Quick Launch Guide
This Quick Launch Guide was created based on thousands of successful Workplace deployments. Use it to plan and execute a Workplace launch fast, so your organization can be apart together, from the home office to the frontline.
This guide will walk you through:
- Workplace technical setup
- Recruiting and training your champions
- Building your group structure
- Getting executives and people managers engaged
- Communicating your Workplace launch
Learn about the Workplace admin role and the features and functionality available to help you manage your Workplace in our Workplace Admin Fundamentals live training. You’ll get hands-on, interactive training and support from specialists to help you set up and manage your Workplace
Before you get started
Align your executives on why introducing Workplace supports the goals of your organization. You'll be building a group structure that supports these goals later on in your launch, so defining them early is key to ensuring a successful deployment.
For more guidance on defining business drivers and the value Workplace will bring to your organization, see the Value Assessment Workshop.
Step 1: Workplace technical setup
You’ll likely need the help of IT teams in your company to set up your Workplace and get you ready for launch. Have them follow these steps to configure Workplace for your organization:
- If your users will use one or more business domains to access Workplace (e.g. @company.com), ensure these domains are marked as verified in the Workplace Admin Panel
- Decide how your users will be created in Workplace: manually, in bulk via CSV upload or by connecting to a Cloud directory.
- Create users in Workplace but hold off on sending invitations. We recommend you build your groups and prepare your organization before inviting employees to join. Learn about the account lifecycle in the Workplace Technical Resources.
- By default Workplace will ask users to create a password for their account at their first access. Workplace Admins on the Advanced plan can enable single sign on (SSO) as an extra security layer.
- When you’re ready to launch, you can invite your users to access Workplace. Users with email addresses will receive a customizable email invitation encouraging people to claim their accounts. For email-less users you may need to distribute one-time access codes for their first login to Workplace.
Pro-tip: Integrate Workplace with other work tools your organization uses before you launch. Content and file sharing integrations are a great place to start. They make it easy to share and collaborate on files in Workplace. See available integrations in the Integrations Directory.
Step 2: Workplace champions
Select a small and diverse group of people in your organization and enlist their support in building groups, driving adoption, and educating the rest of the organization on how to use Workplace.
Choosing your champions:
Select roughly 5 champions for every 100 employees in your company. Champions should be chosen for their influence and early adopter behaviors. People managers make great champions because they influence working behaviors in their teams.
Organizations with frontline employees should make sure that frontline managers are involved as champions early in the rollout. They are key to motivating their direct reports and bringing people on board. They will also play an important role supporting people if they need help accessing their account or learning to use Workplace.
Preparing your champions:
- Use the email template in the Quick Launch Communication Plan (step 5) to notify your champions of their role in the launch
- Send them to the Champion Starter Pack to learn about how to use Workplace
- Give them early access by inviting them to Workplace
- Create a secret Workplace group called “Workplace Champions” and add them to it. You’ll use that group to communicate with champions before, during, and after the launch.
Step 3: Create groups
Create a core set of groups and assign members to them before inviting your organization to Workplace. Setting up your Workplace groups gives you the opportunity to reflect the business goals you aligned on before starting the launch process. Be thoughtful around the group you’re creating. When in doubt, fewer is better. That way you can ensure that groups have content (added by you and your champions) prior to launch day.
When creating groups, you have two things to consider:
- Privacy: How people join your group and who can see posts
- Posting permissions: Who can post in the group
Privacy
- Open: Anyone can join and see members and posts
- Closed: Anyone can request to join and only members can see posts.
- Secret: People have to be invited to join and see posts. Secret groups don’t show up in search, only members and admins can see they exist.
Posting permissions
- Anyone can post
- Posts require admin approval
- Only admins can post
You’ll be using People Sets to assign members to your groups based on criteria such as department, job title, location and more. Learn how to create People Sets in the Workplace Help Center.
Core groups can be structured around 2 types of communication:
1. Company communication
Company-wide announcement and discussion groups can streamline your communications and build stronger connections from headquarters to the frontline.
- Create an open “[Company Name] Announcements” group.
- Mark the group as official
- Add other admins to manage the group when you’re away
- Make it a default group so all employees are automatically joined
- Set posting permissions to admins only
- Use the group to share important updates and information across the company
- Create open regional announcement groups such as “[Location] Announcements”
- Add other admins to manage the group when you’re away
- Set posting permissions to admins only
- Use People Sets (synced with Workplace profiles) to assign members to groups based on location
- Use this group to share regional news and updates
- Create an open company-wide discussion groups “[Company Name] Discussion”
- Add other admins to manage the group when you're away
- Set posting permissions to either anyone can post, or posts require admin approval
- Make it a default group.
- Encourage employees to share questions and start work-related discussions in this group.
- Pro-tip: Create open social groups to recognize people's contributions and performance. The group will be a space for anyone in the company to give kudos to a colleague.
- Set posting permissions to anyone.
2. Team collaboration
This is where everyone’s day-to-day work gets done. People will be using their team and department groups to share updates on their work, collaborate on files, communicate via text, voice, and video chat and much more.
- Create closed groups for teams and departments in your organization and make the manager an admin.
- Set posting permissions to anyone.
- Encourage champions to create closed groups for each one of their projects as well as secret groups for communication with managers or direct reports
Not sure what groups are right for you? Join our How to Work in Workplace live training to learn about Workplace use cases and how to enable them in your company. You’ll get all your questions answered with hands-on, interactive training and support from specialists.
Step 4: Engage executives and people managers
Executives will be using Workplace to share updates, keep employees informed, and communicate across the organization. Make sure they know how to use Workplace and how it can benefit them and the company.
Here are some resources you can share with your executives:
- Executive Guide
- Executive Visibility & Accessibility
- Webinar: How to Coach Senior Leaders and Get Them Active on Workplace
- Webinar: Unlock the Secrets to Digital Success for Business Leaders
Get people managers involved in the Workplace launch early on. The more they know about Workplace, the more their teams can benefit from using the tool. Here are some resources you can share with them:
- Workplace for teams: In this pack! An overview of how to use Workplace to manage teams, projects, and relationships with managers/direct reports
- People Manager Guide: Quick guide to help people managers get started in Workplace
- Managing Projects in Workplace: Learn how to use team and project groups to manage your work in Workplace
- Hosting Meetings in Workplace: Find more tips on how to use Workplace for team meetings with remote and dispersed teams
Companies with frontline workers will need to ensure that frontline managers are well-informed of the Workplace launch and prepared to assist their direct reports with questions or technical difficulties. For some employees, Workplace might be the first corporate tool they've ever been given access to. Having a manager who’s there to support them can be key to getting them excited and on board.
Step 5: Launch communications
Get employees excited for launch with communications that are focused on the value Workplace will bring to their day-to-day. Use this templatized communication plan to promote Workplace and get employees on board fast.
Keep in mind you should use multiple channels to communicate your launch. Consider the ways in which employees already communicate and be sure to use those channels in your communication strategy. You can find a variety of assets including print media to help communicate your Workplace launch in the Launch Kit.
Step 6: Send out invitations
Once you’ve set up your groups and communicated the launch to your team, you’re ready to send out invitations. Use the communications outlined in the Quick Launch Communication Plan to share profile activation information and to continue to encourage employees to join and engage on Workplace after launch day.
Your Workplace will continue to evolve over time. In the early days after launch, gather feedback from the organization and sync with your team to make adjustments. You might need to change the settings on some of your groups, create new groups, provide information to employees on how to manage their notifications, etc.
Make sure employees know about the wide variety of help and education resources available to them. Share links to Workplace getting started content to help employees get up to speed with Workplace fast:
- New User Course Pack: This self-paced course has everything your employees need to start working in Workplace
- New User Guide: A lightweight 7-step guide to getting started as a Workplace user
- Group Admin Guide: Anyone who creates a group in Workplace becomes a group admin. Learn about the group admin role and the features and functionality available to help you manage your Workplace groups
- Managing Notifications: Learn how to turn down the noise so you can stay on top of what’s important.
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