A workspace is your own platform: its own address, its own members, its own settings. The setup creates it in four short steps, and only the first two ask for an answer.
Everything you enter can be changed later, so there is no need to get it perfect on the first try.
The four steps
Step 1: name and address. Under Name your community you enter the
name of your platform. The Community URL fills itself from the name, and
you can type your own instead. It is the front part of your memberarea
address, such as yourbrand.memberarea.io. The address needs 3 to 63
lowercase letters, numbers or hyphens, and it has to start and end with a
letter or number. If it is taken, the setup offers a
free alternative under Available: that you can apply with one click. A
third field asks how you heard about memberarea and is optional.
Step 2: setup type. Under What would you like to build? you pick one of four cards. Each card lists the features it switches on. Next stays greyed out until you have picked one.
Step 3: revenue. An optional question about your current annual revenue. Skip it with Next if you prefer.
Step 4: goal. An optional question about your main goal, such as building a community, onboarding clients or training employees. Get started creates the workspace.
On a larger screen, a summary on the right shows what you have entered so far. Nothing is saved before Get started, so you can go Back and change any answer.
The setup also takes your timezone and language from your browser. If your browser language is one memberarea supports, it becomes the default language of your platform. Otherwise English is used. Your currency starts as euro.
After Get started you land on the dashboard of your new workspace, signed in as its owner. If you picked a plan on the pricing page before signing up, you land on Billing instead to finish the order.
What your setup type switches on
| Setup type | Features switched on |
|---|---|
| Community | Community and Events |
| Courses & Coaching | Courses, Hubs and Payments |
| Membership business | Payments, Community and Courses |
| Configure yourself | Community, Courses, Hubs, Events and Payments |
Every other feature starts switched off. Your member navigation starts with a dashboard entry plus entries for the features members use, such as community, courses and bookmarks, hubs or events.
The setup type is a starting point, not a limit. You can switch any feature on or off at any time under Settings > Features. For the first three setup types, the features that belong to the type carry a Recommended badge there while they are off. Turning features on and off explains the page.
Sample content
A new platform that is completely empty is hard to picture. So the first three setup types add a few sample items you can edit, look at or delete:
- Community adds a community area with three forums (welcome and introductions, general discussion, announcements), a pinned welcome post, a community calendar and a sample event one week from now.
- Courses & Coaching adds a course with two modules and three short lessons, a hub called "Member start" and a product draft.
- Membership business adds a community area with two forums and a welcome post, a course with one module and a lesson, and a draft product with a monthly subscription price.
Configure yourself adds no sample content.
The sample course and the sample products start as drafts that members do not see. The community area, the forums, the welcome post, the event and the hub are live, so anyone who joins sees them. Edit or remove them before you invite your first members.
When you no longer need the samples, click Remove sample content. You find it in the Get Started checklist on your dashboard and in the Sample content box at the bottom of the features page. After you confirm Remove sample content?, it deletes the items the setup created. Your own content stays untouched.
Samples you have already made your own stay. That covers every sample you edited, a welcome post with comments, a forum where members have posted, an area that still holds such a forum, a calendar with events in it, a course whose lessons you changed and a hub whose page you changed. Everything untouched is removed.
Once the samples are gone, the box disappears for good. Switching on a feature later never brings sample content back.
Your checklist follows the same answer
The Get Started checklist on your dashboard is built from your setup type. A community asks for different first steps than a course business, so each type gets its own list. Configure yourself gets the general list. The Get Started checklist goes through every step.
When no setup type was chosen
Some workspaces start without a setup type. They usually start with every feature switched on, and the first admin page you open shows Welcome! Choose your features. Every feature is ticked already. Switch off what you do not need and click Save selection. If you close the window instead, nothing changes and it does not come back.
Either way you can change your choice later on the features page.
Your address and your trial
Your workspace starts on its memberarea address and works from the first minute. Depending on your plan, you can rename the front part of that address later under Settings > Login domain with Platform domain, or connect a domain of your own. The name of your platform lives under Settings > General as Platform Name. Connecting your own domain walks through it.
A new workspace usually starts with a free trial. The trial is tied to the person who creates the workspace, so a second workspace you create starts without one. Your free trial explains the details.
More than one workspace
You can run several platforms with one login, for example one for each brand or each client. Each workspace has its own members, plan and settings.
Click your picture in the navigation to open your account menu, then Workspaces. Choose a workspace lists every workspace where you belong to the team, with its address and your role. Click a workspace to open it.
At the bottom, Create a new workspace starts the same setup again. You become the owner of the new workspace, and your existing ones stay as they are.