: Boards and Docs within Spaces can be grouped into folders to streamline project management and navigation.

    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. 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.

    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 so that 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 through a lock icon next to the user name. 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.