In Oracle Primavera Cloud, workspaces are hierarchical structures used to organize projects. For Primavera P6 users, these are similar to the Enterprise Project Structure. Workspaces allow you to subdivide your organization’s work into different groupings. You can create workspaces to represent project types, site locations, or any other groupings required for your organization. Once created, you can use these groupings to organize projects and project data.

This article will outline the basics of using and creating workspaces in Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC). Once created, we will also look at how to adjust workspace specific permissions and data.

Workspaces Overview

Workspaces are like folders – you can use them to organize projects and project data. When working on a variety of projects, you may have certain data, like Resources or Calendars, that only apply to a certain type of work. For example, if you’re working on a project in New York City, you’ll only want to use your New York based resources – rather than your entire resource pool. By creating different workspaces for different types of projects, you can segregate this data from projects that will be using different data sets. In this way, you can keep your Los Angeles resources separate from your New York resources.

In Oracle Primavera Cloud, workspaces are arranged as a hierarchy. At the top of the workspace hierarchy, you’ll have a root Company workspace. By default, the root workspace comes with two child workspaces, Production and Non-Production. You can add as many child workspaces to both Production and Non-Production as needed to describe your company’s work. Most organizations choose to use the Production workspace for their active projects, organized by location or type. Non-Production, on the other hand, is often used for projects in development or testing.

You can customize your workspace hierarchy with as many workspaces as necessary to suit the needs of your organization. It’s important to note that this hierarchy isn’t just for one user – it’s for the entire database. However, the workspaces that a user has access to is determined by their user permissions. Even if a workspace exists in the hierarchy, not everyone will necessarily have access to it.

Here is an example of my OPC database’s workspace hierarchy. The root workspace, Taradigm, has two child workspaces for Production and Non-Production. Under Production, we host our active projects – organized by company. Under Non-Production, we host our non-active projects – such as for training and demos.

Data that you add to a workspace will push down to its child workspaces. Therefore, you should create your data as high up in the workspace hierarchy as needed. For example, if I wanted to create Global data, accessible to every project, I would create it at the Company workspace level. That way, the data will push down to all the child layers as well.

The same will be true for security settings. If you give a user access to a parent workspace, they’ll automatically have access to the child workspaces as well. In the same way, you could assign a user access to the Company workspace if you want to give them access to all projects and project data.

How to Create Workspaces

You can define your workspace hierarchy further by adding child workspaces. Child workspaces can only be added to the Production and Non-Production workspaces. You can not create a child workspace to the company root workspace.

To add a new workspace, use the object selector to select Workspaces > View All Workspaces. First, select the row for the workspace you wish to add yours under. Don’t select the text – this will link you to the selected workspace’s Home. Instead, just select the blank space within either the Production or Non-Production row.

Generally, you should host active products in Production, and non-active projects in Non-Production. In this example, I’ll define the hierarchy under Production, where I’ll organize projects by location. With a parent workspace selected, select Add to add a new workspace.

First, give the workspace a desired Name and ID. By default, the ID will fill in with the set name – but you can change this. The ID chosen must be unique to the Parent Workspace.

Next, under Parent Workspace, select where the workspace will reside in the hierarchy. By default, the selected workspace will appear, but you can change this by using the Select button. 

If you want to copy settings from another workspace to use for this one, select Copy From Another Workspace. This option will copy all security data and object configurations from the selected workspace. In this case, I’ll keep this blank to create a workspace from scratch. You can also add a Description if desired, but both of these sections are optional.

Once completed, press Save. The created workspace will appear in the workspace list.

With the workspace created, you can access it from the Workspace list or from the Object Selector.

Setting Up Workspace Permissions and Data

With the workspace created, you can now add projects and project data to it. Before doing so, however, you may want to set up workspace settings. You can adjust security permissions, defaults, and dictionaries for the workspace created. Any data created at the workspace level will push down to the projects and child workspaces within it. 

To adjust your workspace data, first open your workspace. Then, navigate to the Main Menu and select Summary & Settings.

The Summary & Settings window will feature seven different sections. Each section lets you adjust a variety of options for the workspace. By adjusting these settings ahead of time, you’ll be able to use them on any project you add to the workspace.

Details

The Details section allows you to adjust basic details about your workspace – such as the Name, ID, and Currency. Here, you can even upload an image to represent the Workspace. You can use this image with printouts and reports for projects within the workspace.

Dictionaries

Workspace dictionaries are items that you can use within the workspace – along with its projects and programs. Dictionaries are organizational data, such as Calendars or Codes. Some of these dictionary items, such as calendars, can be created at the project level as well. However, if you plan on using a calendar on multiple projects, you should create it at the workspace level.

Other dictionary items here, such as Currencies and Units of Measure, can only be created at the workspace level. You’ll use these fields to create all needed data for the projects you plan to add to the workspace later on.

Defaults & Options

This section lets you adjust the defaults and settings for objects within the workspace – such as Activities and Projects.

Depending on the object selected, you’ll have different options that you can adjust. For example, if I select Activities, I’ll have several tabs available to adjust activity data. I could use the Defaults tab to adjust the default details for activities added to projects within this workspace. On the other hand, I could use the Configured Fields tab to create unique fields for these same activities.

News Feed

This section provides updates on activity performed within the workspace. You’ll receive updates whenever anyone adds or removes projects from the workspace.

User Groups

This section lets you assign User Groups to the workspace. User Groups are groups of users assigned the same security access and permissions. By using User Groups, you can quickly assign the same security settings and access to multiple people at once.

Here, you can create User Groups, assign them to the workspace, and adjust their default permissions. It should be noted that Administrators can create User Groups in the Global Admin app, as well.

Permissions

This section allows you to configure permission sets to determine what users can do within the workspace. Although you can create permission sets here, they are typically created by your Administrator in the Global Admin app.

If you need to create a new permission set specifically for the workspace or projects within it, you can do that here. You will only have access to do this if you have Administrator level permissions assigned.

Security

Security allows you to control which users or user groups are able to access the workspace. Not every user will be able to see every project and workspace in the program by default. When you create a workspace, only yourself, the Application Administrators, and users with access to the parent workspaces can see and open it. For all other users, the workspace will not appear within their Workspaces list.

To allow a user to access the workspace, you’ll need to assign it to them. Along with that, you’ll need to assign them a workspace permission set to determine what they can do within the workspace. You can customize your user permissions here to allow some users read-only access, and other users full control.

If you make any adjustments within the Summary & Settings, make sure to press the Save button in the upper right hand corner before continuing.

Summary

In Oracle Primavera Cloud, workspaces represent the hierarchical organization of your database. Similar to P6’s Enterprise Project Structure, workspaces allow you to organize projects into categories. Workspaces work like folders – they host like-minded projects and project data together. At the workspace level, you can create data that any project within the workspace can use. If you have various projects that will be using the same resources or calendars, you can create them at the workspace level to ensure access. You can set up your workspace hierarchy in any way that meets the needs of your organization – such as by location or project type. By incorporating workspaces into your OPC database, you can ensure that your users always have access to the projects and data they need. 

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Lauren Hecker is the Oracle Primavera Cloud instructor for Taradigm. To see her next open enrollment course, please visit our calendar. To schedule an onsite or custom course, please contact us!