Introduction and concepts

This chapter explains what Coviqo is and introduces the handful of ideas the rest of this guide builds on: spaces, rooms, room modules, meetings and roles. Read it once before you dive into the task-oriented chapters – most questions of the kind "why can't I see this room?" are answered by the concepts described here.

What Coviqo is#

Coviqo is one place for your team or your community to talk, meet and get work done. Instead of switching between a chat tool, a video conferencing service, a shared drive and a task tracker, you open a room and find everything that belongs to one topic in one spot:

• Persistent voice – voice rooms stay open all the time. You drop in and out as you would walk into an office, without links or waiting rooms.
• Chat – messages with Markdown, mentions, reactions, replies, pinned messages and file attachments.
• Notes – shared documents such as meeting notes, agendas and documentation, with version history and comments.
• Files – folders, uploads, versions and share links, with every upload scanned for malware.
• Tasks – a task board with assignees, priorities and due dates.
• Events – a calendar with RSVPs and reminders.
• Meetings – scheduled or instant video meetings with a lobby, guests, recording, live captions, transcripts and an AI summary whose results become tasks and decisions.

Coviqo runs in any modern browser, as a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, and as an installable app (PWA) on phones and tablets. All AI features – transcription, translation and summaries – run on the Coviqo infrastructure itself; audio and transcripts are not sent to third-party AI services.

The building blocks#

Spaces#

A space is the outermost container. It holds rooms, members, roles and settings. Typical spaces are "Acme Studios" for a company, "Photography Club" for a community, or an open-source project that combines a core team with a public community.

When you create a space you choose a space type. The type sets sensible defaults (for example which roles exist) and the wording in some places:

In addition, you can create a private space whenever you want one: choose Create private space (German UI: Privaten Space anlegen). It is always private and only for you. New accounts start without one; it is created with one click when you choose it, or when something needs it (for example saving a clip privately). To work with others, create a separate space.

A space also has a visibility:

• Public – listed in Discover; anyone with an account can join.
• Private – not listed; people join through invite links.
• Invite only – hidden; only personal invitations work.

You can be a member of many spaces at the same time. The space list on the left edge of the app lets you switch between them.

Rooms#

Inside a space, conversations and work are organised in rooms. A room usually stands for a topic, a team, a project or a recurring meeting – for example #product-team, #website-relaunch or #weekly-sync. Rooms can be grouped into categories in the sidebar.

Each room has a room type that decides which modules it starts with. You can change the modules at any time later.

Rooms have their own visibility, independent of the space:

• Public – every member of the space can see and join the room.
• Private – only added members (and admins) can see it.
• Restricted – visible to everyone, joining requires permission.
• Invite only – hidden; access only through a room invite.

Room modules#

The tabs you see at the top of a room are its modules. A room can have any combination of them:

In addition, every regular room has a Decisions tab. It lists the decisions that were published from meetings linked to this room (see the chapter Meetings).

The right-hand side of a room shows the Members and Chat panels and the room's Activity feed, so you can keep an eye on the conversation while you work in another tab.

Meetings#

A meeting is a video call with a clear start and an end, an organizer and invited participants. Unlike a voice room, a meeting can have external guests, a lobby, a passcode, a recording, a live transcript and an AI summary.

Behind the scenes, every meeting gets its own hidden room with chat, notes, files and tasks. That is why the meeting chat, the shared notes and the recording remain available after the call – you reach them from the meeting's detail page. A meeting can optionally be linked to a regular room (the parent room); it then shows up in that room and its summary is posted there.

After the meeting, Coviqo can turn what was said into results: the AI proposes action items and decisions, the organizer reviews them and publishes them as real tasks and entries in the decision log. The chapter Meetings describes this in detail.

Roles and permissions#

What you can do in a space is decided by your roles. A role is a named bundle of permissions such as "Send messages", "Create rooms" or "Record". Every member can have several roles; the permissions add up.

Default roles#

New spaces start with a set of roles that fits the space type. Admins can rename them, change their permissions and create new ones.

• Owner – the person who owns the space. The owner can do everything and the role cannot be deleted. Ownership can be transferred to another member.
• Admin – holds the Administrator permission, which grants every permission and bypasses room restrictions.
• Manager / Moderator / Maintainer – the "middle" role: creating and managing rooms, managing tasks and events, or moderating members, depending on the space type.
• Member / Contributor – the Default role that every new member receives automatically. Members can chat, talk, share files, edit notes, create tasks and start meetings.
• Guest – the role for people from outside. Guests see only the rooms that were explicitly shared with them and have read-mostly permissions (they can chat and talk, but for example not upload files or edit notes by default).

Room permissions#

Permissions are defined on the space level, but a room can override them for individual roles or members. In a room's settings under Access › Permissions, every permission can be set to Allow, Inherit or Deny. This way you can, for example, make an announcements room where only the Manager role may send messages, or give one external expert upload rights in a single room.

The order in which Coviqo decides is simple:

1. The owner and anyone with Administrator can do everything.
2. Otherwise, the permissions of all your roles are combined.
3. Room overrides for your roles are applied (deny removes, allow adds).
4. Room overrides for you personally are applied last.
5. If a moderator has put you in a timeout, you temporarily lose all "active" permissions – you can still read, but not speak, write or upload.

Guests and external people#

Coviqo distinguishes two kinds of outside participants:

• Space guests are people from outside your organisation – customers, partners, freelancers – who get a Coviqo account and are invited into your space as guests. They see only the rooms you share with them, optionally until a fixed date or until a room's project end. You manage them in Space settings › Members › External people.
• Meeting guests join a single meeting through its join link, either with just their name (a temporary guest account that is deleted automatically after the meeting) or with their own Coviqo account. They see only that meeting – its call, chat, notes and files – and nothing else in your space.

The chapter Spaces and rooms explains how to invite and manage space guests; the chapter Meetings covers meeting guests.

How this guide is organised#

The user guide follows the way you typically get to know Coviqo:

Conventions used in this guide#

• Names of buttons, menus and fields are printed in bold, exactly as they appear in the app (English interface).
• Paths through menus are written as Settings › Audio & video.
• Keyboard shortcuts look like Ctrl+K. On macOS, use ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
• Many actions are also available in a context menu: right-click an item on a computer, or press and hold it on a phone or tablet.
• Depending on your roles, you may not see every button described here. If something is missing, ask an admin of your space – it is most likely a permission.