lua Colabora manual

1. Before you start

lua Colabora is the team workspace that comes with your email: Drive (files and sharing), the document editor, Talk (chat and meetings), Tasks, Deck (Kanban boards), the whiteboard, and Notes. Everything works in the browser, with nothing to install.

How to access

• From webmail: in the sidebar, click the cloud icon (Drive) or the speech bubble (Chat). A new tab opens with you already signed in, without asking for the password again.
• Directly in the browser: go to https://colabora.lua.email. The old address, drive.lua.email, still works. If your company uses its own address, the address is your company's, for example colabora.yourcompany.com.

Who has access

lua Colabora comes with every lua.email plan. Your company's administrators can turn Drive on and off for the whole domain, and Chat and Tasks for each person. If the Drive or Chat icon does not appear in your webmail, the feature is not active for your mailbox: talk to whoever administers your company's email.

What you need

• An up-to-date browser: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari.
• For video calls: a camera and microphone, and allow access when the browser asks.
• Your full email address and your email password.

2. Signing in, signing out, and password

How to sign in

1. In Username (1), type your full email address, for example maria@yourcompany.com.
2. In Password (2), type the same password as your email. The eye icon shows what you typed.
3. Click Sign in (3). Leave Remember me checked only on your own computer.

If you are already in webmail, you do not even need the sign-in screen: Drive recognizes the webmail session and opens right away. The reverse also works: with Drive open, the Email item in the apps menu takes you to webmail already signed in.

The password

• There is only one password. Drive, Talk, Tasks, Deck, and Notes use the same email address and password as webmail.
• To change it, change your email password in webmail, under Settings → Password (see the webmail manual). The new password takes effect in Drive right away. Sessions open with the old password on other devices end within a few minutes.
• Forgot your password? Whoever manages your company's email creates a new password for the mailbox in the panel (see I forgot my email password). There is no separate Drive password to recover.

How to sign out

Click your photo (or initial) in the upper right corner, then Sign out. Signing out of Drive also ends the webmail and Talk sessions, and signing out of webmail ends Drive: on a shared computer, one click is enough to close everything.

See where your account is open

Under your photo → Settings → Security, the Devices and sessions list shows the browsers connected to your account and when they were last used. The "lua.email Webmail" items are the access webmail uses to show your files. They disappear on their own when you sign out. If you see an access you do not recognize, end it from the menu next to it and change your email password.

3. Getting to know the screen

The notification center

The bell (3) gathers notices from Drive, Chat, and email:

• New email: who sent it and the subject. With more than one, the total unread and the latest to arrive. Click to open webmail.
• Task reminder: at the time set on the task (chapter 13).
• Space nearly full: at 90%, 95%, and when the space runs out (chapter 17).

The × on each notice dismisses only that one, and Dismiss all notifications clears the list. In webmail, Drive and Chat notices appear in the side panel (webmail manual).

The apps menu

The bottom row of the menu creates a new file in one click: Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Under More are the Text document (plain text, with light formatting), the New whiteboard, and Diagrams.

4. Files and folders

Uploading files and folders

1. Open the folder where the file should go.
2. Click New → Upload files (or Upload folders) and choose from your computer.
3. Or simply drag the files from your computer into the list. Progress appears at the bottom, and large files upload in parts, with nothing for you to do.

Every uploaded file goes through the antivirus. An infected file is rejected and you get a notice.

Creating folders and documents

In the same New menu:

• New folder: type the name and confirm.
• Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation: creates the file and opens the editor (chapter 9).
• Text document: plain text, good for lists and short instructions.
• Diagram and New whiteboard: flows, org charts, and drawings (chapter 10).
• Create file request: a link for people outside to send you files (chapter 8).
• Create templates folder: keep your templates there (proposal, contract, report). They appear as an option when you create a document.
• Add folder description: text that appears at the top of the folder, useful for explaining to the team what goes where.

What you can do with a file

Click the three dots (…) next to the file, or right-click it:

The Open locally option is for people who use the sync app on their computer. In the browser, use Download. To install the app on Windows, see the apps manual and the Downloads page.

Several files at once

Check the boxes to the left of the files. A bar appears with actions for everything selected: move, copy, download (as a single .zip), and delete.

Finding files

• General search: the magnifying glass at the top (Ctrl+K) searches all of Drive by name.
• Search here: the field at the top of the navigation filters the open folder.
• Filters: above the list, Type, Modified, Tags, and People narrow the results.
• Recent shows what you touched last. Folder tree shows the whole structure.

The icon in the upper right corner of the list switches between grid (thumbnails) and list (with size and date). Click a column title to sort.

5. Trash and versions

Recovering a deleted file

1. In the navigation, at the bottom, click Deleted files.
2. Find the file. If the list is long, type the name in Search here.
3. Click the file's three dots and then Restore. It goes back to the folder it came from.

Deleted files stay in the trash for up to 30 days. When space runs short, the oldest may go sooner. The trash does not count toward the plan's space. Empty deleted files erases everything for good.

Going back to a previous version

Each time a file is changed, Drive keeps the previous version. To go back:

1. In the file's three dots, click Details and open the Versions tab.
2. Pick the version by date and, in its three dots, click Restore. You can also download an old version without touching the current one.

Versions are kept for up to 30 days and do not count toward the plan's space.

6. Sharing with colleagues

Sharing with someone in the company gives access to the file or folder without making a copy: everyone works on the same file, always on the latest version.

1. In the file's or folder's three dots, click Sharing options.
2. Under Internal shares, type the colleague's name and choose from the list. Only people from your company appear.
3. Choose what the person can do: View only, Allow editing, or Custom permissions (create, edit, delete, and share again, each one separate).

The colleague gets a notification, and the item appears for them under Shares, in the navigation. To remove access, open the sharing again and remove the person: access ends right away.

Sharing with a company group

When the company organizes people into groups (the administrator creates them in the panel, such as "Site Crew" or "Sales"), you share with the whole group at once, instead of one person at a time. Whoever joins the group later sees what has already been shared with it, and whoever leaves stops seeing it, without anyone redoing the shares.

1. In the folder's or file's three dots, click Sharing options.
2. Under Internal shares, type the group's name. It appears with the people icon next to it.
3. Choose the group and what it can do. For the team's working folder, use Can edit.

Only members of the group find the group and share with it. Groups and people from other companies never appear in the search.

Some ways to use it:

• Team documents and spreadsheets. Create a folder (for example "Downtown Project") and share it with the group using Can edit. The documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in it open for everyone in the group, and you edit together, at the same time (see Editing together with the team).
• Group whiteboard. Create the board inside the team folder, or share the .whiteboard file with the group. Whoever opens it sees the others drawing live (chapter 10).
• Team conversation in Chat. Create the conversation and, in Add participants, type the group's name: everyone joins at once, and whoever joins the group later joins the conversation automatically (chapter 11).
• Task board and calendar. When sharing a Kanban board or a calendar, type the group's name the same way.
• Group email. If the administrator gave the group an address (like obra@yourcompany.com), a message to it reaches everyone in the group.

Sharing with the whole company

Every company already has a group with all the people in the domain, and it is named after the email domain: at the company yourcompany.com, the group is called yourcompany.com. Nobody needs to create this group. Whoever gets a new mailbox joins it automatically, and whoever leaves the company loses access when the mailbox is deactivated.

1. In the folder's or file's Sharing options, under Internal shares, type the company domain (for example yourcompany).
2. Choose the group named after the domain, which appears with the people icon.
3. In most cases, leave View only: everyone reads, and only the people you choose change the content.

When to use it:

• Company documents. A "Company" folder with the employee handbook, policies, price list, and proposal templates, shared with the domain as View only. Whoever takes care of the documents updates them, and everyone always opens the current version.
• Announcements in Chat. An "Announcements" conversation with the domain group as participants. Whoever is hired later joins it automatically.
• Company calendar. Holidays, all-hands meetings, and events in a calendar shared with the domain.
• General task board. A Kanban board the whole company follows, like the month's goals.

Mailboxes the administrator hid from the company contact list (such as system accounts) are not part of this group.

Setting up team folders

A simple way to organize: one person creates a folder per department (Sales, Finance, HR…) and shares each one with the people who work on it, with Allow editing. If the department is already a company group, share with the group. Whatever is saved there is available to the whole department, and nobody loses a file when they go on vacation.

Internal link

Internal link, right below the search, copies an address that only works for people who already have access to the file. Use it to point to a file in an email or in chat ("it's here: …") without opening new access.

Seeing what was shared

Under Shares, in the navigation, are the lists of what was shared with you, what you shared, and links. Under Settings → Sharing, you choose whether to accept shares automatically and in which folder they appear.

Talking about a file

In the details panel, the Chat tab opens a conversation only about that file, with the people who have access to it. It is good for reviewing a proposal without mixing it with other topics.

7. Link for people outside

To send a file to a customer, supplier, or accountant, create a public link. The recipient does not need an account: they open the link in the browser.

Creating the link

1. Open the file's or folder's Sharing options.
2. Under External shares, click the + next to Create public link.
3. Check the expiration date and click Create share.
4. Click the copy icon next to Share link and paste the link into the email or message.

To send the link by email straight from Drive, type the person's address in Enter an email: they get a message with the link.

Link options

In the link's three dots:

• Customize link: all the options below.
• Generate QR code: to open the link on a phone by pointing the camera.
• Add another link: a second link for the same file, with other rules (for example, one for the customer and another for the accountant). Each one can be canceled without affecting the other.
• Unshare: the link stops working right away.

After changing, click Update share.

The link password

• Check Set password and type a password with at least 4 characters. It applies only to that link and has nothing to do with your email password.
• Send the password by another channel (phone or message), not in the same email as the link. That way, if the email ends up in the wrong hands, the file stays protected.
• To change the password, open Customize link and use Replace current password.

What the recipient sees

With a password, the page asks for it before showing anything. After that, the person sees the file in the browser and can download it, unless download is hidden. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations open in the browser itself.

If the person who opens the link also uses lua Colabora, the Add to my Drive button appears: it saves a copy in that person's Received folder.

Sending a password to someone outside

The public link password is for the file. To pass along an access password, such as for a system or an account, use the lua.email Password Pusher, at pwpush.lua.email. The password link expires and deletes itself, and the recipient does not need an account. The step by step is in the webmail manual.

The secure link also works for other sensitive data you need to send to someone outside: access to a system, the Wi-Fi password for a visitor, an integration key, or a recovery code. See other uses.

8. Receiving files from outside

Need a customer to send documents, photos, or invoices? Instead of receiving them by email, create a file request: the person uploads straight to a folder of yours, without seeing anything else.

1. Click New → Create file request.
2. Under What are you requesting?, write the subject ("Documents for the contract").
3. Under Where should these files go?, choose the folder.
4. If you want, leave a note with instructions and click Continue.
5. Set the expiration and, if you want, a password. Copy the link or enter the emails it should go to.

Whoever receives the link only sees a field to upload files. Whatever is sent appears in the chosen folder and counts toward your space.

When to use each way of sharing

When not to use a public link: for colleagues in the company. Use internal sharing, which is tied to the person's name, appears under Shares, and ends right away when you remove it. A link, on the other hand, works for anyone who receives it.

9. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations

The editor opens Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) and open formats (.odt, .ods, .odp) right in the browser. The menus are similar to the office programs you already know.

Creating and opening

• Create: from the apps menu (bottom row: Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations), from the folder's New, or from the Office app. Give it a name and the editor opens.
• Open: click the file. To close, use the X in the editor's upper right corner.

Saving

There is no need to save: the editor saves on its own as you work, in the file's own format. Each save creates a version you can recover (chapter 5).

Editing together with the team

• Two or more people can open the same file at the same time. Each one appears in a color, and changes show up instantly for everyone.
• Comments: select a passage and use Insert → Comment. Colleagues reply in the comment itself.
• Track changes: under Review → Track changes → Record, each change is marked so it can be accepted or rejected later. Great for contracts.

PDF and other formats

In the editor, File → Download as downloads the file to your computer as a PDF or another format. To keep a copy in another format in Drive itself, use Save as… in the file's actions menu.

Spreadsheets and presentations

Spreadsheets have formulas, filters, charts, and multiple tabs. In presentations, the slideshow button displays full screen.

The Office app

Office, in the apps menu, gathers everything by type (Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Diagrams…): on the left you choose the type, under Create new you start an empty file or one from a template, and at the bottom are the recent ones, including those shared with you.

10. Whiteboard

The whiteboard is an endless sheet for drawing flows, mind maps, and ideas, alone or with the team at the same time.

1. Create one under New → New whiteboard (or in the apps menu, under More) and give it a name.
2. Use the toolbar at the top: shapes, arrows, lines, text, freehand drawing, and images.
3. Share the board like any file, with colleagues or with a company group. Whoever has it open sees the others drawing live.

The board is saved as a .whiteboard file in the folder where it was created.

11. Chat

Talk is the team chat: one-on-one and group conversations, with files, mentions, and calls. Open it from the speech bubble icon in webmail or from Talk in the apps menu.

On the Home page are the shortcuts (Start meeting now, New conversation, Join conversation, Check devices), the upcoming meetings from your calendar, the messages where you were mentioned, and reminders.

Chatting with a colleague

In the Search in the app field, on the left, type the colleague's name and click it. The one-on-one conversation opens right away.

Creating a group

1. Click New conversation.
2. Give it a name (for example "Sales Team"), a description, and, if you want, an image.
3. Choose the type. Standard works for almost everything. Webinar and Presentation are for events with an audience. Confidential conversation closes access from outside and recordings.
4. Click Add participants and choose your colleagues. For the whole team, type the name of a company group: whoever joins the group later joins the conversation automatically.

Messages

• Send a file: click the + next to the message box and choose from your computer or from Drive. You can also drag the file into the conversation.
• Mention: type @ and the name. The person gets a notice, even with the conversation muted.
• Reply, react, edit: hover over the message and use the buttons that appear.
• Reminder: in the message menu, Set reminder notifies you later.
• Note to self: a conversation only for you, to keep links and quick reminders.

In the three dots of each conversation, in the list on the left, you can mark it as a favorite, mute notifications, or leave the conversation.

12. Calls and meetings

Starting a call

1. Open the conversation and click Start call. For a quick meeting, use Start meeting now on the home page.
2. In the Check devices window, choose microphone, camera, and speaker. Under Backgrounds you can blur or change the background.
3. Check Give consent to the recording of this call (see below) and click Start call.

During the call

• Microphone and camera: the buttons in the bottom bar turn them on and off.
• Share your screen: shows the whole screen, a window, or a browser tab.
• Raise hand and reactions: to ask for the floor without interrupting.
• Chat and participants: in the right-hand panel, without leaving the call.
• Record: the moderator starts recording from the call menu. When it ends, the file goes to the recorder's Drive, in the Talk folder, and a notification arrives. If everyone leaves and the recording stays on, it stops on its own within a few minutes.

Meeting with people from outside

1. In the conversation, open the three dots at the top and click Conversation settings.
2. Under Moderation, turn on Allow guests to join this conversation via a link. If you want, also turn on Password protection.
3. Click Copy link and send it to the guest. They open it in the browser, type their name, and join, without creating an account or installing anything.

Under Meeting, in the same settings, the lobby holds whoever arrives until a moderator lets them in.

Who the moderators are: in meetings scheduled through the webmail calendar, every user in the same domain as the organizer joins as a moderator and can admit guests, even those invited later. In a conversation created directly in Talk, the moderators are whoever created it and whoever they promote.

Scheduling from the webmail calendar

The most practical way to schedule a meeting is from the webmail calendar: when you create the event, turn on Online meeting and the room link goes into the event and the invitation (webmail manual). These rooms start with a lobby: company colleagues join directly, as moderators, and outside guests wait until you or a colleague admits them. The meeting also appears under Schedule meetings, on the Talk home page.

13. Tasks

The Tasks app keeps your to-do lists, with due dates and priority. A list called Tasks is already created.

• New task: write in Add a task to "Tasks"… and press Enter.
• Details: click the task to set due date, start, priority, percent complete, notes, and subtasks.
• Complete: check the box. Completed tasks are kept at the bottom of the list.
• More lists: under Add list…, in the navigation, create one per topic ("Personal", "Project X").
• Ready-made views: Today, Week, and All gather the tasks from all lists.

Deck cards with a due date also appear here, in a list named after the board.

Task reminder

In the task details, set a reminder (for example, 10 minutes before the due time). When the time comes, the Reminder: … notice arrives in the bell, with the due time and the list, and webmail opens the reminder window with Complete and Snooze (webmail manual). If the task is completed or deleted, the notice leaves the bell on its own.

Subtasks and percent complete

Split a larger job into parts: open the task, click the task's three dots (…), and choose the option to add a subtask. Subtasks appear below the main task.

• The main task's percent complete follows its subtasks: with one of two completed, it shows 50%, and the circle next to the due date fills in the same proportion.
• A subtask with its own percentage (for example, 30%) counts with that value.
• The main task is not completed on its own: when everything is done, it reaches 100%, and you check the box when you want.
• The calculation is done on the server, so it applies to tasks changed here, in webmail, or on your phone.

Tasks in webmail

The same tasks appear in webmail: in the calendar, in a panel on the left (with overdue ones in red), and on the email screen, in the Today's tasks box. You can create and complete them there too, and even create a task by clicking an empty time slot in the calendar, already with date and time (webmail manual).

14. Kanban boards (Deck)

Deck organizes projects into lists and cards, Kanban style: each card is a task that moves from left to right until it is done.

1. In Deck, click Add board, give it a name, and choose a color.
2. Create the lists (for example To do, In progress, Done).
3. In each list, click + to create a card.
4. Drag the card from one list to another as the work advances.

Card details

Click the card to open the details: tags, assignees, start and due dates, description (with checklists), attachments, comments (with @ to call someone), and the activity history. Mark as done closes the card.

Sharing the board

On the board, open the sidebar (icon in the upper right corner) and add colleagues or a company group under Sharing, choosing whether they can edit, share, or manage. Under Upcoming cards, in the navigation, you see everything due in the coming days, from all boards.

15. Notes

The Notes app is for quick notes: meeting minutes, ideas, lists, outlines.

• New note opens a blank note. The first line becomes the title.
• The note saves on its own as you write.
• Use the formatting bar for headings, bold, lists, and checkboxes ("- [ ] item").
• Organize into categories (Sales, HR…) and mark the most used as favorites.

Notes are stored as files in the Notes folder of your Drive and count toward the plan's space.

16. Dashboard, Photos, and Activity

• Dashboard: the summary page, with recent activity and favorite files. Under Customize you choose which widgets appear.
• Photos: all the images and videos in Drive, in date order. Create albums and watch the slideshow.
• Activity: the history of what happened. Who created, changed, shared, or deleted each file, and Deck cards. The filters on the left separate by type.

17. Plan space

Your plan's space is shared between email and files. A 10 GB mailbox, for example, can have 6 GB of emails and 4 GB of files.

Where to see it

• In Drive: in the lower left corner, "X of Y used", and just below it how much is email and how much is drive.
• In webmail: in the space indicator, which adds up both.

The email reserve

Part of the space is always kept for email: 10% of the plan, with a minimum of 1 GB. Files can use the rest, but not this reserve. That way, even with Drive full, your emails keep arriving. That is why Drive can refuse an upload even when the plan's total shows free space.

Nearly full space notice

When emails and files go over 90% of the plan, a notice arrives in the bell: Your space is almost full, with how much is in use and what to do. It is replaced at 95% and when the space runs out (at which point new emails may not arrive), and it disappears on its own when usage drops below 90% again. Webmail shows a similar notice at the top of the message list (webmail manual).

Freeing up space

• Delete large files you no longer use (in the list view, the size of each one is shown).
• The trash and old versions do not count toward the space.
• In webmail, empty the Trash and delete emails with large attachments.
• If the space is not enough for the team, the administrators can move the mailbox to a larger plan.

18. Personal settings

Click your photo, in the upper right corner, then Settings:

The profile photo

Your photo is a single one for Colabora and webmail. If you change or remove it here, it changes in webmail and in email apps' contacts too. A photo changed in webmail appears in Colabora the next time you sign in.

Who sees the photo: only people in your domain. To hide it from everyone, use the Only me option in webmail, under Settings → Preferences → Profile photo (webmail manual). People outside the platform never see the photo.

Status

On your photo, Set status shows colleagues whether you are Online, Away, or on Do not disturb (which mutes notifications), with an optional message, such as "In a meeting until 3 PM".

19. On your phone

• Open https://colabora.lua.email (or your company's address) in your phone's browser and sign in with your email and password. The screens adjust to the small display.
• For a shortcut, use Add to Home screen in the browser menu. Drive then opens like an app and can show notifications.
• Meetings work in the phone browser: open the meeting link, allow camera and microphone, and join.

20. Common problems

21. Where everything is