Since acquiring Kavi in 2017, Higher Logic has incorporated the standard development and collaboration tools of Workspace into the Higher Logic Thrive Community (Thrive Community) product. This includes combining the industry-leading discussion and engagement features of Thrive Community with the powerful project- and document-management features of Workspace.

In early 2019, Higher Logic sunsetted Workspace 6 and migrated all Workspace 6 customers to the Thrive Community Workspace. This was followed by feature enhancements and backend improvements to the Thrive Community Workspace.

Workspace 5 was not included in that migration because there were major feature and data differences, due to its long history and highly configurable/customizable nature. As a result, Workspace 5 has continued to run as a separate platform in a sustaining mode with only security patches and major bug fixes.

Now that Higher Logic has built out new features, tools, and processes to ensure a smooth migration from Workspace 5 to Thrive Community Workspace, Higher Logic is kicking off a migration program which will culminate in the sunsetting of Workspace 5 in mid-2024.

Workspace 5 sunset & migration timeline

The following table details the milestones of sunsetting and migrating Workspace 5.

TIP: End of Life is abbreviated as EoL.

Why is Workspace 5 being sunset?

The Workspace 5 product is now more than 15 years old and there are components of it for which additional development is not possible based on the original product design and technology. Additionally, several modern features or standards can't be supported based on current Workspace 5 technology components.

These limitations especially impact email deliverability with DMARC/DKIM, and prevent Workspace 5 from supporting SSO or integrations.

Benefit

Sunsetting Workspace 5 allows us to focus development efforts on the Thrive Community Workspace, where we have new feature development planned with input from our Development Partner Group.

What is involved in a migration?

Workspace 5 customers will receive implementation and consulting assistance to ensure the setting up and launching of a successful community, along with a scripted data migration for major content/history and core community features.

Implementation of a new Thrive Community site with branding (e.g., logos, primary and secondary colors) and configurations to best support existing use cases from Workspace 5.

Migrations and standard Thrive Community implementation services will be included at no additional charge as part of a 3-year contract renewal. Non-standard services, such as an AMS integration and Single Sign On, are available at an additional charge.

The migration also includes the archiving of the customer's Workspace 5 site, with site accessibility for a period after migration in a read-only status (up to the EoL date) and an export of the site content.

What are the feature differences between Workspace 5 and Thrive Community Workspace?

Although not all Workspace 5 features are replicated 1-to-1 in Thrive Community Workspace, many Thrive Community Workspace features do fill the same use case, but function differently. Some of the more notable features are:

• Email Domains - Inbound email addresses use the connectedcommunity.org domain, including the address to post discussions by email. A custom email domain can be set up for outbound/sent mail.
• Ad-hoc/non-group mail lists - Discussion-only communities can be created, and some ad-hoc lists will be migrated to a discussion-only community.
• Events/Calendars - Higher Logic's Event Manager is used for calendaring and events. Events from Workspace 5 calendar are created in Event Manager as part of the migration. This results in functionality and UI changes.
• Discussions/Email and Groups/Communities - Each Group in Workspace 5 has a Community created in Thrive Community Workspace as part of the migration. Communities use the Discussion feature instead of an email reflector. Discussion posts are created for each email in the Group archive as part of the migration.

What will the migration include?

A migration project includes scripting by Higher Logic to move data elements for major content/history and implementation of core community features:

• Groups migrated into Workspace-enabled Communities
• Users and company accounts migrated to the Community
• Content from each group migrated into the corresponding Communities

• Documents
• Comments
• Action Items
• Ballots
• Projects
• Events
• Email History

What will NOT be included?

The following items will not be included in the migration.

• Account level history for the members.
• Custom fields will not be migrated in most cases.
• Other custom features and scripts will not be migrated, but the functionality is evaluated case-by-case as Thrive Community has a robust automation toolset.