The Dalea hierarchy
User → Org → Workspace → Project → everything else.
Almost everything you'll do in Dalea is anchored to a particular workspace, and almost every page in the product follows the same hierarchy. Understanding it once removes a lot of "where did that go?" later.
Workspace
The data boundary. Documents, data and inventory all live in a workspace.
Example
IND-128 Discovery Team
Workspaces never share data with each other directly. Sharing happens by exporting through templates or marketplace packages.
The four hierarchy layers
- User
- A single person. Email, password or passkey, optional 2FA. Belongs to one or more organisations.
- Organisation
- A billing tier and a member directory. Owns workspaces. Has org-level admins, security policy, and a tier that gates features (free / pro / academic / enterprise).
- Workspace
- The collaboration unit and the data boundary. Documents, environments and inventory all live here. Workspaces don't share data with each other; sharing happens through templates or the marketplace.
- Project
- An organisational grouping inside a workspace — a study, a campaign, a manuscript. Purely organisational; it does not change permissions.
The artefacts inside a workspace
- Document
- A collaborative notebook page made of structured blocks (paragraphs, protocols, tables, charts).
- Folder
- A hierarchical organiser inside a project.
- File
- An uploaded artefact (FASTA, PDB, image, PDF) tied to a document or project.
- Environment
- A schema container — tables, columns, naming schemes — for structured records.
- Object
- An entity registered in an environment: a sample, an animal, a reagent.
- Result
- A measurement record (dimensions × measurements) tied to one or more objects.
- Inventory item
- Something physical: a vial, a plate, an antibody aliquot. Tracked through a lifecycle.
- Template
- A reusable document blueprint, optionally locked.
Two practical consequences
A workspace is your collaboration unit
If you wouldn't be comfortable having a person see everything in a workspace, they don't belong in it. Spin up a separate workspace instead. Workspaces are cheap.
Projects do not gate access
Putting a document in a project does not hide it from other workspace members. Projects are an organisational tool, not a permission boundary. If you need real isolation, use roles or a separate workspace.