Multi-workspace overview

“Multi-workspace” is a legacy navigation label. Under the canonical hierarchy (revised 2026-05-26), there are two distinct scenarios that used to be lumped together — and only one of them actually involves multiple workspaces.

Two scenarios, two shapes

Both scenarios share contacts, segments, channels, and journeys at the brand-tenant level. The difference is whether the operator works across brands (agency) or across outlets of a single brand (chain).

Single brand, many outlets

This is the common case for SMB chains, restaurant groups, retail chains, and franchises. You have one brand identity, one customer base, one loyalty program — but multiple physical outlets each with their own hours, manager, and per-outlet sender mapping.

• One workspace owns the brand-tenant data: contacts, segments, channels, journeys, in-app, campaigns, ads, loyalty program, brand voice, bill template.
• Many locations carry per-outlet overrides: local hours, manager phone, payment merchant, inventory, sender pin.
• The chip strip narrows the dashboard to a single outlet without leaving the page. The URL gains ?location=loc_X and reads stay scoped.

Customer-facing pages preserve the outlet in the path: {brand-slug}.actii.me/{location-code}/{page-key}. SMS deep links, QR codes, and bookmarks survive across the hierarchy change.

The shift to outlet-as-attribute was a phased rollout — additive and reversible at every step, with no big-bang migration. Customer-facing URLs continue to resolve through the transition.

Location scope indicator

When you narrow the dashboard via the chip strip, a persistent scope indicator sits at the top of every workspace page, just below the chip row. It tells you which outlet you are currently looking at, so a filtered view is never silent.

• All-outlets view (no chip selected): the indicator is hidden. Pages behave exactly as before — brand-tier reads and writes.
• Narrowed view (chip set to a specific outlet): the indicator names the outlet and the data on the page is scoped to it. Switching the chip flips the indicator and re-narrows the data in place.

The indicator is layout-level — it covers the dashboard home, every Ads sub-page, Insights, Payments, Inbox, Loyalty, Active Loyalty, Active Reviews, Feedback, Contacts, Playbooks, In-app messages, Referrals, and every other workspace surface automatically. New pages get it without any per-page wiring.

A few surfaces are intentionally not narrowed (and so the indicator never appears on them):

• Active POS / Active Captain — external operational apps, no in-dashboard pages.
• Active Payments — only KYC and activation exist today; no operations dashboard yet.
• Active Chat settings tab — chat persona is a single brand voice and is outlet-tier only by design.

Multi-brand: agency mode

If you operate two or more distinct brands — each with its own brand identity, loyalty program, channel registrations, and legal entity — you use agency mode. Each brand gets its own Active Reach org with its own workspace, linked to your agency org via the agency_clients substrate.

• The agency org itself has no workspaces — it’s a holding-company shell.
• Each client org is a complete Active Reach brand with its own workspace, channels, loyalty, billing.
• Operators jump between brands via the Clerk org-switcher. The JWT carries delegated_from_org_id so every action inside a client org is logged with the agency operator’s identity.

See Agency overview for the full story.

What about historical “1 org, many workspaces”?

If you set up multiple workspaces under one org in the older model (when workspace meant outlet), your data is preserved. The migration is additive and reversible. Customer URLs continue to resolve. New product surfaces use the brand-tenant + location model.

How URLs reflect the model

What’s next

• Workspace management — create, configure, archive
• Portfolio dashboard — cross-brand aggregate (agency mode only)
• Agency — agency-specific features
• Workspace vs organization — the underlying account model