Overview
Workspaces let you split your Yodeck account into separate areas, each with its own content, screens, and user access. Use them to match how your organization actually works, whether that's by store, region, department, customer, or team.
With Workspaces, you can keep content organized, give the right people the right level of access, and scale cleanly as your deployment grows.
Available only on the Enterprise plan!
This feature is only available on the “Enterprise” Plan. You might not see some menus below if you are not on the “Enterprise” Plan.
Remember that the “Enterprise” Plan is free if you only manage 1 screen to evaluate these features quickly.
The best Workspace setup usually mirrors your real-world structure.
Who this article is for
Depending on where you are, jump to what's most useful:
Just exploring? Start with What Workspaces do and When to use them.
Setting up your first Workspace? Head to Create a Workspace.
Planning a larger rollout? Read How the pieces fit together, then follow the Recommended setup workflow.
Managing users at scale? Go straight to Scale access with Groups and Primary Workspace.
What Workspaces do
Each Workspace is a self-contained area of your account that can hold its own:
Media
Apps
Playlists
Layouts
Schedules
Screens
You choose who can access each Workspace and what they can do there. One user might fully manage a Workspace, another can only view it, and others may not see it at all.
For larger deployments, Workspaces also let you build parent and sub-Workspace hierarchies, apply screen limits, set Working Hours per Workspace, and target Emergency Alerts to specific areas.
What you get:
A clearer account
Fewer mistakes
Precise access control
A structure that scales
When to use Workspaces
Workspaces are a strong fit when:
Different teams manage different screens
You want content separated by location or department
Some users shouldn't see the whole account
You need a structure that scales as you grow
You want to cap how many screens each team can register
Common use cases: retail chains, franchise networks, universities, corporate offices, manufacturing plants, and managed service deployments.
ℹ️ Workspaces are both an organization tool and an access control tool, and that's what makes them so useful.
How the pieces fit together
Before you dive in, here's how the main concepts relate. You'll see all of these in detail below.
Workspaces are where your content and screens live.
Hierarchies let Workspaces sit inside other Workspaces (parent and sub-Workspace).
Roles define what a user can do in a Workspace (admin, content manager, viewer, and so on).
Primary Workspace is the main Workspace a user belongs to.
Groups let you apply roles to many users at once, based on their Primary Workspace.
SSO mapping (optional) automates Primary Workspace and Group assignment at sign-in.
ℹ️In practice, you build your Workspaces first, then decide who can do what, where using roles, Groups, and Primary Workspace.
Before you begin
A quick pre-flight check before you start building:
✅ Your account is on the Enterprise plan
✅ You have Administrator access
✅ You've sketched out your organizational structure (HQ, regions, branches, departments, or whatever fits)
✅ You know roughly which users will need which access
If any of these aren't ready, it's worth pausing. A little planning here saves a lot of rework later.
Create a Workspace
You can easily create new workspaces by following these steps, depending on whether you are creating a Workspace for the first time or not.
⚙️To set up a Workspace for the first time, you need to manually create your first main Workspace.
From the Dashboard, navigate to your Profile Icon > Account Settings > Workspaces, and click the Create Workspace button.
Once this action is completed, a new Dashboard drop-down menu called Active Workspace appears automatically for you to manage your Workspaces more easily in the future. You can find more information about this menu further below.
From the Account Options | From the Dashboard's 'Active Workspace' Menu |
1. Log in to your Yodeck account. | 1. Log in to your Yodeck account. |
2. From your Dashboard, locate and click the Profile Icon, and select Account Settings. | 2. Open the Active Workspace drop-down menu in the top-right corner. |
3. Locate the Workspaces option in the settings page, and select it. | 3. Select the Manage Workspaces option. |
4. Click on the Create Workspace button in the Workspaces list page. | 4. Click the Create Workspace button in the Workspaces list page. |
5. Fill in the details. You can configure: | 5. Fill in the details. You can configure: |
6. Click the Save button. | 6. Click the Save button. |
ℹ️Create as many Workspaces and Sub-Workspaces as you need.
💡 Keep names short, clear, and easy to scan. Your future self (and your teammates) will thank you.
Naming tip
To control the order Workspaces appear in, use numbered prefixes:
01-HQ-AU
02-Europe
03-UK
04-China
05-Japan
ℹ️As your account grows, this keeps the list tidy and predictable.
The Active Workspace menu
Once Workspaces are enabled and the Main Workspace has been created, the Active Workspace drop-down menu appears automatically in the top-right of the portal. Use it to:
Switch between Workspaces
Filter what you see
Open Workspace management
Pick a specific Workspace and Yodeck shows only what belongs to it: Media, Widgets, Playlists, Layouts, Schedules, and Screens. Anything new you create is saved there too.
This keeps you focused and prevents content from landing in the wrong place.
The "All Workspaces" view
You can select All Workspaces to see items from every Workspace where you have at least Read access. It's handy when you're working across several Workspaces and need a broader view. For many users, it's also the default view on login.
ℹ️ Heads up: if you try to create something while All is selected, Yodeck will ask you to pick a specific Workspace first. Content always needs a home.
Using content across Workspaces
A Workspace controls where an item lives, but you can still reference content from other Workspaces as long as you have Read access there.
This applies when you're working with:
Playlists referencing Media or other Playlists
Layouts referencing Media or Playlists
Schedules referencing Layouts, Media, or Playlists
Screens referencing a Schedule, Layout, Playlist, or Media
Example: You have Read/Write access to Workspace Athens and Read-only access to Workspace Brand Assets.
When you build a Playlist in Athens, you can pull approved media from Brand Assets into it, without being able to edit the originals. Local teams get what they need, and central brand control stays intact.
💡 A shared, read-only Workspace for approved brand assets works beautifully in multi-location deployments. Highly recommended.
Workspace hierarchies
Hierarchies let you nest Workspaces into parents and sub-Workspaces, mirroring your real structure:
HQ → Region → Branch
Company → Department → Team
Global → Country → Office
How to build one
Create a new Workspace and choose a Parent Workspace
Create a sub-Workspace directly under an existing one
Move a Workspace later by changing its Parent Workspace
You can preview the full structure with the hierarchy diagram.
💡Workspaces hierarchies can reach 5 levels deep!
Parents work best as containers
In most cases, parent Workspaces work best as organizational containers: structure, not storage.
💡 Only add content to a parent Workspace if it's relevant to most or all of its sub-Workspaces.
Example hierarchy
HQ Sydney
├── Boston Branch
│ ├── Boston - Marketing
│ ├── Boston - Sales
| └── Boston - Support
├── London Branch
│ ├── London - Marketing
│ ├── London - Sales
| └── London - Support
└── Oslo Branch
├── Oslo - Marketing
├── Oslo - Sales
└── Oslo - Support
With this setup:
Global admins oversee the full structure
Branch admins manage their branch and everything inside it
Department users work only in their own Workspace
User Roles in Workspaces
Roles are where Workspaces get really flexible. A single user can have:
One role in one Workspace
A different role in another
Access to several Workspaces at once
Role comparison
Role | Account-wide access | Manage content | Publish content | Manage screens | Manage Workspace settings |
Administrator | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Workspace Admin | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (within assigned Workspaces) |
Content & Device Manager | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
Content Manager | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Restricted Content Manager | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Content Viewer | ❌ | Read-only | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Example: One user could be a Workspace Admin in London, a Content Manager in Athens, and a Content Viewer in HQ. One login, three different levels of responsibility. Match permissions to real work, not the other way around.
Scale access with Groups and Primary Workspace
Assigning roles one user at a time works for small teams. Beyond that, it gets messy fast. That's where Groups and Primary Workspace come in.
What is a Primary Workspace?
A user's Primary Workspace is the main one they belong to. It's what lets Yodeck organize users cleanly and apply Group-based access consistently.
Setting a Primary Workspace helps you:
Keep users organized
Apply access rules consistently
Use Group-based permissions effectively
Route users to the right Workspace Admin
💡 Give every user a Primary Workspace. It's the foundation for everything else.
Why use Groups?
Groups let you manage access at scale. Moreover, instead of clicking through each user:
Create a Group for a specific role.
Define how it applies access.
Assign users to it.
Yodeck applies the right permissions based on each user's Primary Workspace.
This is the go-to setup for larger organizations.
Sub-Workspace access through Groups
Groups can also extend access down the hierarchy. A regional manager whose Primary Workspace is UK Region automatically gets access to every Workspace beneath it, with no manual setup per branch.
Explicit access (for the exceptions)
You can still assign direct access to individual Workspaces when you need to. It's perfect for contractors, consultants, and short-term collaborations that don't fit your regular Group structure.
💡 Use Groups as the rule. Use explicit access as the exception. Your setup stays clean that way.
Recommended setup workflow
For larger accounts, you can follow this order below:
Map your real-world structure, for example, HQ → Region → Store.
Create your Workspaces, including parents and sub-Workspaces. Keep it simple.
Decide what should be shared. Create shared content Workspaces (like read-only brand assets) only where they add clear value.
Create your user Groups: Workspace Admins, Content Managers, Content Viewers, and so on.
Set each user's Primary Workspace. This is critical for scalable access.
Add users to the right Groups.
Add explicit access only for exceptions.
Configure screen limits and Working Hours at the Workspace level.
Test with a non-admin user. Sign in as someone with limited access and confirm they:
See the right Workspaces
Reach the right content
Can't access anything outside their scope
ℹ️ Five minutes of testing here saves hours of support tickets later. Seriously.
Screen limits per Workspace
Control how many screens each Workspace can hold.
How it works: edit a Workspace and set a Screen Limit. Once the Workspace hits that number, users in it can't add more screens until you raise the limit.
Why it's useful:
Keeps device allocation aligned with your plan
Prevents over-registration
Supports approval-based deployments
Keeps large accounts tidy
Working Hours per Workspace
Each Workspace can follow its own Working Hours, so screens in different locations can run on different schedules. Remember that you can change the Working Hours from each Screen's configuration options.
For example:
London Office screens: Mon–Fri, 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
New York Office screens: Mon–Fri, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Retail store screens: Daily, 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Perfect for organizations with different opening hours, time zones, or shift patterns.
💡 Workspace-level Working Hours let you manage local schedules without touching the rest of the account.
Target Emergency Alerts by Workspace
When something goes wrong, you don't always want to alert every screen in the account. Workspaces let you send Emergency Alerts to a specific area instead.
For example: if there's an incident at one branch, send the alert only to that branch's screens. The rest of the organization continues as normal.
You can initiate a new Emergency Alert broadcast from the Dashboard by clicking on the New Broadcast button of the Emergency Alerts module.
Then, follow the instructions on the new pop-up window that appears, and on the second step, you can select either All Workspaces or the Workspace and/or Sub-Workspace that you wish to target the emergency alert.
Delete a Workspace
Of course, you have the option to delete any Workspace that you wish. However, you must use great caution because of the following reasons.
⚠️ This is an irreversible action. Read before you click.
When you delete a Workspace:
Its content is permanently deleted (Media, Playlists, Layouts, Schedules, and more)
Its screens are moved out of the Workspace
Playback and content setup may be affected
ℹ️Before deleting: review everything inside the Workspace. If you want to keep anything (Media, Playlists, Layouts, Schedules, or other items), move or recreate it elsewhere first. When in doubt, read the warning shown in the portal and pause before confirming.
Use SSO with Workspaces
If your organization uses Single Sign-On (SSO), you can combine it with Workspaces to automate user assignment and access.
Primary Workspace with SSO
Map a SAML claim to a user's Primary Workspace so users land in the right place automatically at sign-in. Less manual setup, more consistent onboarding.
Group-based access with SSO
Map your identity provider's groups to Yodeck Groups. This automates both:
Where the user belongs
What permissions they receive
💡 For larger organizations, the most scalable setup combines Workspace hierarchies + Primary Workspace + Groups + SSO group mapping. It's a bit more work up front, and it pays off every day after that.
How-To Example of Setting up a Primary Workspace SSO
You can click on the following PDF file to view and follow the respective guide:
ℹ️Please note that the example of the above guide is based on Azure SSO, but the same logic and steps also apply to Okta SSO.
Best practices
Mirror your real structure. Build your hierarchy around how your organization actually works.
Keep hierarchies simple. Two or three levels is the sweet spot for most organizations.
Use clear names. They should make sense at a glance, even to someone new.
Use numeric prefixes (like
01-HQ) to keep the list in order.Keep parent Workspaces clean. Use them for structure unless their content is genuinely shared.
Use Groups for standard access. Much easier to maintain than per-user assignments.
Always set a Primary Workspace. It's the foundation for scalable user management.
Use explicit access sparingly. Too many exceptions make your setup harder to support.
Review screen limits regularly as your deployment grows.
Check the selected Workspace before creating content. It saves a lot of "where did my playlist go?" moments.
Troubleshooting
You can click on each expandable arrow to see common situations and how to resolve them.
"I can't see a Workspace I should have access to."
Check the Active Workspace drop-down. If the Workspace isn't listed, you probably don't have access to it yet. Ask an admin to:
Grant explicit access to that Workspace
Confirm your Primary Workspace is set
Add you to the right Group, or grant you explicit access to that Workspace
"I can see the Workspace but can't create or edit anything."
Your role in that Workspace is likely Content Viewer (read-only), or you're viewing content through Read access from another Workspace. Ask an admin to upgrade your role, or switch back to a Workspace where you have write access.
"My Content Manager can't publish content."
They're probably set as Restricted Content Manager, which allows managing content but not publishing it. Change their role in that Workspace to Content Manager.
"I can't add a new screen to this Workspace."
The Workspace has likely hit its Screen Limit. An admin can raise the limit or move existing screens to another Workspace to free up space.
"I created something, but now I can't find it."
It's almost always saved in a different Workspace than you expected. Switch to the All view and search for it. To avoid this next time, check the Active Workspace selector before creating content.
"Yodeck won't let me create new content."
If the Active Workspace is set to All, Yodeck will ask you to pick a specific Workspace first. Content always needs a home. Switch to the right Workspace and try again.
"I can't use media from another Workspace in my Playlist."
You need at least Read access to the other Workspace to reference its content. Ask an admin to grant Read access and the media will become available.
"A user's permissions don't look right after I added them to a Group."
Check three things, in this order:
Is their Primary Workspace set correctly?
Is the Group actually assigned to that user?
Is there explicit access elsewhere that's overriding what you expected?
Most Group-related issues trace back to a missing or incorrect Primary Workspace.
"An SSO user didn't land in the right Primary Workspace."
The SAML claim mapping probably isn't matching your Workspace names as expected. Review your SSO configuration, confirm the claim values coming from your identity provider, and check that they map to the correct Workspaces in Yodeck.
"I deleted a Workspace and need its content back."
Deletion is permanent. Content inside a deleted Workspace can't be restored from the portal. If you have a recent backup, restore from there. Otherwise, the content will need to be recreated. When in doubt about a future deletion, pause and review the warning carefully before confirming.
F.A.Q.s
Got questions? We’ve got answers! This section addresses common questions about the Yodeck Workspaces.
Do I need Workspaces if I only have one location?
Not always. If all users need access to the same content and screens, a single Workspace may be enough. Workspaces are most useful when you need access boundaries.
Can a user belong to more than one Workspace?
Yes. A user can have access to multiple Workspaces and different roles in each one.
What happens when I select All?
You see items from every Workspace where you have at least Read access. However, you must choose a specific Workspace before creating new content.
Can non-admin users see the Workspace selector?
Only if they have access to more than one Workspace. If they can access only one, Yodeck may hide the selector to simplify the interface.
Can I use content from one Workspace in another Workspace?
Yes. If you have at least Read access to the source Workspace, you can use eligible content from it in other Workspaces.
Can I move a Workspace under a different parent later?
Yes. You can change the Parent Workspace at any time.
Can I limit how many screens a Workspace can register?
Yes. You can set a Screen Limit for each Workspace.
Should I use Groups or explicit access?
Use Groups for your standard setup. Use explicit access only for one-off cases or exceptions.
Can I automate Workspace assignment with SSO?
Yes. You can use SSO for Primary Workspace assignment and Group-based access mapping.
What happens if I delete a Workspace?
Deleting a Workspace removes its content. Screens are moved elsewhere. Always review the Workspace carefully before confirming deletion.
Why can’t I create content while All is selected?
When All is selected, Yodeck shows content from every Workspace where you have at least Read access. However, new content must belong to one specific Workspace. That is why Yodeck asks you to choose a Workspace before creating a new item.
Why can’t a user see a Workspace?
A user can see only the Workspaces they have access to. If a Workspace does not appear, check whether the user has been given the correct role through a Group or explicit access. Also check the user’s Primary Workspace and confirm that your Groups are configured as expected.
Why can’t a user edit content from another Workspace?
In most cases, the user only has Read access to that Workspace. Yodeck may still allow them to view or reference content from it, but they cannot edit it unless they have a role with editing permissions in that specific Workspace.
Need Help?
The Yodeck Support Team can help you out! Log in to your Yodeck account and send us a message from the bottom right corner!