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 lighter-touch interactions with likes and replies.
In short, they make conversations easier to follow and encourage more students to join in.
Spaces are now live within your Community, and already driving strong student engagement. You can use them to support pre-arrival and orientation engagement, and help students connect during the enrolment period.
So, first things first - How are Spaces different from Groups?
Spaces introduce a more social, feed-style experience.
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.
Community Spaces are built for sustained engagement, not just bursts of chat.
✨ What’s coming next ✨
Community Spaces is evolving quickly, with improvements focused on making the experience simpler, more intuitive, and more engaging for users.
Now Live
To use these new features, Students and Ambassadors will need to update the app manually, or if auto-updates are enabled, it will update automatically via the App Store or Google Play.
🗑️ Post deletion
Users can delete their own posts, giving them more control and reducing moderation requests.
❤️ Reactions on posts
Reactions are now available in the latest version of the Student App.
💻 Spaces on Web (Prospective Students and Admins)
Admin web access for Spaces is now live. This enables community managers to view and manage Spaces from a browser, respond to posts, oversee multiple Spaces, and streamline workflows.
Students can now also access and participate in Spaces via the web, making it easier to engage in conversations beyond mobile.
🧑🤝🧑 Streamlined structure
Public group creation has been disabled as Spaces become the primary community structure, reducing duplication and encouraging activity in Spaces.
Private groups will remain available and easier to access.
🤝 Improved onboarding
New users will see a clearer, more guided onboarding experience, with updated copy and flow to better align with Groups references across emails and Ubie gamification, helping users understand how Spaces work, encouraging early engagement, and reducing confusion.
🏷️ Clearer Space labelling
Spaces have been labelled more clearly to help users distinguish between Unibuddy Spaces (open to all students) and University Spaces (within a university Community), making navigation simpler for those part of multiple Communities.
💬 Threaded replies visibility (both student and ambassador apps)
Replies will keep the original post visible, making conversations easier to follow.
📋 List View (both student and ambassador apps)
"My spaces" will now display as a list rather than the tiled view
💡 User-created Spaces (Student App)
Users can create their own Spaces (Admins can review and edit), allowing communities to grow organically around shared interests, hobbies, and experiences.
Coming Soon
✨ Community duplication into Spaces
Duplicating a Community will create empty Spaces using the headings from your existing Groups, allowing you to keep your structure while starting fresh in Spaces. For now, duplicating a Community will carry over existing Groups. Spaces will need to be created manually.
🔍 Search Functionality
Users will be able to search across posts to quickly find relevant discussions and content.
👥 Member visibility
Users will be able to view who else has joined a Space, helping strengthen connections and drive engagement within the community.
✉️ Admin Insights
Spaces discussions will be included in weekly Community Digest emails
📝 Post Editing
Users will be able to edit their posts.
💻 Spaces on Web (Ambassador Experience)
For now, ambassadors will continue to access Spaces through the mobile app only.
📱 Ambassador App experience
Bringing the same Spaces functionality to Ambassadors in the Ambassador App e.g Reactions to Posts
🔔 Notifications
Push notifications for new replies and reactions to a post. Notifications will be sent to the original poster and anyone who has replied in the thread.
📊 Polls in Spaces
Polls are planned to help communities gather feedback and encourage participation.
📈 Spaces Analytics in UniDash
Updating the Community Analytics page inside UniDash to include:
Space name
No. of members/No. of posts
No. of reactions / No. of comments (total and average)
ℹ️ View more info about a Space
Users will be able to click on a Space header to see more information about the Space.
🔴 Unread post count
Inside “My Spaces” there will be a notification badge with a count of unread posts in individual Spaces
👤 Profile access from posts
Users will be able to view another member's profile to see their details and message them directly making it easier to engage and build connections.
⏱️ Time tracking for ambassador posts
Time tracking is currently available for private and direct messages within Communities. We’re working on extending this to ambassador-created posts, so activity across Spaces can also be tracked.
Viewing Spaces as a student
🎓 To experience Spaces from a student perspective, admins can sign up using their admin email address, allowing them to view and interact with Spaces in the same way students do.
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. Don't have a photo to hand? You can opt to generate an AI image to reflect the theme of this Space.
The upload limit for a cover photo is 15mb, and accepted formats are jpgs and .pngs.
Your title can be up to 140 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
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?
You may briefly see both while transitioning. 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.