Updates to the Teams Experience

Overview

We wanted to share a quick preview of a few changes coming to the WorkBoard Team’s experience as of August 12, 2022:

New team visibility settings. You’ll now be able to set the visibility setting of dynamic teams (working groups) to hidden, excluding them from search results for anyone who is not a member of the team.
Renamed working groups to dynamic teams. Working groups are now known as dynamic teams to better reflect the way we use teams. You’ll also see visual cues and tooltips to help distinguish between functional and dynamic teams.

Team Types and Permissions

Different Team Types

Dynamic Teams (Previously known as Working Groups): These Teams can be created by anyone and typically encompass cross-functional work, work done between one or more Functional Teams, or subsets of Functional Team Members. Learn more about Dynamic Teams.

Functional Teams: The core teams in your organization; what you would find in your organizational reporting hierarchy. Only WorkBoard Administrators can create Functional Teams. I.E. Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Finance, etc. Learn more about Functional Teams.

Different Team View Permissions

Anyone on a team can see all aspects related to the team on the team’s page. The visibility settings of a team control what non-team members can see regarding that team.

Visible Teams:

A visible team is discoverable in search listings.
When someone outside of the team comes to the team’s page, they can see the team name and the team member names. If you have OKRs that the user has permissions to see, they can also see those on your team page.
All functional teams are visible by default.

Hidden Teams:

Hidden teams show a crossed out eye icon.
Hidden teams are not discoverable in search listings.
When someone outside of the team comes to a team’s page, they cannot see the team name or team member names. The only exception is if they have been granted visible specific OKRs for your team.

Change a Team’s Visibility Settings:

Go to the View Setting of the Team to edit whether the team is visible or hidden.

FAQ about the new teams visibility settings:

Do OKR permissions and Team visibility influence each other?

OKR permissions and team visibility are separate constructs. Making a team hidden doesn’t automatically make the team’s OKRs private. You have the same controls to manage OKR visibility and permissions as you did in the past.

When should a team be hidden?

Ideally, all teams in your organization are visible to help foster transparency. The concept of hidden teams is more for the exceptional cases where a team is needed for sensitive initiative and efforts (M&A, HR Initiatives, etc.)

What will someone outside the team see if they search for a visible team? Or a hidden team?

If the team is visible, they can see the team name, team members, and OKRs they explicitly have permissions to see.
If the team is hidden, they are not able to see any information about the team or even search for it, unless the team’s OKRs were explicitly shared with them.

How will these new visibility settings be applied to existing teams?

The visibility settings that will be applied to existing teams will not expose any additional information than what was previously available to users.

Existing dynamic teams (working groups) were previously only discoverable to someone outside the team, if that individual had permission to see at least one OKR set for the team. To ensure that teams benefit from the privacy they previously had, the team will be hidden if it never had OKRs widely shared with the organization.
Functional teams have always been, and will continue to always be visible to everyone in your organization.

Can team visibility settings be changed?

Yes! Team managers and co-managers of Dynamic Teams can easily change a team’s visibility settings from the team settings under the kebob. Organizational admins can only change a team’s visibility setting via Admin Tools.

Are organizational admins able to see hidden teams?

Yes, hidden teams will show in the WorkBoard administrator tools as part of the full set of teams within the organization.

Where will visible teams be shown?

We’re making some changes in preparation for the new Teams Landing page coming this fall, where it will be easier to see and find teams across the organization. For now, visible teams will be shown and discoverable in Search.