Workspaces

Summary:

This article will provide a brief overview of the concept of workspaces in NP-View and then describe the different functions that are available for workspaces, across roles and products.

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Workspaces: What are they?

In NP-View, the Workspace is the highest level of segmentation that can be applied to a group of devices for analysis and visualization. Each workspace can be thought of as an individual file, similar to a text document in a word processor.

 

After logging in, the first screen you will see is the Home Page.

On this page, workspaces are illustrated by individual tiles which display their title, and the compliance framework that was selected when creating that workspace. In the image below we can see that there is a workspace named demo that was made within a NERC-CIP framework.

 

Workspaces are sorted by the characters in their names using standard Linux conventions:

1. whitespace
2. integer
3. special char
4. uppercase [A-Z]
5. underscore (possibly other special chars)
6. lowercase [a-z]

 

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Creating a Workspace

Administrators and Workspace Admin’s have permission to create New Workspaces.

1. On the Home Page click “Add a New Workspace”.
2. A dialog will open that allows you to name* the new workspace and to select a compliance framework for it.**
   1. *A workspace name may only contain alphanumeric, underscore, or hyphen characters. It must have at least 3 characters and no more than 24.
   2. **The selection of the compliance framework enables or disables compliance-specific features and reports available within the workspace.
3. Creating a New Workspace or opening an Existing Workspace will open the Workspace canvas
4. Once the Workspace is created or opened you can import configuration files and analyze them.

 

 

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Workspace Support Functions

Every Workspace has three support functions accessible on the Home Page in the upper right corner of each workspace tile.

1. Edit – Clicking the pencil will allow you to rename the workspace.
2. Share – Clicking the arrow provides access to
   1. Export – download a copy of the workspace
   2. Transfer – change ownership of a workspace
   3. Share – allow access to a workspace
3. Delete – Clicking the X deletes the workspace and removes all related data

 

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1. Edit 

• Administrators and Workspace Admin’s only
• Clicking on the pencil will enter edit mode.
• User’s can change the name, click save, and rename; or click the x to cancel the rename

 

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2. Export 

• Administrators and Workspace Admin’s only
• Using Export
  • Once export is selected, a background task will be initiated to create a downloadable image.
    • This process can take several minutes depending on the complexity of the workspace.
  • Once processing is complete, the user can return to this screen and download the image.
    • The user also has the ability to delete the image from the server.
• Using Share/ Transfer (Server Only – See below)
  • Allows you to enter another account to share access or transfer ownership of the workspace.

 

 

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3. Workspace Import

• Administrators and Workspace Admin’s can import previously saved workspace files.
  • By dragging and dropping the file on to the Home Page or into an open workspace.
• If a user loads a backup workspace into an existing workspace, the workspace contents will be replaced with the contents of the uploaded image.
• If a user loads the backup workspace onto the workspaces page, it will be processed as if it is a new workspace and request name and compliance type.
• When a workspace file is imported, complete end-to-end processing of the data is required and may take several minutes for the topology to render.
• Workspaces exported from NP-View Professional Desktop can be shared with users of NP-View Professional Server (licensing rules apply).

 

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Workspace Collaboration (Server Only)

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Administrator and Workspace Admin’s have access to two workspace collaboration functions.

1. Share workspace
2. Transfer workspace

4. Share Workspace

• Administrators and Workspace Admin’s can share a workspace with
  • all users of the same type
  • or to individual users
• The shared users existing roles apply to the shared workspace
• If a workspace is shared with a user, the workspace cannot be transferred to the shared user.
• The workspace must first be unshared prior to attempting the transfer.
• From the Home Page
  • Administrators can use the dropdown selector to view and share workspaces of all users
  • Workspace Admins can only view and share workspaces they have created

5. Transfer Workspace

• Administrator and Workspace Admin’s can transfer a workspace to another Administrator or Workspace Admin
•  The transferred user’s role applies to the transferred workspace
• Administrators can transfer workspaces of all users
• Workspace Admins can only view and transfer workspaces they have created