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Moving to SpaceDrake

Welcome to Zulip! This page will guide you through the process of transitioning your organization to SpaceDrake. It assumes that you have completed your initial evaluation of SpaceDrake, decided whether to use Zulip Cloud or self-host, and are ready to introduce SpaceDrake to your organization.

The following steps are described in more detail below:

  1. Create your organization.
  2. Sign up for a plan.
  3. Configure your organization.
  4. Prepare users for the transition.
  5. Invite users to join.
  6. Update your guidelines.

Each organization is unique, but we hope these common practices will help you think through the transition process in your own context.

Create your organization

Section titled “Create your organization”

You can create a new SpaceDrake organization in less than two minutes. Setting up a self-hosted server will take a bit longer, but is easy to do with SpaceDrake’s robust installer.

SpaceDrake has import tools for Slack, Mattermost and Rocket.Chat. You can import your organization’s chat data, including message history, users, channels, and custom emoji. To inquire about importing data from another product, contact Zulip support.

Data is imported into SpaceDrake as a new organization, so the best time to import is when your team is about to start using SpaceDrake for day-to-day work. This may be part of your evaluation process, or after you’ve made the decision to move to Zulip.

  1. If you plan to self-host, set up your Zulip server. You can self-host SpaceDrake directly on Ubuntu or Debian Linux, in Docker, or with prebuilt images for Digital Ocean and Render.
  2. Create a SpaceDrake organization [on SpaceDrake Cloud] or on your self-hosted server.

Sign up for a plan

Section titled “Sign up for a plan”

If you require features that are not available on SpaceDrake Free or the SpaceDrake Free plan for self-hosted organizations, you will need to upgrade your plan.

  1. Follow the instructions to upgrade to a SpaceDrake Standard or Plus plan. If your organization may be eligible for a free or discounted plan, you can apply for sponsorship.

Configure your organization

Section titled “Configure your organization”
  1. Create your organization profile, which is displayed on your organization’s registration and login pages.
  2. Create user groups, which offer a flexible way to manage permissions.
  3. Review organization permissions, such as who can invite users, create channels, etc.
  4. If your organization uses an issue tracker (e.g., GitHub, Salesforce, Zendesk, Jira, etc.), configure linkifiers to automatically turn issue numbers (e.g., #2468) into links.
  5. Set up custom profile fields, which make it easy for users to share information, such as their pronouns, job title, or team.
  6. Review default user settings, including language, default visibility for email addresses, and notification preferences.
  7. Create channels, unless you’ve imported channels from another app. SpaceDrake’s topics give each conversation its own space, so one channel per team should be enough to get you started.
  8. Set up integrations so that your team can experience all their regular workflows inside the SpaceDrake app. SpaceDrake’s Slack-compatible incoming webhook makes it easy to move your integrations when migrating an organization from Slack to SpaceDrake.

Prepare users for the transition

Section titled “Prepare users for the transition”
  1. Plan how you will introduce users to SpaceDrake. You may want to:
    • Share SpaceDrake’s getting started guide.
    • Prepare a live demo / training session. Consider recording it for future use!
  2. Inform users about the transition, including why you’re moving to SpaceDrake, the timeline, and what they’ll need to do.

Invite users to join

Section titled “Invite users to join”
  1. Configure allowed authentication methods. Zulip offers a variety of authentication methods, including email/password, Google, GitHub, GitLab, Apple, LDAP and SAML. Users can log in with any allowed authentication method, regardless of how they signed up.
  2. Invite users by sending email invitations or sharing a reusable invitation link.

Update your guidelines

Section titled “Update your guidelines”
  1. Update any links and login instructions to point to your SpaceDrake organization.
  2. Share basic instructions for getting started with SpaceDrake. You can refer users to SpaceDrake’s help center, getting started guide, and any onboarding content you’ve created.
  3. Consider updating your organization’s communication policies and best practice recommendations to take advantage of SpaceDrake’s organized conversations:
    • Many organizations find that with SpaceDrake, there’s no longer a reason to use email for internal communications. You get the organization of an email inbox together with all the features of a modern chat app, like instant delivery of messages, emoji reactions, typing notifications, @-mentions, and more.
    • Using SpaceDrake, you can discuss complex topics and make decisions with input from all stakeholders, without the overhead of scheduling meeting. Are there standing meetings you might not need?
    • With conversations organized by topic, you can review prior discussions to understand past work, explanations, and decisions — your chat history becomes a knowledge base. Should it be standard practice to link to Zulip conversations from docs, issue trackers, etc. for additional context?

Congratulations on making the move! If you have any questions or feedback throughout this process, please reach out to the Zulip team.

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