Start a new project on Assembla
Assembla makes it easy. Just createselct a workspace, invite your team members and start working. You can just createselect youra new workspace now, if you like.
To learn about building your workspace, you can scroll through this page or click the bookmarked links.
- Best practices for space planning
- Let's get started... Create a free Assembla space
- Upgrade space to get more features
Best practices for space planning
If this is your first time creating a project on Assembla, here are a few guidelines to get the best results.
Is there a workspace template that suits your needs?
If you are developing with a specific product or language, there may be a space in our catalog that you can copy. You can also create your own template spaces, and copy them with the "copy this space" link in the footer. The copy operation brings you tools, tool settings, wiki content, and repository content.
Will you need more than one space for the project?
Assembla governs privacy at the workspace level. If you have some project information that is private (development) and some that is public (customer support), create two workspaces with the appropriate security levels for each.
What kind of project is it? What are you adding to the space?
In addition to planning the number of spaces, think about what data is going to go into each space. The business rules for the data will determine what kind of access team members should have. Here are a few examples:
| HR Policies and Procedures | If only a few people will be updating the documents, but everyone in your company should be able to see the space, create a Private space with View access for members. Give the people updating the documents Owner access. |
| Marketing Tradeshow | If everyone involved in the preparation is working on different aspects of the campaign but all are touching one tradeshow and need to be able to completely manipulate the documents quickly, select All as the default access so that members can delete out-of-date information and add new people. |
| Development | If you have several people in the same space, consider All access so that people can easily manipulate information. If you have a large team, consider Edit access so that changes are easily followed. |
How many people are you inviting?
Assembla is designed to accommodate small, ad hoc teams. 99% of the time you can just invite people to the space and start building.
Sometimes a project can have a phase where the team suddenly expands in size, like a field deployment of hardware and a follow on software configuration. If you are already on Assembla and enjoy the collaboration and easy mobile access, you can stay on Assembla for that phase.
Simply plan the usage of a workspace the same way you would an iteration or a sprint:
- Build the workspace (develop)
- Verify that all the needed information is there (test)
- Invite team members (release)
Let's get started...
The next several steps will walk you through key choices to make when creating the space. After these choices are made, you can customize the space however you like.
Create a new space
You can create a new space from your Start page by clicking on the 'Create a New Space' button. (Or click here to open a new window and create a space.)
Name the space and choose a URL
Try to keep the name short and simple. It will be the URL for the project workspace. You can always rename the displayed name in the header, but you can't easily change the URL without redoing all your links.
Choose the right tools for the job
One of the nice things about Assembla is that you can have multiple kinds of teams and departments use it based on how you set it up. To get you started, we've set up tool bundles according to audience. When you create a new space, these bundles are displayed as options. Choose one that most likely fits the team you will be working with. You can always add or remove tools later.
Is your workspace public or private?
The Security panel allows you to choose permissions for your workspace. The first choice to make is whether you want a public workspace or a private workspace.
For public groups, choose whether visitors who find the space via Assembla or the Internet can join. If you want to restrict membership but still want people to be able to join, post an email address or other instructions on a wiki page to tell people how to request membership.
Can members upload and change information? Can they delete?
This setting allows you to control the options available to the members for Assembla tools. Remember when we talked about what kind of access members have should match the business rules for data? Here is where that applies.
There are three permissions for member access:
- View - Members can see the space, team list, and comment on related objects – wiki pages, flows, files.
- Edit - Members can add and edit data and documents, but not delete.
- All - Members can delete and invite people, but cannot access the admin panel .
The two most common permission settings are Public=View and Team=Edit (for a public project), and Public=None and Team=Edit (for a private project).
If you want to keep things like Delete and the Admin panel out of the hands of the entire team, choose Edit as the default permission for team members. Everyone will be able to add and change data in the workspace. If you have one or two leads, you can make them Owners and let them administrate the space.
Invite team members
Choose a wiki format
Assembla offers several wiki formats. The type of format you choose depends on your needs. Most teams will want WYSIWYG for the ease of use. Development teams may want Textile because it is the same markup format used in our developer tools.
In general, once you pick a wiki format it is best to stay with it throughout the project.
That's it! Those are the options that you really need to consider to create the space. Once it is created, you can customize the space however you like.
Configure the new space
Here is a list of ways you can customize the current version, starting from Easy (pick a tool bundle), to Extreme (modify the source code and sell us your enhancement).
Edit the wiki home page
By default, users clicking on a space link will land on your wiki "Space home" page. Remember to edit this page to make it useful. You should post an introduction to your space and your project, with key links, and contact information.
Add a Dashboard
We are testing a dashboard tool that shows important project information on a single page, including ticket and commit events, messages, milestone status, and other important project information.I am enjoying this feature a lot. Currently, it's an optional tool. To get it, go to the Admin tab on your space, select the Tools subtab, and select "Add Dashboard" from the list. As the space owner, you can customize the dashboard with a drag and drop layout manager. Just select "Edit this dashboard" on the top of the page.
Change styles and headers for your space
The Admin/Appearance subtab allows you to add banner art and change styles.
| Menu navigation | Choose standard Assembla style sheets to change the postion of the menu (left, right) and page width (flexible, fixed). See it here: flexible width, or left sidebar. |
| Change fonts and colors | You can modify the style sheet by typing new definitions into the style panel. For example, you can make a white background, or small red fonts. We started working on a style guide to make custom styles easier to write. The main obstacle to full customization of styles and colors is the background image on tabs, which is always green. In future versions we will remove the background image, and you will be able to customize all of the colors, including the tabs, with the style sheet. |
| Add a banner | Go to the admin tab in your space, and select the "Appearance" subtab. Enter the URL of the banner you want. Enter the height in pixels of the image, so that we can adjust the header to fit.If the image is not posted on the Web already, you can upload it as a file, and use the file URL. You will end up with something like this layout. |
Change the tab order and default tab
You can also use the Admin/Appearance subtab to change the tab order and the default tab. Sort the tabs by dragging them. You should put the most frequently used tabs at the beginning. What tab do you want users to land on when they search for your space? Select it from the drop down list.
Help people find the space
Assembla uses tags to index spaces. If your workspace is public, entering tags will allow your space to be listed in pages for that topic. For example, if you are running a Linux user group, entering the tag ""Linux" will list your space in that category.
For private projects, you can use tags to describe a workspace so that it shows up in a lists related to a department, service, project, etc. This creates a flexible "index" for workspace members so that they can easily find all spaces of which they are a member related to that topic.
Specify allowed IP addresses
The free version of Assembla allows you to enter which IP addresses can access your Assembla space tools to help you get organized quickly. To turn the feature on, you must upgrade to a Commercial space.
Modify the source code
Assembla is an open source application, distributed with an open-but-not-free license that gives you full access for development purposes. This page explains how to set up a development environment.
If you want to enhance the product, please contact Assembla. If you just want to give us an idea, we will post it for the team. If you are ready to implement the change, we will consider paying you for the change, or adding you to the development team.
We are looking for new tools, improved user profile information, external applications that can be attached as tools, social networking and online service integrations, etc.
If that's too extreme, we also take requests and suggestions. We have implemented a number of requests and suggestions from the Docs and Suggestions list. Thanks for helping us make the app better.
Upgrade to get more features
Choose Commercial
Our Commercial package offers the reliability, service and disk space that you need for your professional projects.
The Commercial package provides the following benefits:
- SSL Encryption on all views of the space
- Automatic backup to external S3 system - Always have access to your own copy of your data
- Optional IP-based security - Restrict access to code repositories by location
- Enhanced time reporting
- No clearing of old data - We won't archive your dormant space or clear your old messages
- Email and phone support - We will answer questions and handle any data conversion or permission issues, within hours
- 5 Gigabyte disk quota
Choose Manager
Our Manager package provides 10 Commercial workspaces plus HR and Payroll automation. Learn more here.