Once more than one team is building in Lark Base, the question stops being “how do I create a base” and becomes “who’s allowed to touch which base, and who decides that.”
Base Workspaces exist to answer exactly that: a shared container for a department’s or team’s bases, with its own roles, its own external-sharing rules, and its own say over who can add or remove content.
The 3 Workspace Roles
Every member added to a Base Workspace holds one of three roles, set from Workspace Settings > Members.
- Admins: Manage the workspace’s settings, members, and every base inside it.
- Editors: Can edit any base within the workspace.
- Viewers: Can view any base within the workspace.
Important: How these roles translate into actual base-level access depends on whether advanced permissions are turned on for a given base. Without advanced permissions, workspace Admins, Editors, and Viewers map directly to “can manage”, “can edit”, and “can view” in that base’s collaborator panel (Share > Manage collaborators), and you’ll see the corresponding workspace roles listed there. With advanced permissions turned on, the same three workspace roles instead map to the administrator, editor, and viewer system roles inside advanced permissions, and a member’s actual access follows whatever those advanced permission settings say.
Adding and Managing Members
Add members from Manage Members on the workspace homepage, or via Workspace Settings > Members. Select a role, search for the users or groups to add, then confirm whether to send them a notification.
To change someone’s role later, hover over their entry in the member list and use the change-role control that appears.
Removing a member follows the same pattern: hover over their entry, click Remove, and confirm.
Security Settings
Workspace-level security settings, under Workspace Settings > Security, apply across every base the workspace holds.
- Allow bases to be shared externally: Turning this off disables external sharing for every base in the workspace, revokes access for external users who previously had a link, hides the “Anyone with the link” sharing options, and blocks adding external collaborators entirely.
- Who can add bases to the workspace: Restrict this to admins only, admins and editors, or everyone in the workspace.
- Who can remove bases from the workspace: The same three-tier choice, applied to removal instead.
Moving and Removing Bases
Adding an existing base to a workspace, or moving one out again, both require manage permission for that base plus edit permission for wherever it’s currently stored; moving it out of a workspace additionally requires permission to remove it from that workspace. From the base’s own menu, choose Move to Another Workspace or Remove From Workspace.
Note: Up to 10 existing bases can be added to a workspace at once. If you lack edit permission for a base’s storage location, you can grant that permission to someone who has it and have them move the base instead.
Deleting a Workspace
Deleting a Base Workspace is irreversible. From Workspace Settings > More, click Delete, then type the workspace’s name to confirm.
The bases that were inside the workspace are not deleted. What disappears is the access members had through their workspace role; anyone who still needs a given base will need direct access to it afterwards.
Practical Use Cases for SMEs and Startups
- Departmental governance: Give each department its own workspace with its own admins, so IT doesn’t have to manage base permissions one base at a time.
- Controlling external exposure: Turn off external sharing at the workspace level for anything containing sensitive data, rather than relying on every base owner to remember individually.
- Delegated onboarding: Let a team lead add and remove their own members as Editors or Viewers, without needing broader admin access to Base itself.
- Offboarding at scale: Remove someone from a workspace once, rather than hunting down every base they had individual access to.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What’s the difference between a Base Workspace role and Base advanced permissions?
A workspace role (Admin, Editor, Viewer) sets a member’s default access to every base in that workspace. Advanced permissions, when turned on for a specific base, take over from there: the workspace role maps to a system role inside advanced permissions, and the base’s own permission settings decide what the member can actually do.
Why can’t I add an existing base to a workspace?
You need manage permission for the base itself, plus edit permission for wherever it’s currently stored. Moving a base out of another workspace also requires permission to remove it from that workspace.
Why can’t a base in my workspace be shared externally?
Check the workspace’s Security settings. If “Allow bases to be shared externally” is set to “Don’t allow”, no base in that workspace can be shared externally, regardless of that base’s own sharing settings.
Does adding a base to a workspace move or duplicate it?
Neither. A Base Workspace centrally manages access to a base without changing where it’s actually stored, whether that’s Drive, Wiki, or a personal document library.
What happens to the bases when I delete a Base Workspace?
They aren’t deleted. Members simply lose the access they had through their workspace role, so anyone who still needs a base will need to be given direct access to it afterwards.
Who is allowed to create a new Base Workspace?
Only members included in the “Who can create Base workspaces” list, which your organisation administrator controls.
Access That Scales with the Team
A Base Workspace turns permission management from a per-base chore into a per-team policy: set the roles and security rules once, and every base added afterwards inherits them.
Ready to Power Your Business with Lark?
Lark Base is just one part of an all-in-one platform that brings messaging, meetings, documents, approvals, and automations together for your entire team.
As the Platinum Partner for Lark in Malaysia, Exabytes offers tailored Lark plans, hands-on onboarding, and dedicated local support to help your team keep data access under control as it grows.
