Setting up your workspace
Learn about some best practices for setting up that we've seen work well
After your integrations are setup and you have all of your data in the product, you might consider how you want the layout of your workspace to look. You'll also want to build out certain features so that when you onboard new users, they are set up for success. In this document, we’ll outline some best practices that we’ve seen work well for our customers.
Organize Teams
Teams is the main way to organize your organization's resources. Read more about all of the capabilities and how to set up Teams here.
General Team
At this stage, all of your data from the connected integrations should be accessible via the General Team Catalog. General is by default set to Public to all users, but if you’d like you can make it Private in the Teams Settings. You can also rename it in the Settings (i.e. your Company name, Data Team etc.).
Here are some use cases for the General Team in Secoda:
Use the General Team as a public space for all users in your workspace to access
Create a dictionary of terms, metrics and acronyms that are often used cross-functionally
Create internal processes and best practices documents relevant to all users
Create Secoda onboarding documents for first time users including how to navigate your org’s workspace
Use the General Team as a private space for a subset of users to access
This might come in handy if you’re using Secoda as a client-facing tool and you don’t want all users to access integrations across multiple clients
Make General private in Team Settings and limit it only to your internal team members
Other Teams
Begin with outlining your user base, and then create the Teams based off of that list.
Make a list of your initial users, and the other users you eventually plan to onboard into the product
Create Teams based on the teams those users are apart of. For example,
Let’s say the initial power users who roll out the tool are in the same team, the Data Platform team → Create a Team named “Data Platform” and add the relevant users (consider creating Groups so that you can assign an entire Group to the Team instead of adding users one at a time)
Let’s say your first rollout will be to editors on the Business Intelligence team → Create a Team named “Business Intelligence” as a placeholder for when they eventually are onboarded
Consider creating Teams for all of your future users
In the Integrations settings, add the relevant Teams to the integrations that they should have access to. These will flow into the Catalogs of each Team selected.
Consider editing the sidebar depending on what each Team needs access to
Some customers have less technical users who might only need access to a singular collection. In Teams settings, you are able to remove from their view the Catalog, Dictionary, Documents and Questions sections.
Automate documentation
We have many features that assist in the automation of your documentation and enrichment within Secoda. Check those out here: Documentation best practices.
It's important to build out documentation so that new users have something to work with when first accessing the tool. It's helpful to have some Documents, Dictionary terms, and Catalog resource descriptions already filled out so that new users can see the value of Secoda from the start. This is also essential to the accuracy of Search and the AI Assistant, as they are learning from all of this enrichment.
Start with documenting the resources that are most used by the organization, or by the initial users you plan to bring onto Secoda. Consider using our Verified Identifier tag to indicate to users that those resources are approved by the business, and the most accurate data.
Build out FAQs
Secoda's Questions feature can provide a lot of value for new users of the tool. Before onboarding users, Admins should consider building out some frequently asked questions in the Questions section. They can type up a FAQ, provide the answer, and mark that as the correct answer. These can be helpful for new users when they first join, and also guide them to asking their own questions to the data team.
Integrate with Slack
If your organization uses Slack for internal communications, you definitely will want to set up the Slack integration with Secoda. This allows your users to ask the Slackbot questions about your data without having to leave Slack - read more about this flow Slack <> Questions workflow. It’ll also allow you to receive notifications regarding your workspace within Slack, depending on how you’ve configured your notifications settings.
Read more about setup, and the functionalities of the integration here.
Create Search views
Building out Search views can be an important step when building out your workspace. Search views can be saved and used by all users across the workspace, which can guide new users to find information on what they're looking for.
Add content to Homepage
The Homepage is the first thing your users will see when jumping into Secoda. Enable them further by pinning important resources to the Team homepages, and consider writing up relevant notes using the Notepad. Watch some how-to videos on Homepage functionalities here.
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