End of marketing for Watson Workspace service

January 15, 2019

IBM has announced the end of marketing for the Watson Workspace service.  IBM also anticipates ending the Watson Workspace service on 2/28/19.  All users of Watson Workspace, both the paid and free versions, should make arrangements for alternate means of communication and save any conversations and content from the service that they wish to keep.  A tool to assist in doing so is available here. 

 

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 All new: Improvements to training Watson + Topics

October 16, 2018

A few months back we introduced prioritized spaces. Watson was effectively learning from your activity and prioritizing your list of spaces to highlight which are most important to you. When you view a prioritized space, you'll also see exactly why Watson decided it was important for you. Your personalized model learns and gets smarter with your ongoing activity as well as explicit feedback from you. You'll see something like this...

Many of you told us you wanted it to be really clear that Watson was paying attention with more explicit "feedback" to your feedback. So we fixed that. You can be sure your input is immediately being fed back into your personal model because Watson will tell you so. Another often requested feature is threaded conversation.

Today, we are also introducing topics. Think of topics as sub-conversations within a space. From the message input field in any space, you can now create a topic. Give it a name, and start conversing. All topics reside in the space resources view and anyone in the space can see the topics. But you can also choose which topics you want to keep up with by simply following select topics. All updates to topics you follow will be in the Activities view (the bell in the left navigation on web/desktop or bottom nav bar on mobile) - so you don't have to actually go into each space to keep up with the latest activity. 

This is just the beginning of our vision for threading. We believe there are different user expectations for "replying" and "sub conversations" that warrant different capabilities so stick with us - there is so much more awesomeness to come.

 

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New Features: Meeting recordings and more capabilities

October 4, 2018

Exciting news!  You can now record your audio and video meetings in Watson Workspace.  It's simple, just start a meeting, click record and when the meeting ends the recording will be available in the space in the main conversation as well as the resources view.  Anyone in the space can download the MP4 file which includes the audio, video and any screens shared during the meeting.  This is available to any Plus user in a space owned by a Plus or Essentials team.  

We've also enabled some additional capabilities for our built-in meetings including mute all, mute participants on entry, allow participants to unmute themselves, turn on and off the enter/exit chime, and lock the meeting.  These capabilities are all available in the participants pane of any meeting and available to all participants. 

Finally, the host of the meeting (or the person that started the meeting) can manually end the meeting. If the meeting is not "ended" it will still end automatically when all participants have left the meeting.

 

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Bonus! Drag and Drop to upload files

September 17, 2018

It's easy!  Just drag and drop any file right into the space conversation to upload it to the space.  Done and done!  Enjoy!

 

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Admins: Manage space templates & migrate users

September 17, 2018

Team administrators for Plus offerings can now manage space templates from the Watson Workspace Admin portal.  Basically, as a team admin, you can add and remove custom templates that are available to team members.  Any approved space templates will be available to team members when they create a space.  Templates are designed to help you and your team stay aligned and focused on delivering outcomes for specific scenarios.  Learn more about developing custom templates.  

Plus, if you've just recently purchased an Essentials or Plus subscription, it's likely you'll need to migrate Preview (Free) users and their spaces to your paid subscription,  We've provided an optional tool to assist you in migrating these users and their spaces from our Preview offering to a paid Watson Workspace team.  Read about our migration tool. 

Watson Workspace Essentials and Plus offer robust enterprise-grade administrative controls, and dedicated support. Watson Workspace Plus includes everything in Essentials, as well as, Zoom video & audio conferencing and custom templates.  Learn more about our paid offerings.   

 

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Just added: Resources view on mobile & more

September 5, 2018

The latest mobile applications in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store have a few new additions we know you'll be excited about  🎉

• The resources view for direct messages and spaces is now available on mobile devices.  Tap the resources view icon in the nav bar and just long press any image or file to jump to where it was shared in the conversation, save (images) to your device,  and share files with others. Tap any image from the resources view to preview it. 
• Also, space properties, including custom template properties are now available on mobile.  View and edit properties associated with your space or custom template right from your mobile device.  

 

 

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A Few Friday Updates... 

August 24, 2018

Here's a few quick updates for your Friday! 

• You can now edit your messages on mobile.  Be sure to download the latest mobile applications in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. 
  
  
• Just a heads up - due to lack of support, SIA will be removed from the app catalog on September 1, 2018.  Looking for an alternative?  Check out this IFTTT recipe that sends the latest news to your space.  
  
  
• Interested in participating in our user research?  We are always looking for input from our users.  Sign up via this short survey.  Also don't forget to add your ideas and vote for your favorites.  

 

 

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Follow Watson Workspace on Medium

August 8, 2018

Up until now we've been doing our darnedest to keep you up to date with all that's happen via this really long article turned pseudo blog, but now we're making things a little more official with a new publication on Medium.  You can find us at https://medium.com/ibm-watson-workspace.  The best part is that this is another way for you to connect with us - Follow us, Like us 👏, Comment on our posts!  We'll keep updating this article with our last updates, kinda like a changelog, but hope to bring your more best practices, user stories, behind the scenes, why we did it, what's happening - kind of content on Medium.  We hope you'll check it out! 

 

 

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Prioritizing your conversations using AI

August 6, 2018

Leveraging artificial intelligence to optimize how you collaborate and get work done has been a key tenant of Watson Workspace since day one.  Early on, we introduced Moments, a smart summarization of your conversations. Moments set out to solve an obvious problem with conversational collaboration conversations are happening all the time and its hard to keep up, yet the fear of missing out results in you spending far too much time still trying to read every new message. Moments instead give you an overview of the conversation and allowed you to make better decisions about where to focus, without needing to read every message.  Now we've taken this a step further, and are introducing a personalized prioritization of your conversations based on understanding what's important to you.   

We learned, through extensive user research, that even reducing a conversation to less than 10% of its original length with a summary can still mean you are overwhelmed by the number of unread marks you have. Very often, different aspects of the same conversation are important to different people.  So we knew that summaries, while useful, were not enough, we had to be even more selective and personalize what we show to people. So now we are. Here's what to expect with our new prioritized spaces. As you work, and interact with others, Watson is learning what matters to you focusing on spaces you've marked as important or spend a lot of time in, people you tend to interact with the most, and topics you engage on more often.  It's developing, without you doing anything other than your everyday work, your personal model, by learning what matters to you.  (Interested in learning more about how this work?  Read this article for all the details).  So how do you know what's prioritized? That's the easy part.  Now, when a conversation is prioritized for you, based on our personalized algorithm, we will highlight the space in the spaces list with a purple outline

 

Once you go to the space, in the right sidebar (in our web and desktop apps), we'll show you the exact moments of conversation that were prioritized for you and deserve your attention. 



Jump into the discussion and get to work.   

 

 

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Go ahead and edit your message!

July 6, 2018

Quite possibly, our most requested feature was the ability to edit messages.  It's now available in our web and desktop apps - just hover over any message you posted and from the action menu, choose Edit message.  Be sure to refresh your client if you aren't seeing it yet. 

Your updated message will show as "edited" in all our apps, including mobile (You need to download the apps from the App stores). 

Don't worry, edit is coming very soon to our iOS and Android apps too. 

 

 

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A few new gems...

May 31, 2018

Happy Thursday!  I just wanted to share a few new updates to our apps that you might not have noticed.  For starters, we just added spell checker to our desktop app - YAYYYY! 🎉 It works by recognizing the language you are using based on your selection in the language menu).   

Speaking of language selection, we've also added English as an option for our apps, previously we only offered English-US, but you will now notice an additional selection for English.

Enjoy! 

 

 

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Even better together: Work with Connections Files in Workspace

May 15, 2018

To share Connections files in Watson Workspace just add the Connections Files App to any space, select the "Share files" icon in the message input field—today—and choose a Connections file to share with your space. Read this article to learn more.

Plus, if your Connections admin has enabled the integration to Watson Workspace in IBM Connections, you can also share a file to Workspace from Connections Files.  Go to any Connections file, choose the "More actions" menu and select the space you want to share the file with. 

Visit the Connections Knowledge Center for more details. Right now these features are only available on the web or from our desktop app. But, for all our mobile users out there, make sure you have the latest mobile apps available in the app stores - when someone shares a meeting URL in a calendar entry or conversation - it will now take you right to that space in the native app and join you right to the meeting! 

 

 

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New Features: Public spaces, Space description

April 11, 2018

Up until now, every space you created was private - meaning only the people that had been invited or added to the space had access.  This week, we are introducing Public spaces, available to all Essentials or Plus users.  By default, all spaces are private, but you can designate it as public when you create the space, so its available to everyone in your paid team or after you worked with others privately, and you want to share what you've learned or accomplished, toggle your space from private to public.  Learn more about creating public spaces and discovering public spaces.  

We've also added a space description so you can let others know the purpose of your space.  You can add a description when you create a new space or in space settings.  It will show up at the beginning of the transcript, in your space settings and for public spaces, it will be available as part of the space preview.  The space description is available in all our apps.  

 

 

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What happened to the emojis?

March 26, 2018

No, this isn't an early April Fools joke, the emojis in Watson Workspace do look a little different.  The good news is that they should work exactly the same, you can still use them to react to any message, you can add emojis to your messages and even your space names (and they will show up as your space icon).  So what happened?  

The emoji palette most users are familiar with is Apple's emoji palette,  but Apple has recently starting cracking down on the use of their palette in non-Apple apps, so for the time being, we are using the Twitter emoji palette.  Read this article for more information. 

 

 

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Video & Audio Calls + Watson Workspace Plus!

March 19, 2018

We are so excited to announce that now Watson Workspace comes with video, audio and screen sharing capabilities, powered by Zoom - the leader in modern video communications.  The video and audio capabilities are built directly into Watson Workspace, so any Watson Workspace user with Watson Workspace Plus, our latest offering, can launch a meeting from a space and anyone (even free users) can start a 1:1 video call from direct messages. 

Be sure to get our latest mobile apps (Apple App Store and Google Play Store) to join video calls from mobile or desktop. 

Read our official announcement, about our partnership with Zoom and get more details about Watson Workspace Plus.  

 

 

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Quickly reply with Reactions

March 19, 2018

👏👏👏That's how we feel about reactions! Now, you can use emoji to quickly respond to your teammates' messages and see how people are reacting to what you've said. Hover over any message (or long press on mobile), choose a reaction from the picker and add your reaction. We've even identified some quick reactions based on the emojis you said you were most likely to use. (Learn more about how to participate in our user research).



You can also tap someone else's reaction to add your vote to it.  

As an added bonus, we've updated the emoji picker in the input field on web/desktop.  Now you can search, and quickly pick from your frequently used emojis. 



We can't wait to get your reaction—hopefully you think it's 💯.

 

 

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New Notification Settings

March 19, 2018

We know this is an update your are going to be excited about!  If there is one thing we get feedback on it's notifications and the team has been working hard to bring you more choices for what you're notified about.  Right away, you'll notice a difference - you'll be notified for all activity, which is awesome for everyone who is just getting started with Watson Workspace, however, if you have a lot of spaces and direct messages you might want to limit the notifications you receive.  That's easy to do now.  

In the web/desktop apps go to User settings > Notifications and Sounds and you will see three notification setting options: All activity, Mentions and direct messages or Nothing.  Make your selection and this will be the default setting for all your conversions. 

Here's how to think about it: 

• #fearofmissingout: Set your mobile or desktop notifications to All activity. 
• #turndownthevolume: Set your mobile or desktop notifications to Mentions and direct messages
• #quitpingingme: Set your mobile or desktop notifications to Nothing. 

Better yet, you can determine if you want the same or different settings on mobile! Learn more about notification settings.

Don't forget - if you need to step away, don't want to miss anything, but don't want a lot of notifications, you can always use Moments, smart summarization by Watson, to quickly catch up.   

 

 

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New mobile app updates in App Stores

February 8, 2018

Hey there! You know when you don't hear from us for a while -  that means we've been extra busy getting things done!  And today, we're excited to announce some updates to our mobile apps! Here's what's new:  

• You can delete messages you post from your mobile devices.
• We've changed up how the transcript loads.  Instead of returning you to where you last were, we take you to the bottom of the transcript first with a quick jump back to where you last were.  So it's the best of both worlds!  Now, what you see as the preview in the list of spaces matches what you see first in the space conversation, and by loading the most recent messages first, you'll be able to view recent messages when you are offline.  It's a win-win! 
• You can mark as a space as important two ways now.  Previously you could swipe any space from the Spaces list and choose Mark as Important.  Now, you can also go to any space, navigate to Space settings and choose Important. 

That's a lot of goodies in one update!  Go get the latest apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

 

 

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Learn more about the AI powering Watson Workspace

January 12, 2018

According to some estimates, knowledge workers spend an average of 28 hours in a typical work week on email and messaging, conversations and collaboration.  Collaboration tools offer asynchronous messaging as a way to keep workers informed of the latest developments, yet, information overload still remains a key obstacle to productivity - one that one Forbes’ article reports it is costing US economy $650B in productivity loss per year.  As a result, there has been a growing interest in adding intelligent assistance to conversational tools in order to understand conversations that are centered around getting organized and getting work done.  

However, not all conversations, or all threads within conversations are equal. Some conversations and portions within them involve specific exchanges that are significantly more interesting to a given user.  Analyzing conversations to extract such meaningful information in order to offer personalized views of conversations to each participant is a key challenge that has not been previously addressed. 

Introducing Collaborative Language Engine (CLE),  a novel approach for identifying individual actions within conversation text. CLE is capable of being trained and learning from user interactions and feedback, in a gradual and personalized/adaptive manner; making the system adaptable to individual users, domains or companies. CLE, along with many other Watson cloud services, empowers the AI capabilities of Watson Workspace, including its action identification capability.  To learn more, read the complete article from IBM Research.

 

 

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Delete your messages + Six new languages

December 21, 2017

Uh oh - didn't mean to send that message?  had a typo?  posted to the wrong space?  We know mistakes happen, and it's been a little difficult to remedy those - until now...  You'll be thrilled to know that you can now delete any message you post, no explanation necessary, and if the message has an image or a file, those will be deleted as well (from the conversation and the resources view). We know for some of you (based on the sheer volume of requests we had for this feature) - this might be the best news you've received all year!

Plus,  there's more... Watson Workspace is now fully localized in six languages -  French, Spanish, Italian, German, Brazilian Portuguese and English - with several more languages to come.   Set your language in any of our apps, and the help center! 

To get the recent updates - be sure to download the latest mobile apps from Apple App Store and Google Play Store. 

And from all of us at Watson Workspace - Best wishes for the happiest holidays!

 

 

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Introducing IBM Supply Chains with Resolution Rooms

December 8, 2017

Happy Monday Everyone! We are super excited to announce general availability of IBM Supply Chain Insights with embedded Watson Workspace to support collaborative incident management. It’s the first of its kind - a custom Watson Workspace experience called Resolution Rooms - which is essentially a template tailored specifically for incident management. It has all the core collaboration capabilities you love from Watson Workspace, plus the ability to track and progress an incident from new to resolution.  

Check it out!

Here’s an overview video on IBM Supply Chain Insights and a click through demo introducing Resolution Rooms.

This is just the beginning.  Stay tuned for more custom industry solutions leveraging Watson Workspace. 

 

 

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Featured: Meet the IBM Watson Workspace team, redefining how IBM delivers software

November 7, 2017

Beyond making things better for our end-users, Watson Workspace has redefined how we build, test and deliver software in IBM. We started from the premise that the cloud-first principles which revolutionized the consumer software market can and should apply just as well when building enterprise collaboration tools: Horizontal scalability to support millions of users, true continuous delivery with builds deployed to production within hours of code being committed, security at the foundation of everything we do and a delivery model where every step of the process, from testing to deployment is automated.  Read the full article here.  

 

 

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Share Email to Workspace

September 29, 2017

You know those never-ending email threads that would be so much quicker and easier to resolve if you could just have a single conversation with everyone in one place?  Now with Watson Workspace's new custom add-in for Microsoft Outlook, you can!  It allows you to: 

• Create a new space directly from an email message, seamlessly continuing your workflow.
• Share emails and email attachments into a space in Watson Workspace and discuss the work in real time.
• See what actions you need to take in your email messages. We're using Watson cognitive technology, Action Summary (beta), to recognize and highlight key actions in your email conversations.  

Read Getting the Microsoft Outlook Email Add-in to learn how to install the add-on.  

 

 

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Introducing Watson Workspace Essentials

September 26, 2017

Today, we are excited to announce a brand new plan for Watson Workspace - Watson Workspace Essentials!

Both our Preview offering and enterprise Essentials editions have the same basic collaboration capabilities - group & direct messaging, file sharing, search, custom apps and integrations, open APIs, Watson cognitive technology & more. However, Watson Workspace Essentials offers robust enterprise-grade administrative controls, and dedicated support - just what you need to roll out Watson Workspace to entire organization(no matter the size).

You can purchase Watson Workspace Essentials in several ways - by credit card in IBM Marketplace or through your IBM sales representative or a business partner. Learn more about our plans and features  and read our official announcement.

Got any questions? Contact us directly.

PS.  We've slipped in a few other updates too.

• Mark your spaces and direct messages as important so you never miss an important message again.
• Unread marks are now bold on web/desktop (no more dots!)
• We've flipped the order for creating space - Name it first and then add people (just like you asked for!)
• Check out our all new Lab apps
• We've made a ton of updates for our Essentials enterprise offering - including a brand new Admin Portal, the ability to add and transfer owners in a space, managed guest users, space permissions & properties and more  - check out all our admin content to learn more. 
• We've got a shiny new logo to go with all our other new stuff!
• And, of course, our iOS and Android apps have been updated - get the latest!

 

 

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Fresh from the labs

September 25, 2017

Lab apps are here! And there are some cool ones you’ll want to check out - PagerDuty and News to start, and more coming soon.

Lab apps are integrations that developers in our labs built that are in "preview," which means they are ready to use, but they aren't 100% polished yet, so they may not have the same availability and support as regular apps. The goal is to get people using them to gather feedback and gauge interest before they receive the official stamp of approval.

Wondering where to find these apps? Go to any space, and navigate to Space Settings > Apps and look for the "Labs" label in the app info. The developers of these apps are anxious for your feedback, so get the apps, and be sure to tell us what you think either in our Developer forum or email the developers directly (email is in the app description).

Happy app'ing!

And while we're at it - we should point out that a few of these apps have support for slash commands - basically short cuts to actions you can take right from the message input field. Developers can now create apps with support for Slash commands. For example, add the News app to your space, go to your message input field and type / and you'll get a typeahead of slash command shortcuts including /news to get the latest headlines. Choose that command, type the hint text, send the message and you've got the news. Pretty cool eh? Look for more slash commands coming soon.

 

 

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Mark it important

September 25, 2017

If you are anything like me - even though I have a lot of spaces, there are just handful that are super important - meaning - if there is new activity, it's important that I see it front and center. Now, we have surefire way to make sure you never miss important activity. Here's how:

Mark any space as important by starring it and as soon as there is activity - that space will move to the very top of your list in a section reserved for your most important spaces. Once you catch up, the space will return to it's normal position. It's similar to favoriting a space, except we don't want to take up precious list real estate by pinning a space when there is no activity, so we'll only bubble it to the top when there is activity. (Don't worry, we'll provide a way to filter by Important soon too so you get the best of both worlds)

There's another change we snuck into this update - you might have noticed that there is no more green dot for new activity on web/desktop (it's still on iOS - that's just their thing). That's right - based on feedback from users - we are now using bold for conversations that have new activity instead of the green dot. You got it - no more confusion between two green dots (our presence indicator and unread messages) or multiple indicators on the same conversation (star and unread) . It's all about keeping it simple! Let us know what you think!

 

 

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Finally, the highly anticipated iOS app icon badge count is here

September 11, 2017 

The wait is over -  a LOT of you asked for this and now it's finally here - hint, make sure you get the latest iOS app.  

On iOS, we've added a badge counter to the Watson Workspace app icon on your home screen. The number corresponds to the number of unread spaces, and direct messages you haven't seen yet in the app.  Now you can be sure not to miss new activity!

 

 

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Direct Message anyone in Watson Workspace from Connections Cloud 

August 29, 2017

Exciting news for all Connections Cloud users - Watson Workspace can now be configured as a chat provider for your organization!  It's available in the Connections Cloud third party apps catalog (your org admin will need to enable/configure it). 

Basically, with the click-to-chat capability configured you'll be able to start a direct message with anyone in Watson Workspace from the Connections navigation bar, Connections profiles, Connections biz card, IBM Verse people bar (important to me bar) and the Verse biz card.   How cool is that?  Learn more.

 

 

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New mobile app updates in App Stores

August 29, 2017

Take a look - we've got new mobile app updates in the Google Play store and Apple App store.  Here's what's new.

iOS

• Person and space search modifiers
• System text 
• New unread marker logic - now when you open a space, the unread mark is cleared instead of scrolling to the bottom of the space. 
• Performance improvements + bug fixes

 

Android

• System text 
• New unread marker logic
• Performance improvements + bug fixes

 

 

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New Feature: Connected Apps

July 21, 2017

Yay! Lots of new things this week! Today it's connected apps. Now, any app you've connected to Watson Workspace that is acting on your behalf (think, IFTTT or Workato that is posting messages, images, creating spaces, adding people or whatever other cool things you set up), will show up under User Settings > Connected Apps. This way, you have a quick and easy way to see what apps you've connected using your credentials and revoke access if the need arises. By revoking access, the app will no longer be able to act (or post, create, and so on) on your behalf. Note: this won't show all the apps you've added to spaces, just the ones that are relying on your authorization to function. You can always see all the apps added to a space by going to Space Settings > Apps.

 

 

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New Feature: System text

July 19, 2017

How do you know when someone has joined or left a space? You could always check the space settings but now we've made it even easier to stay in the know. We've added system text, a simple string of text describing the recent activity, right into the chat transcript. You'll know when someone joins or leaves a space, when an app has been added or removed, and when the name of a space changes. It's only in our web and desktop apps right now, but coming soon to our mobile apps.  Learn more about awareness.  

 

 

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Here's to reducing clicks

July 17, 2017

If you use Watson Workspace a lot, it's likely you switch between your spaces, direct messages, and mentions views a lot.  We know it was kind-of a pain to go back and find the conversation you were in every time you switched views right?  Well here's to reducing clicks - now the space or direct message you were in is preserved when you switch between views.  Check it out!

 

 

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Download the Mac & Windows Desktop Apps

July 11, 2017

Our new Mac and Windows desktop apps are available for download.  Get them from the Help Center homepage or access them directly here: 

Mac
Windows

The Mac and Windows desktop apps are a great way to use Watson Workspace and stay connected across all your devices.   They have all the same capabilities as the Web app (workspace.ibm.com), plus more.  Keep up with all your app notifications from your desktop tray, immediately see new activity from your dock and never lose your browser tab in a sea of tabs again.  

And just for good measure, we're updating our iOS and Android apps too so keep an eye out for those app store updates. 

 

 

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Bigger spaces

July 6, 2017

You've asked for bigger spaces. Now we've got it! The 256 person limit is no more. You can add anyone and everyone to your spaces, up to 2000 people (if you've got a special case to go larger - just contact us). So go ahead – invite away!

 

 

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New Feature: Focus your search with modifiers

June 19, 2017

We hope you've found with our new search feature, you can find what you need when you need it. Now it just got better. Using typeahead in the search field, you can focus your search to who (or what app) the content (messages and files) is from or which space the content is in. Just start typing the space name, person or app in the search field and we'll immediately show you possible search modifiers you can apply to your search results. You can tap enter to see all results for a modifier, add more modifiers to narrow your results even more or enter your search query to find what you are looking for.

This feature is just on web today but coming to mobile in the next app updates. Try it out!  

 

 

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New Feature: Tap to view images

June 16, 2017

Good news!  How many times have you tapped on an image someone shared in the web app because you wanted to see it bigger? (yep, raising my hand too).  Well, today's a good day then because now you can preview your images right in-line. Just click any image.  Our image viewer is available in both spaces and direct messages.  Check it out!  

And yes, our designer is motivated by vintage jackets. 😉

 

 

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Mobile app updates: @space, search, and action fulfillment

June 9, 2017

We're releasing a lot of great new features in our mobile apps today. Let's get right to it so you know what's in them and you can get to work.

@Space to notify everyone

Need to get everyone's attention? Type space in your message, or @space, to notify all members of your space. If there are tons of people in your space and you @space everyone, you're sending a push notification to a lot of people. Save it for the important announcements.

Action fulfillment

Notice any phrases underlined in your spaces? That means someone's added an app using action fulfillment to your space. Basically app developers can train Watson to identify language in the conversation and tie those phrases to an action. For example, an app could be trained to underline everything that means "start a meeting" and when you click on the underlined phrase, such as "Let's discuss this," it'll automatically start a video meeting with your favorite tool.

App Developers, want to build your own cognitive app using action fulfillment? Check out the Action Fulfillment section of the Developer Guide to get started!

Search on mobile

Earlier this month, we added search to our web app. Now, we've added search to our mobile apps. You can search through all the content in all your spaces and direct messages.

 

 

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App Developers: Action Fulfillment API now available

May 7, 2017

How many times have you thought, "I wish I didn't have to open another app to do X or Y? It would be so much easier to just click the action and take care of what needs to get done, for example, scheduling a meeting, looking up a company, or booking an Uber right in the conversation stream."

Now, app developers can build apps that recognize actionable language in the conversation using Watson technology, and then tie that language directly to specific actions that users can perform. Today, we rolled out our Action Fulfillment API. It's still in beta, but we are anxious for you to start working with it and tell us what you think.

If you're not a developer and you happen to see conversation underlined in purple in your space – that's because one of your space members has created an app that is identifying actions in the conversation. Go ahead and give it a go – see what cool in-stream capabilities they've come up with to make your life that much easier.

 

 

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New Feature: Search messages and files

May 2, 2017

Hooray! Search is here! Our goal has always been that Watson Workspace is the place where you do all your work with your teams. We know being able to find anything, no matter where it was shared, is critical to your productivity, and now you can. Click Search in the header and look for any message or file from across all your conversations or within a specific conversation. Go ahead, check it out!

And before you ask – this is just the beginning of our search journey. We're adding modifiers so you can narrow your search to a particular person or space, filters so you can view messages or files and, of course, search is coming soon to our mobile apps – give us a few extra days on that work.

Other notable updates:

• We've added two more apps to our app view. Go to any space, click the space name to access settings, and click Apps to add Zoom.ai or Sia to your space.
• Get the updated mobile apps from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Both now include the availability indicator on direct messages, as well as some significant performance improvements. 
• Have you noticed you can now see the messages you wrote in the preview text in the spaces list are all preceded with "You?" We snuck that little goodie in a few weeks back.

 

 

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Availability indicator now in spaces

April 25, 2017

Last week, we added the ability to see when a person is available in direct messaging. This week, we've added them to your spaces and the space membership list. You'll see a green status indicator on photos in the space membership list in space settings and in the header of the web app. We've also reordered the list in the header so you'll see your peers who are online first. Check it out!

 

 

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New Feature: See who’s available

April 19, 2017

Have you ever had a question that you really need answered but don’t know who’s around to answer it? Now, you can see when a person is available in Watson Workspace. When they are, you'll see a green status indicator on their photo in your direct messages view. The same availability indicator is coming to spaces in the next few days.

And that's not all:

• Several users told us it was confusing when the files loaded on top of the message field. They assumed they were already posted to the conversation, yet they really weren't until you press Enter. Now, you'll notice the files you upload load below the message field. You can still press Enter to send, however we've also added a Send button in case you prefer that visual reminder to send them into the conversation.
• We're also working on letting you send the files even before they are finished uploading, which will save you from thinking "if I stare at these files more intently, uploading will go faster." 😀

 

 

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Just added: Code syntax highlighting

April 14, 2017

We've rolled out code syntax highlighting that supports 172 programming languages – from Access log and Augmented Backus-Naur Form to YAML and Zephir. For the full list, visit highlights.js. Here's what you do.

1. Add three accent marks to indicate it's a code block, then add the programming language. Here's a JavaScript example:
   ```javascript
2. Press Shift + Enter for a new line.
3. Paste your code.
4. Press Shift + Enter for a new line.
5. Add three accent marks to close your code block.

Let's say you add this CSS code block into the message input field:

```css
@font-face {
font-family: Chunkfive; src: url('Chunkfive.otf');
}
body, .usertext {
color: #F0F0F0; background: #600;
font-family: Chunkfive, sans;
}

@import url(print.css);
@media print {
      a[href^=http]::after {
        content: attr(href)
    }
}
```

Here's what it looks like in the conversation.

Even if you are a non-techie, syntax highlighting can work for you too. You can use it to show your space the difference between text you want to add and text you want to remove.

1. Start with three accent marks. Then, type diff right after the accent marks.
2. Press Shift + Enter for a new line.
3. On the second line, type the minus sign (-) followed by the text you want to remove.
4. On the next line, type the plus sign (+) and the text you want to add.
5. Press Shift + Enter for a new line.
6. Add three more accent marks.

This is what you type in the message input field.

```diff
-Old, boring text.
+New, interesting text!
```

And it looks like this in the conversation.

Nice right? It's web only for now, but we'll add it to mobile soon. If you need more help with this markdown, see Formatting your messages.

Stay logged in on web!

Finally! We've fixed a long-standing bug on web. Now, when you log in on web, you stay logged in. Wahoo!

New mobile apps available

Check out these updates.

• Unread marks sync automatically across devices.  
• A new User settings menu. You can manage your push and email notifications on your iOS device.

 

 

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New per-space notification settings

April 6, 2017

Earlier this week, we added more granular notification settings to our mobile apps (Get the latest app store updates if you missed those updates!).  Now, we have the same options on web too. Let's say it's not important for you to receive a notification for every message – you can change your space settings to notify you only when someone mentions your name.  

Take note, we've made this (mentions of your name) the default setting for all your spaces (unless you had previously turned off notifications).  

You can also turn off all notifications for any space on web from space settings as well (finally!). Check out our updated notification settings.

 

 

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Updated iOS and Android apps in the app store + give us your feature ideas!

April 3, 2017

Yay! Updated iOS and Android apps are in the App store today and there's a lot of great stuff in them.

• We've added the where you left off line showing the last place you were in the conversation with a new messages indicator and button that quickly jumps to moments.
• The unread dots that indicate which spaces or direct messages have unread messages are now synced across devices. Now, when you read your unread messages on web, your unread dots will go away on mobile and vice versa. On mobile, you may need to refresh the lists manually by pulling the list down for the unread messages to sync but it will be automated very soon.
• Now, you can manage your notifications space by space. Go to space settings and choose notifications for mentions of your name or all messages. Remember, you can also turn notifications off for any space. This is important, by default, we've set every space to notify you only when your name is mentioned unless you had previously muted the space.

One more update, last week we mentioned we were streamlining our forums. Well, we did it! Now you'll notice there are just three topics.

• Ideas: We know you have lots of ideas and feature requests. Tell us what you expect to see in Watson Workspace, or just vote and comment on the ideas others have already submitted. We're using this as direct input into the product roadmap and we are adding status labels so you can get an idea of just what we are working on right now. For example, we're working on Search and the Desktop app.
• General Discussion: Have a question? Want to share something? We love to hear from our users no matter what's on your mind.
• Developers: Developing apps for Watson Workspace or with Watson Work Services? Got questions? Have an answer? Discuss it!

 

 

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Forums are under construction 🚧 

March 29, 2017

Bear with us, there's a bit of shuffling happening in the forums (and you might be getting email notifications to that end 🙄). We've decided to streamline the feedback process so it's easier for you to tell us what you want to see in Watson Workspace. In the forums, we are working on a single view for all your ideas. This way it will be easier to submit ideas, vote ideas up or down and see what feedback we're working toward right now and what is planned for very soon.

In doing so, we found there were good ideas across all the forum topics so we did move some of your posts around to get that central ideas view.  Don't worry, we didn't delete anything.

Make sure you are following our new topics: 

Submit Ideas 
General Discussion
Developers

As always, if something's not working right you can contact us directly with this form.

 

 

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New Android and iOS apps in the app store!

March 20, 2017

Go update your mobile apps if you haven't already. Both Android and iOS were updated in the last few days and boast a handful of new stuff! For starters... 

• You can search for your favorite spaces on mobile now. On iOS, both the spaces search and direct message search are available on pull-down, so out of the way, until right when you need them! 

• You'll also see updates to moments – like tracking the current moment or when you click a moment and jump to the transcript to view the discussion some of the moments summarization follows you into the conversation to give you that extra context and awareness around where the moment started and stopped. 

• Want to casually shout out to your teammates with just their first name instead of their full name? You can also remove someone's last name when you mention them on mobile now. 

In other news, we've been busy on notification settings and message/content search this week, stay tuned for these updates and more coming real soon!

 

 

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A quick recap from Connect 

March 7, 2017

It was great to meet so many of you at Connect this year! We thought we would do a quick recap of all the new capabilities that came out just in time for Connect - just in case you missed any. We added direct messages, mentions, moments on mobile, a banner that shows the moment you clicked, an indicator for where you left off, unread indicators in the navbar, an emoji picker, nudges for rich markdown, improvements to our third party apps view, and search typeahead for direct messages and spaces. We also improved the way moments work and added highlights to moments to focus your attention on the most important stuff. 

For developers, we added some important, um, developments. You can use Watson APIs to make your app cognitive and we've added some buttons that make sharing your app a whole lot easier.

Plus, we've got a ton of stuff that we're really close on a few things, like search (yay!), synchronizing all those unread marks that you have, and seeing who's available. We previewed action fulfillment and a review process for apps at Connect too, so watch out for those.

Did you know: You can enter an email address into the direct message typeahead field to invite anyone to chat and to Watson Workspace? Give it a go!

 

 

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Moments: Focus your attention

March 6, 2017

Moments isolate actions, decisions and commitments – but sometimes even those messages can be long. Now, we're highlighting the exact phrase in the message you should pay attention to – and making it a lot easier to scan for what matters. Launch Moments and check it out!

 

 

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Make your apps cognitive

February 24, 2017

Developers, we’ve got lots of updates for you, which is great news for end users too. You already know you could develop an app using Watson Work Services APIs, but now, (drumroll please...) you can make it cognitive by training your app to understand specific business dialect with Watson Conversation. 

Moments normally picks out questions, actions, and commitments in a conversation. But when Watson Conversation recognizes a business dialect in the conversation, moments can highlight those terms, the way it does to actions, questions and commitments now. And, it can tie that dialect to specific intents – user desires you define that Watson Conversation can act on.

For example, you could train your app to recognize when people are discussing sales opportunities. Every time there's a conversation related to sales opportunities, your app can automatically respond with the latest sales leads and highlight those messages in moments.

Here's a final piece of good news. Now, there are two ways you can make your app available to others to add to their spaces. One, you can submit your app and we'll review it so that it can be  added to our apps view and available to be added to any space. Two, you can add the Share this App button to your own site that way anyone can tap it and add your app directly to any one of their spaces.

 

 

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Your emoji here 😃😜👏🐝  

February 21, 2017

Finally, emojis are here for Web! Most of you have found clever ways to add emojis already – but hopefully you'll find it a whole lot easier to add them now. Click the emoji picker in the input field and select your favorite emoji from the list.

 

 

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Unread indicators in the navbar

February 21, 2017

Now that we have spaces, direct messages, and mentions in the toolbar, do you find yourself switching between direct messaging and spaces? Are you worried you might miss a message? Well, worry no more. We’ve added a teal dot that appears when there are new messages in any of the views you aren’t in. You’ll find similar indicators, with number counts, in iOS and Android. 

 

 

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Android app update available 

February 21, 2017

We've rolled out some major updates this week and we're ready for Connect 2017. The Android update we released today includes moments, direct messages and mentions, just like on web and iOS. 

 

 

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Where you last were

February 17, 2017

Conversations move quickly. We know you're not always in the same space or conversation, but when you return it's helpful to see where you last were. Good news! We've added a line to the spot where you last were. You can start reading where you left off or click to jump straight to the bottom. Missed too much? You can also click to jump to moments from the line to see a summary of what you missed.

 

 

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Moments are mobile

February 17, 2017

Need to catch up on the go? Moments are now available on your iOS device. 🎉 You've got the power of Watson in the palm of your hand. 

Simply scroll towards older messages in a space and you'll see the Moments button. Click it to see a smart summary of the activity in your space. Quickly scan key topics, actions, questions, commitments that were automatically highlighted from the conversation. There aren't any excuses for being out of the loop! To learn more about Moments, see Understanding moments.

This iOS update also brings you direct messages and mentions, just like on web. Android users, we haven't forgotten about you. Stay tuned!

 

 

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Can we talk – privately?

February 17, 2017

Working in your space is a great way to communicate with your entire team at once. But what if you want to have a private conversation with just one other person? Sometimes you just need to have a sidebar that doesn't require everyone. Now, you can send anyone a direct message, if they aren't in your organization and they haven't used Watson Workspace before. Just enter their email address in the search field, add a message and we'll email it to them so they are sure not to miss it. If they're already using Watson Workspace, or happen to be in your organization, just type their name to start a direct message.  

The best part is that direct messages are persistent. You only have to create a direct message once with another person and you will never lose the history of your conversation.

 

 

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Mentions view 

February 10, 2017

Sometimes messages can get lost in the fray. We added mentions last week so you could notify people that really need your attention. Today, we've added a home for all your mentions. Having a view with all your mentions means you can easily jump to all the important things your teammates wanted you to pay attention to.

To access the mentions view, click Mentions in the toolbar – it looks like a bell. Tap one of your mentions and you'll be taken directly to the place you were mentioned in the space.  

 

 

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Resource view improvements

February 8, 2017

We're rolling out tons of updates this week. Today, we updated the Resource view. First, all your pasted images are now in the resources view.  You'll also see preview thumbnails of all the images pasted or uploaded in your space.  

You can also hover over any file in the resources view, click the overflow menu button that appears, and choose from the options, either click Go to message to see the message in the conversation or click Download file to download the file directly to your desktop.  

 

 

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Keeping you in the moment

February 7, 2017

When you click a Moment from the list of moments in your space, Watson Workspace shows you the place in the conversation where that moment occurred for context. Now, we pull some of the valuable information from the moment and pin it to the top of the conversation so you can reference it while you're reading what happened in the conversation. If you move beyond the moment, the additional contextual information goes away.

 

 

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Now that you mention it...

February 3, 2017

Conversations move quickly. When you're collaborating with lots of people, sometimes you need to call extra attention to a post. Mentions are now available in your spaces on web (and coming to mobile in the next app store update). On web, use the @ symbol before you start typing a name. In the future (and on mobile), you'll be able to just start typing a person's name or use the @ symbol, whichever you are most comfortable with.

To be formal, leave the full name that appears by default. Press backspace to remove the second name for a more casual shout-out.

You'll get an email notification every time someone mentions you. But stay tuned, we're working on email notification settings and push notifications, that will notify you right in your app. And, because we know you'll ask, we're also working on a mention for the whole space – @space.

 

 

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That's resourceful

February 3, 2017

You may already know that the Resource view stores all of the files your team has shared in a space. Now, Go to message shows you the point in the conversation when someone shared the file. It's a great way to help you remember the discussion or decisions you made at the time. 

Hover over any file in the resources view, click the button that appears, and you can see the options. Click Go to message, and Watson Workspace finds the file in the conversation and scrolls to the point when the file was uploaded.

In the same menu, you can click Download file to download the file. 

There are a few more features on the way soon, so stay tuned!

 

 

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We moved all your files for you

January 31, 2017

The Resource view is a quick and easy way to find all the files your team shared. When we first introduced it, we moved the most recent files your team shared. This week, we've finished moving all the files your team shared to the Resource view. Whether you're sharing important documents or cute dog photos, the new resource view helps you see your shared content and quickly download what you need. 

We've also been thinking hard about how you interact with files in the conversation on the web and we've improved on our original design. When you hover over an image, Watson Workspace shows you information about the file and a button to download it. Instead of covering the image, we've made the overlay more subtle. Tell us what you think!

 

 

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All your resources in one place

January 6, 2017

We're storing all your resources in the resources view now. There's one place to see all the resources that have been shared by people in your space. So far, we've pulled in the files that have been uploaded most recently but we'll be going back and migrating them all into the view. Don't worry, we didn't lose anything!  

We've got a ton of other updates coming soon: 

• Search
• Direct Messaging
• Mentions
• Moments on mobile
• More awesomeness with moments

Stay tuned!

 

 

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Web update: I see you typing... 

December 9, 2016

Wahoo! Now, you can see who is responding to you with our new typing indicator on the web. No matter where you are, you can see who is responding to you in real time, even if it's more than one person. Go ahead, check it out! 

 

 

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iOS update: Cut down on the Noise

December 8, 2016

Notifications help you keep up with work when you're on the go, but sometimes you just need to focus or keep the noise to a low roar. It was already possible to mute all your spaces. But now, on iOS and Android, and coming soon on web, you can mute notifications for each space individually. Swipe left in the spaces list or go to the space settings to mute the space. 

You also gave us feedback that it was too hard to add a member on iOS devices, especially in spaces with a long member list. The new update has moved this action to the top of the list. Thanks for the input! Keep it coming.  

 

 

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Bookmark it! 

November 17, 2016

Great news today! We just rolled out a handful of new features. For example, each of your spaces have their own URL now. You can copy it, bookmark it, and go straight to your favorite space when you sign in each day. There are a few other things you should check out too.

• You can tap any image in the conversation for a full size preview on iOS.
• Hover over an image or file on web to download.
• You can add or invite more than one person at a time to your space from your mobile device – so add all your friends and get your work done.
• And we tweaked the All spaces list on iOS. Yes, the space icons are larger!

 

 

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Putting Watson to work for you!

October 24, 2016

We're at World of Watson this week so it's all about what can Watson do. Just in time for our preview launch, we're excited to roll out our first example of Watson at work in our offerings – Moments. They're smart summaries of the conversation. You won't come back after lunch to 400 unread messages anymore. You can skip right to the moments view and see all the key actions and topics automatically gleaned from the conversation and summarized for you, as well as who participated in the conversation, how long it lasted, and more. Think about the time you'll save catching up and you'll never miss an important moment again! Plus, you can use the very same services to build your own cognitive app. Check out our Developer Experience.  

That's not all, at World of Watson we are demoing a bunch of new integrations in Watson Workspace. Today, we've added two – IFTTT and Slack. Go to your space settings and add a Slack channel and collaborate directly with your peers who are using Slack. Or, visit IFTTT and create an applet you can add to any space, like "post every photo I take and save to my iPhone WoW folder directly in my WoW space." Now you really can have all your communication in one place. 

 

 

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You're invited to our Preview

October 21, 2016

Lucky you! You've been added to our preview. On top of that, we finally have a name! Introducing Watson Workspace and Watson Work Services. We're in preview because we know we have a long way to to go to get to where we want to be, but we made it our goal from the beginning to be as open as possible. We know there's no better way to get real feedback and be confident about our direction then from users like you and putting our offerings to the test in your everyday work. 

At times, it's gonna be rough around the edges, but we are committed to building tools and services that work for you so let us know when it's not working, and when it is.

A few things changed in Watson Workspace. You'll notice some new branding, fewer hexagons, teams became spaces, and a few new icons. We hope you like our new "Watson-y" look.

Feature-wise, here's what's new: 

• You can invite anyone by email address and they'll receive an email notification. You'll receive an email every time you've been added to a new space too.
• You can share files, copy & paste images directly into the conversation stream.
• You can format your content with bold, italics, code, and code block.
• We've created a custom sound so you can easily pick out your Watson Workspace messages. Plus, you'll see in-app notices and badges when there are new messages.
• We've updated user account settings. You can turn sound off or on, mute all spaces, changes your settings for email notifications and even upload a user photo.

 

 

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The Basics

Not that long ago... 

We've been calling ourselves Project Toscana, our pre-release project name, for a little while now and slowly adding a few more of our peers into the mix. It's so much more fun with others. It's just the basics right now, but we are excited for you to check it out and give us feedback, even if it is only chat.

This is what you can expect right now. And because we know we'll hear it, making it easier for you to invite others is at the top of our list is. For now, you'll need to contact us.

Update: You can now invite anyone you want by email address. 

• We've got a web app, iOS app, and Android app.  
• You can create a team with one or more people. Yes, you can create a space with no one else if you just want to check things out – although it might feel a little lonely talking to yourself.
• You'll get push notifications for every new message but you can mute all your spaces if you need a little peace and quiet. 
• You can also manage your team settings by tapping the space name on the web, icon on iOS, or overflow menu in Android. Add or remove members, change the space name, leave or delete your team.