Tag across projects with workspace tags

Workspace tags help connect themes across projects and teams. They are global / universal tags that can be linked and applied to data across multiple projects at once. See them in action here.

They are a mechanism for researchers who want to create and standardize sets of tags for teams in the workspace. Workspace tag boards are commonly used for creating personas, shared feature requests, jobs-to-be-done, platform flows, and more.

By default, tags in Dovetail live in a specific project and can’t be shared across projects. Workspace tag boards enable you to pull in and apply common 'global' tags that can be linked to and re-used across different projects.

When you create a workspace tag board, you’ll need to link the tag board to one or more projects so each project can use the tags.

Inside a project, nothing changes – tags are seamlessly integrated with existing tags inside a project. You can create highlights like normal, choosing workspace tags or project tags without too much thought.

Workspace tag boards are ‘live’ – changes you make to tags in a workspace tag board will immediately be reflected in all linked projects. In this sense, workspace tag boards in Dovetail are similar to Masters in Keynote, Symbols and Libraries in Sketch, and Components in Figma.

Admins and users can create workspace tag boards. To create a workspace tag board in Dovetail:

1. Click the ⚙️ menu in the top right of the screen.

2. Click tags.

3. Click + New tag board.

You can also create a workspace tag board by linking and converting another project's local tag board.

For example, in Project A you can view Project B's tag board created. If Project B's board is linked to Project A, Project B's tag board will be converted to a workspace tag board as it is used in 2 projects. To link and convert a project's local tag board to a workspace tag board:

1. Click on the ••• next to the tag board name

2. Click Convert to workspace tag board

Once you’ve created your workspace tag board, you’ll want to link it to projects give them project access to the tags. After you link a workspace tag board to a project, its tags will seamlessly show up inside the linked project. To link it to a project:

1. Navigate to a project.

2. Click + next to Tags in the side menu

3. Click Use and existing board

4. Search for and select the tag board you want to link

5. Click Link to project if you want to link the project to the tag board, or Duplicate if you'd like to create a local copy of the board.

Workspace tags can be organized into boards and groups. This works the same as a project – you can organize your tags, change their color, rename the groups, and so on. There are two ways to organize, edit, and delete the tags:

1. Navigate to the tag board through workspace settings; or

2. Edit tags in-context inside any linked project by opening the tag board from the side menu.

Move tags

You can move tags from a project to a workspace tag board, or from one workspace tag board to another. To move a tag:

1. Hover your mouse over the tag you'd like to move and click on the (•••) button.

2. Click Move to….

3. Choose a tag board, and tag group to move the tag to.

You can undo this action immediately after by clicking the Undo button on the confirmation message in the bottom right corner.

Merge tags

You can move tags from a project to a workspace tag board, or from one workspace tag board to another. To merge a tag:

1. Hover your mouse over the tag you'd like to move and click on the (•••) button.

2. Click Merge into….

3. Choose the tag you want to merge your current tag into.

Workspace tag boards can be restricted using access control, so you can manage access in the same way you can with projects.

See Manage access to workspace fields, tags and templates.

Templates help you standardize user research across your organization by giving other people a starting set of data, tags, and project configuration to begin new projects from.

Workspace tag boards can be linked to project templates. This allows new projects created from your template to automatically include your workspace tag boards.

See Create reusable project templates.

Once your workspace tag board is linked to a project, you can seamlessly create highlights with tags across your workspace in the exact same way as you can with tags in the project.

When you unlink workspace tag boards from a project, any tags, boards, and groups in the workspace tag board will be duplicated into the project once the link is broken. This may result in a lot of duplicated tags and highlights which you’ll need to clean up. To unlink a project and an extension:

1. Navigate to Tags in the side menu within project.

2. Click on the linked project

3. Toggle on or off the projects you'd like to link the workspace tag board to

A deleted workspace tag board goes to workspace trash where it can be restored for 30 days. To delete a workspace tag board:

1. Navigate to a workspace tag board and click on the (•••) button.

2. Click Delete.