How to organize a workspace in Clockify

Let's say one part of your team already uses Clockify to track their work on billable projects.

But now you wish to implement Clockify in other departments, as well.

You can do that by adding the rest of the team to the existing workspace, or by creating a new workspace for each team division - dividing it in any way you see fit.

Depending on how closely different teams cooperate on the same projects, it might or might not make sense to organize your work in one or multiple workspaces.

In this guide we will explain details in both cases, so you can see what is the best option for your team.

Multiple workspaces: possibilities & limitations

When working on multiple workspaces, you want to keep in mind how closely different teams cooperate on the same project and agree on:

This way you prevent double billing or billing for activities that should not be charged.

Billing status can also be tracked from the Invoices tab (explained below).

With multiple workspaces, you can:

But, depending on the team size and complexity of the project, you might still want to narrow down the team to smaller groups and assign them roles.

With multiple workspaces, you can't:

Keeping track of billable and non-billable hours on projects, and generated profit or costs on multiple workspaces will spread out the data you will, at some point, need in one place.

So, when you wish to analyze the whole profit or costs for the whole company, you will have to export reports from different workspaces and combine them outside of Clockify to get the insights you need.

One workspace: possibilities & limitations

Having everything in one workspace will make it easier to track. Since everything is in one place, you can use filtering to generate custom reports for certain projects, clients, dates, etc.

With one workspace, you can:

With one workspace, you can't:

One of the potential issues with one workspace is if admins or managers unintentionally change something that will reflect on all team members or projects (e.g. team member cost rate, which will reflect on their paycheck).

In most cases, workspace settings can't be overridden. However, there are some exceptions.

Why would your team need more than one workspace?

Here is the list of settings that are unique to a workspace, and that will reflect further down the process.

Examine to see if some are of great importance to your workflow. If so, having multiple workspaces might be a better option for your team.

Project's DEFAULT billable status

Time organization

Time duration formats

Data and currency format

Company address and logo

In case your company has multiple legal representative bodies, the billing process might need to be diverged and therefore, handled from multiple workspaces.

Required fields

Custom fields

Alerts

And if you want to change that percentage for non-billable projects, for example, using multiple workspaces is a better solution for your team.

Approval period

Why one workspace might be enough for your team?

If your work processes are not too complex and the most important thing for you is to:

Then - having one workspace might be just enough for your team.

These are the settings that can be overridden however the workspace settings were initially set:

Project's billability

Default currency

Billable rates

This way you easily manage earnings for each team member, whatever their role in the team is.

Working days

Now let's see how organizing workspaces in Clockify actually works.

Organizing workspaces in Clockify

When you create a Clockify account, one workspace will be automatically created for you.

If that's convenient for your team, you can proceed to create projects, assign tasks and track time on them.

However, if you choose to have more than one workspace, here's how to create an additional one.

Create an additional workspace
Create multiple workspaces, e.g. a separate workspace for billable and non-billable projects.

Next, you would want to invite team members to the workspace they belong to.

Organize team members
New members can be added by clicking on the ‘Add new member' button and sending them an email invitation to join.

If you have only one workspace, organizing team members in groups will be especially important for scheduling tasks.

Create team groups
Team members are divided into two groups - Juniors and Seniors.

You can also give different roles and permissions to team members, according to their responsibilities.

In Clockify, there are 3 levels of permissions:

After all people are included in the workspaces, proceed to create a base of your clients.

Create new clients and manage your client database in Clockify
Create a client database with the most important information - name, contact, address, and notes.

After you got the client base all set up, go and set up the projects your team is working on.

Project list in Clockify
In Clockify, each project has a name, a client, and a color assigned to it to visually separate projects from each other.

If you want to designate a project for certain team members only, you can do that in Project settings.

Define who has access to a project
Project Stella is designated to team members that are a part of the Seniors group.

Now you can start assigning team members or groups to projects.

Team and project scheduling
Clockify will remind you that only certain members are a part of that particular project.

To avoid accidental double-billing, the billing status of the invoices can be tracked on the Invoices tab, where you can see which invoices were sent, paid, or overdue.

Track invoice payment status
Check what was already billed, what is on hold, and what should've been paid.

However you choose to organize your team, there is team-related or project-related information you want to keep in one place.

Clockify lets you create custom fields in a workspace, for time entries or for users.

Time entry custom fields
Choose the type of a custom field, set it as visible so people can see it, and enter the information.

The same goes for user custom fields.

User custom fields
Set custom user fields and it will be visible in their profile on the Team page.

All data within a workspace can be exported on the Reports page. You can filter tracked time for particular projects or clients.

Choose the date range, filter out the information you want to display, and export data as PDF, Excel, or CSV.

Summary report
Display the information you need and export reports in PDF, CSV, or Excel format.

Conclusion: Which option is better?

Operating within one or multiple workspaces has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the complexity of your processes, you can achieve the same results with either option.

In the first place, you need to ask yourself what your clients need from you. Can you segment data in the exact way they need if you have only one workspace, or would you need more?

Based on that, you can think about what could be the initial logical segmentation of your teams and processes.

Then, you should ask yourself:

Following this chain of thought will give you the answer to the question of what is the optimal solution for successful project completion in your case.

See how to boost your current work processes with Clockify Tutorials.