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How do I create and manage workspaces in Zenhub?

Complete guide to creating, customizing, and managing Zenhub workspaces for effective team collaboration

What is a Workspace?

A Workspace is how you organize GitHub repositories and issues in Zenhub. Think of it as a customized project view that brings together all the repositories your team needs to work effectively. With Workspaces, you can connect multiple GitHub repositories—even across different organizations—into a single, unified view.

Workspaces provide a centralized view of issues across multiple repositories, allowing teams to see all their work in one place. Each team can maintain their own pipelines and workflows without disrupting other teams working from the same repositories. You'll also get shared reporting and analytics across all connected repositories, plus flexible permissions to control collaboration levels.

Creating Your First Workspace

When you first join Zenhub, you'll need to create a Workspace to begin organizing your work. You can create a Workspace through the Zenhub web app or the browser extension.

To create a Workspace in the web app, click the "Create new Workspace" button in the Workspace navigator located in the left sidebar. Give your Workspace a unique name and description, then add GitHub repositories using the "Add a repo +" option. You'll also want to set a default repository for new issue creation and configure your initial pipeline structure.

If you prefer to work within GitHub, you can create a Workspace through the browser extension. First install the Zenhub extension for Chrome or Firefox, then navigate to one of your GitHub repositories. Click the Zenhub tab within GitHub and follow the prompts to create your first Workspace.

[NOTE]: Workspace names must be unique across all of Zenhub and are case-insensitive.

Multi-Repository Workspaces

Software projects often span several repositories, and your Workspace should reflect this reality. You can connect repositories together to get a comprehensive view of your project.

To add repositories to your Workspace, use the "Repos" dropdown in the top-left of your Workspace and select "Add repos." Search for the repository you want to connect and use the avatar selector to toggle between different organizations. Once you find the repository you need, confirm the connection.

When adding repositories with existing pipelines, you'll see a merge preview where you can organize your workflow. You can drag and drop pipelines to match your team's preferred structure, merge similar pipelines such as combining "QA" and "Review" into one pipeline, and rename pipelines to match your team's terminology.

Automatic Issue Organization: When you connect an existing GitHub repository with established issues, Zenhub automatically organizes them into appropriate pipelines based on GitHub metadata rather than dumping everything into a single pipeline. This automatic placement analyzes issue data to create a logical starting point for your board.

Issues older than 90 days are placed in the Icebox pipeline, as these are likely stale or archived work items. Issues updated within the last 30-90 days go to Product Backlog, representing recent work that isn't currently active. Issues assigned to open GitHub milestones are placed in Sprint Backlog, indicating planned work with defined timelines. Open pull requests and their linked issues go directly to In Progress, reflecting active development work.

This automatic organization saves significant setup time and prevents the overwhelming experience of having hundreds of unsorted issues in your backlog. You can always adjust the placement afterward, but the intelligent defaults provide an excellent starting point that reflects your repository's actual state.

[TIP]: Before merging repositories, discuss the pipeline structure with your team. Once merged, disconnecting a repository will lose all issue prioritization.

Customizing Your Workspace

Pipeline Configuration

New Workspaces start with these default pipelines: New Issues, Icebox, Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, In Progress, Review/QA, Done, and Closed. However, every team works differently, so you can customize these pipelines to match your workflow.

You can rename pipelines by double-clicking any pipeline name or using the pipeline options menu. Adding descriptions to pipelines helps team members understand what each pipeline represents and ensures consistent usage across your team. If you need to remove a pipeline, deleting it will move all issues to the leftmost pipeline on your board. To add new pipelines, click "Add a pipeline ..." at the far right of your board, and you can reorder pipelines by dragging and dropping them to match your workflow.

Pipeline descriptions are particularly valuable because they communicate what types of issues belong in each pipeline, when to move issues between pipelines, and any team-specific workflow requirements. While descriptions aren't mandatory, they significantly improve board organization and team coordination.

Smart Pipelines & Automation

You can configure automatic assignment of Sprints, Labels, and Assignees when issues enter or leave specific pipelines. This issue metadata automation helps maintain board hygiene without manual intervention.

Zenhub also allows you to set soft limits for the number of issues allowed in each pipeline. When these WIP (Work-in-Progress) limits are exceeded, Zenhub displays warnings to encourage workflow review and help identify bottlenecks.

Another useful automation feature is stale issue detection, which flags issues that have been in a pipeline longer than a specified number of days. You can customize the visual indicators to make these stale issues easily identifiable to your team.

[TIP]: Use pipeline automation to maintain board hygiene automatically, reducing manual updates across your team.

Team Collaboration Features

Workspace Permissions

Zenhub provides two levels of access control to accommodate different team structures and security needs.

Organization Membership is managed through the "Invite team members" option in your left sidebar. This brings people into your entire Zenhub organization, giving them organization-wide access and consuming licenses from your allocation. You can invite multiple people using comma-separated email addresses, share invite links, and configure domain settings to allow automatic join requests from your company domain.

Workspace Membership provides granular control over who can access specific workspaces within your organization. Navigate to Workspace Settings via the "Edit Workspace" dropdown to manage workspace-specific access. This level lets you add members by searching for their username or email address, remove members using the options menu next to their name, and set workspace privacy levels.

Workspace privacy offers two options. Private Workspaces can only be viewed and accessed by specifically invited members, while Public Workspaces allow all organization members to access the workspace by default.

External Collaborators: Zenhub's flexible permission system makes it easy to work with contractors, external team members, or distributed teams. You can add contractors or external team members to specific Workspaces, manage access to sensitive repositories through Workspace permissions, and coordinate work across distributed teams without giving access to your entire organization.

[NOTE]: At least one member must remain in each Workspace.

Multi-Team Workflows

Use Cases for Multiple Workspaces:

  • Team-specific workflows: Different teams using the same repositories with unique pipelines
  • Project separation: Isolating different projects or initiatives
  • Cross-team collaboration: Coordinating handoffs between development, QA, and product teams
  • Stakeholder visibility: Creating management views without disrupting team workflows

Workspace Workflows: Connect multiple Workspaces with automated issue movement:

  1. Access Workflows through "Edit Workspace" dropdown
  2. Set trigger pipelines in one Workspace
  3. Configure destination pipelines in another Workspace
  4. Enable automation for current and/or future issues

Example Workflow: When an issue moves from "Ready for QA" in the Development Workspace, it automatically moves to "Backlog" in the QA Workspace, signaling readiness for testing.

Advanced Workspace Management

Performance Optimization

Repository Limits: While you can connect multiple repositories, consider these optimization strategies:

  • Repository count: More repositories may increase load times
  • Issue volume: Large repositories with many issues can slow performance
  • Filtered views: Use saved views to focus on relevant subsets of work

Load Time Improvements:

  • Use filtered Workspaces with specific labels to reduce loaded issues
  • Consider separate Workspaces for archived or low-priority repositories
  • Leverage the performance indicators when adding repositories

Navigation & Organization

Workspace Switching:

  • Use the Workspace navigator in the left sidebar
  • Favorite frequently-used Workspaces by clicking the star icon
  • Access recent Workspaces through the quick switcher

Saved Views: Create custom board configurations with specific filters for:

  • Individual team members' work
  • Specific sprints or milestones
  • Particular issue types or labels
  • Cross-repository project views

Maintenance Operations

Workspace Cleanup:

  • Remove repositories: Disconnect repos no longer needed (loses issue prioritization)
  • Split Workspaces: Separate repositories into focused Workspaces
  • Delete Workspaces: Permanently remove unused Workspaces
  • Archive management: Handle archived GitHub repositories appropriately

Advanced Integration Options

GitHub Actions Integration

You can create read-only project boards by integrating Zenhub's Smart Pipelines with GitHub Actions for public visibility. This allows you to share project status with stakeholders who don't need full Zenhub access while maintaining your team's workflow automation.

FAQ

Q: Can the same GitHub repository be in multiple Workspaces?
A: Yes! The same repository can be added to multiple Workspaces, allowing different teams to work with the same issues using their preferred workflows and pipeline structures.

Q: What happens to issue prioritization when I remove a repository from a Workspace?
A: All issue prioritization and pipeline placement for that repository will be lost when disconnected. Make sure to discuss with your team before removing repositories from Workspaces.

Q: How do I handle conflicts when multiple teams want different pipeline structures for the same repository?
A: Create separate Workspaces for each team and use Workflows to automate issue movement between them. This allows each team to maintain their preferred workflow while keeping coordination automated.