Choosing the owning workspace
Every create form asks which workspace will own the new resource. What that choice commits you to, and how to change it later.
When you create an experiment, macro, protocol, workbook or device, the form asks which workspace should own it. It is a small dropdown with a large consequence, so it is worth understanding once rather than discovering later.
The two answers
Your personal workspace is the default. The resource is yours: nobody else can open it unless you share it with them individually, and nobody can be added to your personal workspace to gain access in bulk.
A shared organization means the organization owns it, and its people can reach it immediately:
- Owners and Admins can edit, share and delete it — straight away, without you sharing anything.
- Members can read it. On an experiment they can also contribute measurements and annotations.
Picking an organization grants access to everyone already in it, at the moment you create. That is the point of a shared workspace, but it is not reversible by "unsharing" — there is no share to remove. To narrow it afterwards you have to move the resource somewhere else.
Which to pick
Choose the organization when the work belongs to the group: the lab paid for it, the group will keep using it, and it should outlast your involvement.
Choose your personal workspace when the work is exploratory, unfinished, or genuinely yours — then move it into the organization when it is ready. Moving is a supported step, not a workaround.
Only shared organizations you belong to appear in the picker. Your personal workspace is always there. Other people's organizations never are.
Changing your mind
The owning workspace is shown on every resource's detail page as Owning organization, and can be changed later — except for devices, which cannot be moved at all. See Moving a resource.
That makes the device picker the one choice worth pausing over: for a device, the workspace you pick at registration is the one it keeps for its whole life.