rallyHelpChapter 3 · Spaces and Breakouts / 3.2
Arranging your Channels
Pin, move, file and archive Channels so the sidebar shows what matters.
With your Spaces in place, the next job is getting the right Channels onto the right shelves and the busiest ones within reach. Almost all of it happens in the sidebar's Channel list, under the Space pills.
The Channel menu
Right-click any Channel in the sidebar for its menu. From top to bottom:
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pin / Unpin | Keeps the Channel at the top of the list, for you. See Pinning. |
| Mark as unread | Marks the Channel unread again, so it nags you later. |
| Share | Invites someone by email into the Channel's main conversation. See Sharing with people outside your Organization. |
| Rename | Opens Rename channel. Names can be up to 180 characters. |
| Add to space | Puts the Channel in another Space as well. See One Channel, several Spaces. |
| Manage access | Shows exactly who can read the Channel and why. See Who can see what. |
| Remove from space | Takes the Channel out of the Space whose pill you have selected. |
| Archive channel | Retires the Channel for everyone. See Archiving. |
Not every item appears every time. Rally's own built-in Channels do not offer Add to space, Manage access or Remove from space, and neither does a Space you only see through one of its Channels.
Renaming, icons and colours are covered in more detail in Names, icons and colours.
Open the Channel and click its name in the title pill for a second menu, with Copy link, the Pinned in sidebar switch, its People, Sidekicks and Breakouts. See Names, icons and colours.
Pinning
Channels in the sidebar are listed alphabetically, which is fair but not always helpful. Pinning keeps the Channels you live in at the top, in a Pinned section, in whatever order you like. The section is always there, even before you pin anything: empty, it reads Move a channel here to pin it.
- To pin, drag a Channel up into Pinned and let go. You can also right-click it and choose Pin, or open it, click its name in the title pill, choose More and turn on Pinned in sidebar.
- To unpin, right-click it and choose Unpin, or turn Pinned in sidebar off.
- To reorder your pins, drag them up and down. From the keyboard, select a pinned Channel, hold ⌥ Option and press ↑ or ↓. The arrow keys on their own only move the selection.
Pins are yours alone. They follow you to your other devices and change nothing for anyone else in the Channel. Each Space keeps its own pins, so with a Space's pill selected, a Channel that lives in two Spaces can be pinned in one and not the other. Under All, Pinned shows everything you have pinned in any Space, in an order of its own that you arrange the same way and that also follows you to your other devices. Unpinning a Channel under All unpins it everywhere. Only pinned Channels can be reordered. The rest stay alphabetical.
You can pin up to 1,000 Channels, by which point the Pinned section has become the sidebar and you are back where you started.
The Space pills reorder in much the same way: drag a pill sideways, or select it and use ⌥ Option with ← or →.
Moving a Channel to another Space
Drag a Channel from the sidebar's list and drop it on a Space's pill. The pill pulses to say it has caught it. The Channel moves: it leaves the Space you dragged it from and lives in the new one instead.
- You can only drop on a Space you are able to change, and not on the Space you are already in.
- If the Channel you moved was open, Rally opens the next Channel in the list, or the Space's page if it was the last one.
Important
Moving a Channel can change who sees it. Drop it in an Organization-wide Space and everyone in the Organization can now read it. Drop it in a private Space and it may become hidden from people who used to see it. Read Who can see what before you rearrange anything sensitive.
One Channel, several Spaces
A Channel can sit in more than one Space at once and shows up under each, so work that belongs to two teams does not need copying.
- To add it to another Space, right-click the Channel, choose Add to space and pick the Space. It stays where it was as well. Spaces you cannot pick are greyed out with the reason, such as This channel is already in that Space.
- To take it out of a Space, open that Space, right-click the Channel and choose Remove from space. You can also do this from Manage access.
Every Channel must live in at least one Space. If you try to remove it from its last one, Rally refuses: Every channel needs a space, and this would leave one with none. Add it to another space first.
Remember that each Space a Channel is in is another group of people who may be able to read it.
Archiving
When a piece of work is finished, archive it. Archiving takes the thing out of the sidebar and stops anyone from working in it. Rally keeps the content: there is no button anywhere that deletes a Channel.
| To archive | Do this |
|---|---|
| A Channel | Right-click it in the sidebar and choose Archive channel, or choose it at the bottom of the Channel's title pill menu. |
| A Breakout | Click its name in its title pill and choose Archive breakout. See Breakouts. |
| A Space | Right-click its pill and choose Archive space. See Spaces. |
| A Sidekick | Click … on the Sidekick and choose Archive Sidekick. See The Sidekicks window. |
Warning
Archiving a Channel affects everyone, not only you. It leaves the sidebar for everyone who can see it, and nobody, you included, can open it again. Any work Rally is doing in it stops, scheduled follow-ups stop, and email sent to the Channel's address is refused. Nothing is deleted, but Rally has no way in the app to bring an archived Channel or Breakout back. If you only want it out of your way, pin the Channels you care about instead.
Spaces are the exception: an archived Space can be restored, as described in Spaces.
Making room
The sidebar stays open; it does not fold away. To give the conversation more room, drag the sidebar's right edge to make it narrower. Rally remembers the width on this Mac.
When something goes wrong
If one of these sidebar changes fails (archiving, pinning, reordering, adding a Channel to a Space, moving it or removing it), Rally shows a small window in the middle of the screen. Its title says what failed, such as Channel could not be moved or Channel could not be pinned, and one sentence says what state things are in now, for example that the pinned list is back in the order it was in. Click OK to close it.
Clicking OK only says you have seen it. Nothing is retried for you. Most of these messages suggest trying again in a moment, and that usually works. If it keeps failing, see Common problems and fixes.
Next: Breakouts, for when a conversation needs a side room.