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Set Up and Manage Shared Spaces (For Admins)

Learn how to enable and configure Shared Spaces, external sharing, and guest accounts for your organization.

For Admins

Last updated: Apr 15, 2026

Overview

Shared Spaces allow you to organize and share Workflows, Playbooks, Vaults, and Assistant Threads in secure collaboration environments.

As a workspace admin, you control:

  • Who can create and use Shared Spaces
  • Who can collaborate with other Harvey organizations
  • Who can invite non-Harvey users as guests

By the end of this article, you’ll understand how to:

  • Enable the correct permissions
  • Configure external sharing approvals
  • Set up guest access
  • Communicate collaboration models to your team

What Are Shared Spaces?

Shared Spaces are secure, branded collaboration environments in Harvey that allow teams to organize and share tools, data, and work product in one place. They support multiple modes of collaboration:

  • Internal Spaces: Organize resources within your own workspace. Great for practice groups, project teams, or knowledge management.
  • External Spaces: Spaces shared between two Harvey organizations. Both organizations can contribute and access shared resources while maintaining separate data visibility and approval controls.
  • Guest Accounts: Invite non-Harvey users into a Shared Space using a limited-access account. Guests authenticate through a secure email link and can only access the Spaces they're invited to.

All members of a Space see the same resources within that Space. You can grant higher access levels on individual resources when needed.

Collaboration Permissions

Important: Shared Spaces is fully opt-in. Collaboration features are disabled by default. You must explicitly enable each permission before users can access Shared Spaces or collaborate externally.

You can manage shared spaces permissions in Settings > Users.

Each permission controls a different level of collaboration:

Permission

What It Enables

Recommended For

Use shared spaces

  • Allow users to join and collaborate in shared spaces in your Harvey workspace.
  • Any user who should access Spaces internally.

Create shared spaces

  • Allow users to create shared spaces in your Harvey workspace.
  • Users who should set up new Spaces (e.g., practice group leads, project managers).

Invite shared spaces

  • Allow users to invite other members into a Shared Space they belong to.
  • Users who need to bring teammates or collaborators into existing Spaces.

Use external collaboration

  • Allow users to invite collaborators to their shared spaces from other Harvey customers. Each external user invite requires admin approval.
  • Allow users to invite non-Harvey users (e.g., consultants) to their shared spaces. Each guest invite requires admin approval.
  • Users who need to collaborate with people at other Harvey workspaces (e.g., firm and client).
  • Users who need to bring in collaborators who don't have a Harvey license.

Note: These permissions are independent. You can combine them based on your organization’s collaboration model.

Permission Configurations

Use Shared Spaces

Create Shared Spaces

Invite Shared Spaces

External Collaboration

What Your Users Can Do

Typical Use Case

✅ Enabled

❌ Disabled

❌ Disabled

❌ Disabled

  • View and join existing internal Spaces; join external shared spaces if they are invited and approved by admins
  • For viewers who read Spaces but don't need to create them.

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

❌ Disabled

❌ Disabled

  • Create and join Spaces, but cannot invite others
  • Cannot invite external members
  • Space creators who manage their own Spaces; membership managed by admins

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

❌ Disabled

  • Create internal Spaces and invite members — no external sharing
  • Teams organizing resources internally (e.g., practice groups, knowledge management)

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

✅ Enabled

  • Full collaboration: internal, external, and guest invites for non-licensed users
  • Active client collaboration across Harvey and non-Harvey users

❌ Disabled

❌ Disabled

❌ Disabled

✅ Enabled

  • Direct resource sharing only (no Spaces) — share a Workflow or Vault to a specific external user
  • Lightweight, infrequent sharing without a full Space

Manage Permissions

Permissions can be managed per user, by role, or for all users.

Option 1: Enable for Specific Users

  1. Go to Settings > Users
  2. Search for the user you want to enable
  3. Select Manage Permissions
  4. Search for the relevant permission name
  5. Select Add permissions
image of going to settings, then users, searching for the user, selecting the user, then searching for the permission name. Select the permission then select Add permissions

Option 2: Enable Permissions by Role

  1. Go to Settings > Roles
  2. Expand the Collaboration permission category
  3. Select Edit Table
  4. Check the appropriate permission boxes for each role. Check the boxes for every role to enable for all users.
  5. Select Save
Image of going to settings then roles. Finding collaboration in the table and expanding those permissions. Selecting Edit table and then selecting the permission to enable or disable for the role. Then clicking save to confirm updates.

Tip: Start by enabling shared spaces for all users to encourage internal adoption. Then selectively enable external collaboration for users who actively collaborate with other organizations.

External Collaboration

External Collaboration lets your users share Workflows, Playbooks, Vaults, and Spaces with users at other Harvey organizations.

Before you begin: Your workspace must meet the following requirements

  • Both organizations must have Harvey.
  • Both workspaces must be in the same data processing region (US to US, EU to EU, etc.).
  • At least one Connection Admin. You must designate at least one user in your workspace who can review and approve external collaboration requests.

Designate Connection Admins

Connection admins manage resource sharing between your workspace and external connections. You can designate these capabilities at the workspace or at the relationship (individual connection) level.

Workspace Level Connection Admin

To permit workspace-wide management of connections, assign a role or user the manage external connections permission.

This permission allows a user to:

  • Manage all external connections in Settings > External Connections
  • Review and approve (or deny) share requests across all spaces in Spaces > Requests
  • Assign relationship level, “Connection Admins” to specific connections (more on this below)

Important: This role provides organization-wide control over external sharing. Limit it to a small number of trusted users. Workspace Admins have this permission by default.

Tip: Assign this role to users responsible for governing external collaboration across your organization.

Relationship Level Connection Admin

If you’d like to restrict connection management to a specific relationship, you can choose a “connection admin” for that connection only.

This access allows a user to:

  • Send and receive resources for that connection without additional approval from their workspace
  • Approve resource shares for that connection

Tip: Assign this access to relationship managers or deal leads who own a specific partnership but do not require broader administrative access.

Note: The external organization’s Workspace or Connection Admin must still approve requests on their end.

Steps to Give Connection Admin Access to a Single Connection

  1. Go to Settings > External Connections
  2. Select a connection
  3. Adjust the access level to Connection admin.
image of selecting settings then external connections. Then selecting the connection and locating the user you want to give access to. Select the access level dropdown for the user and select connection admin

How Sharing Requests Work in Spaces

External Sharing Approval Flow

When a user in your workspace shares any resource or Space with someone at another Harvey organization, the following approval flow occurs:

Step 1: Outgoing Approval

The request to share externally appears in your workspace through Spaces > Requests. Your External Connection Admin (or Connection Admin) accepts the request.

image of selecting spaces then requests, then viewing the requests to approve or deny.

Step 2: External Recipient Approval

Simultaneously, the other organization’s External Connection Admin must approve the request.

Step 3: Access Granted

Access is granted only after both organizations approve.

Note: Internal-only Spaces do not require approval.

Guest Accounts

Guest Accounts allow your organization to invite non-Harvey users into a Shared Space.

Data, Privacy, and Security

Spaces support secure collaboration while protecting data residency, ownership, query privacy, and access controls.

For more details, refer to Security, Data, and Privacy for Sharing in Harvey.

Use Cases: Getting Your Team Started

Tip: Start with one or two high-value internal Spaces first — no external approvals needed — then expand to external collaboration once your team is comfortable.

Go-Live Checklist for Admins

Use this checklist to configure collaboration for your workspace.

☐ Decide your collaboration model: internal only, external with other Harvey orgs, or full collaboration with guests

☐ Enable Use shared spaces for the users or roles who need it

☐ If using external sharing or guest accounts: Enable Use external collaboration for relevant users, and designate at least one Connection Admin

☐ Communicate to your users: Let them know which capabilities are enabled and where to find Spaces in the app

☐ Create your first Space in the correct processing region (US, EU, or AU) — matching the region of the people you'll be collaborating with

☐ For external sharing: Ensure the other organization's admin is also set up and ready to approve connection requests

FAQs

Guest Accounts Overview

Guest Accounts let your organization securely collaborate with external partners inside a shared Harvey Space, without requiring them to become full Harvey customers.

How Sharing Works in Harvey

This article explains how sharing works in Harvey, including how to share resources with external teams, what stays private, and what admins can manage.

Security, Data, and Privacy for Sharing in Harvey

Learn how Harvey protects your organization’s data when you share Spaces and resources with collaborators and what controls you have.

Shared Spaces Overview

Learn how Shared Spaces help your organization collaborate securely inside and across workspaces.