Organise memos into collections

A collection groups a project's memos so your team and your AI work from the same set. Put a client's meeting notes, proposals and files in a collection and everyone who can open it sees the same list, the same board and the same rules for how things are filed. A memo can sit in several collections at once, so a decision can live in the client's collection and in your team handbook without being copied.

Each collection has its own people, views, properties and standing instructions. This page covers creating one and filing memos into it. For the rest, see Share a collection with your team, See a collection as a list, board, table, calendar or timeline and Give a collection standing instructions.

Create a collection

Start one from wherever you are:

• In the sidebar, while you're looking at your collections: hover the list's heading and click +, or open its ⋯ menu and choose New collection.

• On the All collections page: click New collection.

• From a memo: open + Add to collection, type a name such as "Acme rebrand" and choose Create "Acme rebrand". The memo goes straight into it, and you stay on the memo. Open collection in the message that appears takes you there.

• From anywhere: press Cmd+K and choose New collection.

The New collection dialog asks for two things. Type a Name and press Enter or click Create. Share with everyone in your workspace is on by default; turn it off to keep the collection to yourself for now. If you already have a collection with that name, the dialog says so under the name, so pick another.

If you started from + on a tag's heading in the sidebar, the dialog shows the tag the new collection will get.

Fieldwerk then opens the new collection. A description and standing instructions are set from there: the empty collection offers Add a description and Write instructions, alongside New memo for its first memo.

Add a memo to a collection

1. Open the memo.

2. Click + Add to collection.

3. Pick a collection, or type a new name and choose Create to make one on the spot.

Repeat to add the memo to more collections. To file a new memo straight into a collection, use New memo from inside the collection instead.

If the collection is published, Fieldwerk asks Add to a published collection? first, because the memo may become visible to anyone with the collection's link.

File new memos somewhere by default

If most of your writing belongs in one collection, stop filing by hand:

1. Open Personal settings (in your account menu, or from Cmd+K).

2. Under General, find Default collection and choose where New memos file here.

Choose None (leave memos unfiled) to stop filing them automatically.

Keep the important ones at the top

• Pin a memo inside a collection with Pin on its row. Pinned memos stay at the top.

• Favourite a collection with Add to favourites in the collection's menu. Favourites get their own section at the top of the sidebar.

• Tag collections with Edit tags in the collection's menu, then use Group by tag in the sidebar or on All collections to group them.

Archive a collection

When a project ends, choose Archive from the collection's menu. It disappears from the sidebar and pickers, but nothing is deleted: its memos stay where they are. Archived collections sit under Archived at the bottom of All collections, where Unarchive brings one back.

Have your AI do it

With your AI connected (see Connect Claude to Fieldwerk or Connect ChatGPT to Fieldwerk), set up a project's collection and its rules in one go:

In Fieldwerk, create a new collection for a project. Ask me what to call it and whether to share it with everyone in my workspace. Suggest standing instructions for it and save them once I agree, then offer to file any of my existing memos that belong there.

Tidy up what's already there:

In Fieldwerk, show me my collections and ask which one to check, then list its memos that have no owner set and tell me which ones look like meeting notes.

A good habit: write the collection's standing instructions the day you create it. Your AI files things the way your team does from the first memo instead of guessing.

To keep the collections you use most at the top of your sidebar, see Keep the collections you use close at hand.