This resource is aimed at rural professionals involved in the workspaces testing. This testing is being undertaken in early 2024. Workspaces will become available to all rural professionals after the testing is complete and appropriate refinement made.

Workspaces give rural professionals such as accountancy, bank and farm consultancy businesses direct control over who can access Farm Focus farms within their own organisation and to what level. The rural professional creates a workspace. Access to farms in that workspace is controlled by a nominated workspace administrator.

Workspaces saves time, improves security and ensures the correct team members have access to the correct farms at the correct time. Workspace members use their own logins allowing accurate audit logging and traceability, which is not possible when a generic organisational login is used.

Subscription admins (farm owners) can send a request or accept to be added to a workspace. This means the farm owner hands over control of who can access, and therefore make changes to their Farm Focus farm to a workspace. The farm owner can remove their farm from a workspace at any time and this will revoke all workspace members access. They can also view who has access to their farm from the workspace.

There are two types of Workspace members:

Administrator (Admin): The person who created the workspace will automatically become an Admin. Every workspace must have at least one administrator. The role provides the user with full access to all functions of the workspace. This role controls which team members get access to what farms and at what level. If you have questions about the different farm access levels; Find out more.

A workspace administrator can:

Standard: A workspace can have as many standard members as it needs. Standard members can see all farms that belong to the workspace but are only permitted to work on farms that they have been granted access to.

All workspace members must have a Farm Focus login. Find out how to create your own login.

The accountancy, bank or farm consultancy businesses must initiate this step.

3. Go to the Focus Workspace panel and select Create workspace

4. Select the workspace type. Your options are Accountancy, Bank or Consultancy.

5. Name the workspace, as appropriate. Suggested approach is <company name>, <location or area>, and must be clear for farmers to identify their rural professional and region.

6. Enter your NZ business number (optional), physical address, accept the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy, and select Create.

Navigate to your workspace by clicking on the Farm name drop down and your workspace will be at the bottom of the list.

There are two options:

Option 1 (preferred option):

The Workspace Admin requests access to a farm.

Option 2 (less preferred)

The Subscription admin (farm owner) initiates this. Find out more about how a farm owner can send a request to be part of a workspace.

Once a farm owner has accepted a request or sent a request and it has been accepted, the responsibility of who can access that farm from a Workspace perspective is handed over to the workspace administrator.

In the navigation bar select Your farms or click into the Farms counter.

The workspace admin can see a request to be added to a workspace has been made when the red token appears on the Farms counter and on the Pending farms tab.

Click into the Pending farms tab and select Deny or Approve.

Once approved the farm will move to the Workspace farms tab.

If denied the farm will be removed from Pending farms tab and the farm owner will be notified. Note: this notification is not available during the beta testing.

This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

3. Enter the email address of the person you wish to invite to the workspace. Select Send.

An email invite will be sent to the proposed new member. A notification will appear in the Pending members tab of the workspace and will remain there until the proposed new member accepts the invitation. When they accept the invitation the team member will move from the Pending members tab to the Members tab. They will default to a standard user but they can be changed by the administrator, if required.

To accept an invitation the proposed new member will need to follow the 'Accept the invitation' link in the email and/or log into Farm Focus.

These tasks can only be performed by the workspace administrator.

At any stage a workspace administrator can change a member's role from standard to admin level or vice versa. These roles only impact what they can do in the workspace and do not affect what they can do in a farm.

Go to the Members page > select member > view the details of that member > select Standard or Admin then Apply.

If a member has left your organisation you can remove them from the workspace.

In the Members page > select member > view the details of that member > select Remove member.

This will remove the member from the workspace and remove their access to all farms from the workspace.

Note: An administrator cannot remove themselves or change their role. There must always be at least one administrator in the workspace.

This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

Go to Farms page > Workspace farms tab > farm name > select Edit and view the details of that farm.

This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

Go to Farms page > Workspace farms > farm name > select Edit

> select Remove farm from workspace.

This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

Go to Farms page > Workspace farms > farm name > select Edit

Using the drop down arrow under Members select the member you want to add to that farm.

All workspace members will appear on the list.

Select the access level for that team member for that farm. Levels are either Organisation admin, Restricted user or Reporting access, Find out more. Then click Add. This person's name will appear under Access via Workspace.

The workspace administrator gets the option of adding bulk members to a farm but they will all have the same level of access.

The best practice is to add all members who require access to the farm and change members' access levels individually using the edit function.

This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

Go to Farms page > Workspace farms > farm name > select Edit > Access via Workspace

Select the workspace member, click on the three vertical dots and select Edit.

The workspace member can also be removed from the farm by selecting Remove. They will still have access to the workspace but not to that particular farm. They can be added back to that farm at any stage.

You can customise your workspace with a unique logo. This task can only be performed by a workspace administrator.

Log into the workspace.

Go to Settings > Workspace logo

If one of your clients purchases a new Farm Focus subscription, you as the Accountant can do the entire setup for a new Farm Focus subscription as long as the subscription admin has accepted an invitation or sent a request, and it has been accepted by the workspace.

TIP: You can view the notifications for each farm in a workspace from the Your farms tab by selecting Notifications on the individual farm card.

As a standard member of a workspace you can:

Log into Farm Focus

If your default farm is part of the workspace you will land on Your Farms tab in the workspace.

If your default farm is not part of the workspace you will land on the dashboard of that farm and will need to navigate to your workspace.

Click on the farm you want to work in and you will be taken to that farm's dashboard. You will be able to work on that farm according to your level of access.

If your access level is incorrect, contact the workspace administration to get the farm access level changed.