Workspaces in TYPO3

The Workspaces module is currently a "hidden gem" in TYPO3, but is unfortunately rarely used by many editors. In this article, we want to reveal some of the secrets of this powerful TYPO3 feature.

Furthermore, we give an outlook on the add-on extension "Kanban Workspaces", which is currently under development and is being crowd-funded under the mentoring of web-vision.

The TYPO3 Workspaces module extends TYPO3 with the ability to edit content and changes in a controlled environment without directly affecting the live version of the website. It is based on the TYPO3 versioning system and offers a user interface for managing changes, releases and publications.

By default, there is at least the "LIVE" workspace (i.e. the active live website), and any number of user-defined workspaces can also be created. This makes it possible to prepare and carry out work in the TYPO3 backend with individual workflows.

Here is an example of a possible workflow for the creation of editorial content:

• Status 1: Idea / Draft / Open. In this phase, the idea for an article or content is roughly sketched out, a possible structure is compiled and supplementary content such as supporting images may already be collected.
• Status 2: Research / feedback. The results from the first phase are again subjected to internal feedback or substantiated by researching sources. External experts are consulted and asked for feedback. Comments can already be obtained at this stage using workspace modules.
• Status 3: Editing / In Progress. This is where the actual article or content is created.
• Status 4: Internal review. The editing stage, so to speak. The article is checked for errors and attempts are made to improve the language.
• Status 5: Ready for release / Customer Review. The article is ready, but still needs to be coordinated with other posts (cross-postings) on social media.
• Status 6: Publication / Deployment / Publish. The article is published and success monitoring begins.

During all these phases, you can continue to work with TYPO3 as usual at any time, view a preview of the content if required and even see an A/B comparison of the website with your content before and after. What is particularly helpful here is that different view modes "horizontal", "vertical" and "slider" are available to better capture the changes and compare them with the original version.

In the workspace configuration, roles for editors, reviewers or publishers can be defined for the individual stages of a workflow. Specific backend users or user groups can be informed automatically for each status change.

Even external users - without having their own access to the TYPO3 backend - can be integrated into the workflow. They can be informed about the current status of the article and the changes made there either by means of automatically generated preview links or by email. With the generated preview links, the article can also be accessed without a login.

Version management & reversion: Every change is automatically versioned so that changes can be tracked, compared or reverted if necessary. A particularly practical feature here is the so-called diff comparison, which highlights new texts in green and deleted texts in red.

Access control & workspaces: Workspaces make it possible to define access rights depending on the workspace (which editors work in which workspace, who is allowed to publish) and also to restrict certain page areas (pagetrees) per workspace.

Time- or event-controlled publication: Changes can be prepared and then published at a specific time.

We at web-vision have taken over the sponsorship for the crowdfunding of the Kanban Workspaces module for TYPO3, which is currently under development, and also provide support in the context of quality assurance and debugging.

With this extension for TYPO3, we want to establish a task- and workflow-based approach in TYPO3, which is based on well-known tools such as Jira or Trello and features a configurable Kanban board. The module is intended to complement the Workspaces module in TYPO3 and use its configurations.

• Standalone TYPO3 extension that is compatible with EXT:workspaces
• Ability for users to view all modified, newly created or deleted content in a Kanban board view
• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Implementation for search and filtering
• Provision of direct links for editing
• Display of Kanban board content for a selected page from the page tree

The "Kanban Workspaces" project is currently in the crowdfunding phase until the end of 2025. For 960 EUR net, funding partners receive mentions in the Readme.md file with logo and backlink in the code repository, as well as a permanent mention in the extension documentation and preferential access to the extension.

The extension will later be made available free of charge as open source software in the TYPO3 Extension Repository.

Interested parties should send an email to hello(at)web-vision.de. Payment of the crowdfunding share is only due upon release of the extension.

The following companies have already pledged funding for the Kanban Workspace module for TYPO3.