Shared Spaces Overview
Learn how Shared Spaces help your organization collaborate securely inside and across workspaces.
Last updated: Jun 3, 2026
Overview
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 (Workflows, Playbooks, Vaults, Assistant Threads) for teams within your own workspace. Great for practice groups, project teams, or knowledge management.
- External Spaces — Co-owned environments shared between two Harvey organizations (e.g., a law firm and its client). Both sides can contribute and access shared resources while maintaining strict data controls.
- Guest Accounts — Invite non-Harvey users into a Shared Space via a free, limited-access account. Guests authenticate through a secure email link and can only access the Spaces they're invited to.
Tip: You can keep Space access more limited, then grant higher access on specific resources as needed.
Use Shared Spaces when you need to:
- Centralize work for a matter, client, or internal initiative
- Share curated resources with external partners
- Control access at both the Space and resource level
- Validate permissions before inviting collaborators
Shared Spaces act as containers. You add specific resources, and all users in the Space can access them based on their permissions.
Before using Shared Spaces:
- Your organization must have Shared Spaces enabled
- External collaboration requires admin approval from both organizations
- Both organizations must be in the same data processing region
- Resources are private by default—you must add them to a Space to share them
Permissions and Access
Access is controlled at two levels:
- Space access — Determines who can enter the Space
- Resource access — Determines what each user can do within a resource
How this works in practice:
- All users in a Space can see added resources
- You can grant higher access (for example, Edit or Full Access) to specific users on individual resources
- Start with limited Space access, then increase access only where needed
- Go to Spaces
- Select Create Space
- Select the correct processing region. This must match the region of the organization you’re collaborating with
- Name your Space with a clear naming convention such as: Firm | Client — Matter name or Practice Group — Internal Hub
- [Optional] Customize the Space (for example, choose a logo, background image, and color)
- Invite collaborators by entering their email addresses
Add Resources to a Space
You can add resources from either the Space or the resource itself
Option 1: From the Space
- Open the Space
- Click Add
- Select the vault, Workflow, or Playbook
Option 2: From the Resource
- Open the resource
- Select Share
- Toggle to the Spaces tab in the Share options
- Search or select your space
- Assign an access level
- Click Share
Inside the Space, collaborators can:
- Run shared Workflows and Playbooks
- View shared threads, view and edit shared review tables.and edit shared drafts and review tables
- Use Assistant to query over the entire space for summaries, analysis, and quick Q&A
Set a Custom Welcome Message
Space creators can configure a welcome message that appears when external collaborators or guests first enter a Shared Space. Use it to set expectations, surface disclaimers (e.g., "This space does not constitute legal advice"), or provide engagement-specific instructions.
How to Set Up a Welcome Message
- Open the Space and click Customize in the header.
- Navigate to the Welcome Message tab.
- Enter a title and body for your message (up to 10,000 characters). You can also add hyperlinks to a privacy statement, client terms, or a contact email.
- Toggle the message on to activate it. The message will only display once per user.
Tip: Use the preview to confirm how the message will appear to external users before the Space is shared. The welcome message is also visible in View as Collaborator mode.
How External Approval Works
When sharing a Space with another organization:
- A share request will appear in Spaces → Requests
- A Connection Admin on both sides must approve it.
- Access is granted only after both approvals are complete. Note that Internal Spaces do not require approval.
Tip: When you submit a share request, you'll be prompted to add a justification note. While optional, this added context on the use case, who's involved, and why you need access can help the reviewing admin act faster.
You can check the status of any request you've submitted in Spaces → Requests:
- The In progress tab shows outstanding requests and whose approval you're waiting on — your admin or the other organization.
- The Resolved tab shows past requests and their outcome.
Note: Join requests and user access changes within a Space can be handled directly by a Space Admin without escalating to a Connection Admin.
View As Collaborator
Use View As Collaborator to preview exactly what external users or guests will see before or after sharing.
What You Can Do
- See the Space as an external collaborator or guest
- View access levels for each resource
- Confirm what actions collaborators can and cannot take
- Update permissions directly from preview mode
How to Use View As Collaborator
- Open a Shared Space
- Click View as in the header
- Select a persona:
- External Collaborator
- Guest Account
A banner confirms you are in preview mode. You can exit at any time.
Why This Matters
Use View As Collaborator to:
- Prevent accidental overexposure of sensitive content
- Validate permissions before inviting collaborators
- Ensure a clean, professional experience for clients
Resource Behavior in a Space
Access to each item is determined by a combination of Space-level and resource-level settings.
- Visibility: Adding a resource makes it visible to all users at the Space’s access level.
- Direct sharing: You may grant higher access to certain users on a specific resource than given at the Space-level.
- Sharing externally received resources: Users cannot share resources they received from an external workspace with another workspace. They may only share within their own workspace if they have Full Access.
- Removal: Deleting the host resource or removing a user from the Connection immediately removes external access.
Privacy and Activity Visibility
Shared Spaces are designed to preserve workspace sovereignty.
Learn more: Security, Data, and Privacy for Sharing in Harvey.
Current Capabilities
Shared Spaces currently support:
- Collaboration between two organizations only
- Same-region sharing
- Vault-level (not document-level) permissions
- Guest accounts
- View-only Assistant Threads across organizations
Troubleshooting
Tips for Success
Using External Spaces
- Share and publish only the resources required for collaboration.
- Use the custom Welcome Message option to greet external collaborators and guests when they first enter your Space. This is useful for setting expectations or surfacing disclaimers specific to the engagement.
- Start with the minimum necessary access. Begin with conservative, Space-level access, sharing only the resources required for collaboration. Elevate select users via direct sharing only when needed.
Using Internal Spaces
- Use Spaces for internal projects too. Curate all relevant vaults, workflows, playbooks, and artifacts for a matter or vault to simplify discovery and build shared context.
- Create an onboarding or best-practices Space. Knowledge teams can develop a model Space that demonstrates how your organization recommends using Shared Spaces and other Harvey capabilities.
- Give all users access to internal Spaces. This promotes feature discovery and exposure to power-user workflows, helping them to better understand how to leverage Harvey.