Spaces are the next evolution of Community Groups. They’re designed to feel more intuitive and familiar for students, with a scrollable feed, threaded conversations and a more visually-rich experience.
Spaces are different to Groups as they introduce a more social, feed-style experience. They are built for sustained engagement, not just bursts of chat.
Conversations are organised into threads, so replies don’t get lost.
Find answers instantly: Search makes it easy to browse past discussions, reducing repetitive questions.
Students can like and comment, lowering the barrier to engagement.
Multiple conversations can happen at once without becoming chaotic.
The experience supports both real-time and asynchronous participation.
✨ What’s coming next ✨
Community Spaces is evolving quickly, with ongoing improvements focused on making the experience simpler, more intuitive, and more engaging for users. Read on to see what’s already live, and what’s coming next...
Now Live
❗To use the new student-facing features below, Students and Ambassadors will need to update their Unibuddy app manually, or if auto-updates are enabled, it will update automatically via the App Store or Google Play❗
🗑️ Admins Deleting Posts - live 28th Aug
University admins can delete posts in their spaces
🙋 Ambassadors can request Spaces - live 11th Sept
via the Ambassador App. Once approved, the ambassador will be added as the first member of that space.
📌 University admins can pin posts in Spaces - live 11th Sept
University admins can pin any post in a Space, whether it was created by an ambassador, admin or prospect.
Pinned posts are clearly highlighted with a Pinned badge and border, and are visible to all users. Admins and prospects can also view a full list of pinned posts via More information on the Space.
🔔 Push notifications - live 11th Sept
Push notifications will be sent out to users when they have new matches (weekly)
👥 Community ambassadors in Recommended - live 11th Sept
Ambassadors from a Community will now appear in a carousel within the Recommended tab.
📊 Weekly community digest for admins - live 11th Sept
University admins will receive conversation summaries alongside Community metrics in their weekly emails. The new digest starts going out Friday 18th September.
Coming Soon
🔧 Additional Changes
Students will see the reason for being matched with others
Reminders will be sent out to students to complete a connection
Ability to unsubscribe from community invite reminder emails
How do I create a new Space?
Creating a new Space for your Community is quick and easy. Simply follow these steps:
Log into your University Dashboard
Navigate to the Community tab in the left-hand menu
Select the Community you'd like to add a new Space to
Go to the Spaces tab
Click + Create a space
Give your new Space a title, description, and a cover photo.
The upload limit for a cover photo is 15mb, and accepted formats are jpgs, jpegs and .pngs.
Please note: Cover images will automatically resize to fit different screen sizes and devices. We recommend using a landscape image where possible. However, because the available display area varies across screens, we cannot guarantee a single aspect ratio that will display perfectly in all cases.To achieve the best results, use an image with some space around the main subject and avoid placing faces, text or logos too close to the edges of the image. This helps ensure important parts of the image remain visible when it is automatically resized and cropped across different devices.
Your title can be up to 200 characters - and should offer a clear and concise overview of what this Space is - i.e. Find a Roommate, or Life in Manchester.
Your description sets the scene - what can a student expect from this Space, and why should they join it?
Click Create space
🌐 Admins can also access Spaces via the web. This enables you to view and manage Spaces from your desktop, respond to posts, and oversee multiple Spaces.
What about my existing Community groups?
Your existing Community groups will not be affected. They will remain as Groups - but you will still be able to create Spaces, so your Community members can benefit. Students will still be able to find and join your current Groups.
You won't be able to create new Groups, but your existing Groups can still be managed in the Community tab within your University Dashboard - the tab will be relabelled as Spaces. Any Spaces you create will be displayed first in your dashboard, with Groups stacked underneath.
What does it look like if I have both Spaces and Groups in a Community?
Groups will remain editable, but new engagement will naturally shift towards Spaces.
This phased approach allows you to move at a comfortable pace without disrupting active Communities. Spaces will live under the Spaces tab, and Groups will still live under the Connect tab.
The below video shows that user experience for students in a Community with both Groups and Spaces.