Managing Collections

3 min read · Updated 23 Oct 2026

Introduction

This article teaches you how to manage and work with Astrato collections.

Collection Display | Starred Collections, Open, Manage Workbooks | Options Menu |

You may also want to read: Creating and managing User Groups

Manage collections from a workbook

In the workspace Workbooks catalogue, open a workbook’s Properties, choose Collections & Access, then Manage collections.

Search by collection name or path. Nested collections appear under their parent folders; search keeps the matching collection’s ancestors visible. Choose a collection to add or remove the workbook. Each change saves immediately, and the check mark changes only after it succeeds. If a change fails, the picker displays the error and offers Try again.

If you can create collections, choose New collection inside the picker. Pick a folder or leave it at the top level, enter a name, then choose Create and add. Forward slashes in the name create additional nesting. The final name needs at least three characters. If creation succeeds but the next step fails, retry finishes adding the workbook without creating another collection.

If you cannot edit the workbook, its collection chips open the corresponding collection; no membership controls are shown.

The following sections describe the legacy collection screens.

Collection Display

Collections always display their Name, Description, Creation Date, and the number of items they contain. If you hover the cursor over a collection (Figure 1), the Open button will appear, and there’s also an Options menu, which you opens by clicking the buttons with 3 dots in the top right corner.

Figure 1: Collection Display

Starred Collections, Open, Manage Workbooks

Click the star above the collection name to “star” it, a bit like adding a bookmark for a website (Figure 2).
Click Open to display a screen with options to edit the collection name and buttons to help you Manage Workbooks.
Click Manage Workbooks and use the add and remove buttons to select the collection’s workbooks. When you’ve made your changes, click Done and use the arrow to return to the collections page.

Figure 2: Starred Collections, Open, Manage Workbooks

Click the 3 dots in the top right, you’ll open the Options menu (Figure 3).
Click Edit to make changes to the collection name and description.
Click Delete to delete the collection. Once you confirm, the deleted collection will no longer be displayed.

Figure 3: Options Menu

Multi-Level Collections

Multi-Level Collections allow you to organise workbooks into logical hierarchies using forward slashes (/) in the collection name.

How it works

Collections remain the same underlying object as before.

Folders are virtual and are generated automatically based on the collection naming convention.

For example:

Collection Name

Visible Structure

Marketing/Advertising

Marketing → Advertising

Marketing/Email-CRM

Marketing → Email-CRM

Marketing/Advertising/Performance

Marketing → Advertising → Performance

No separate folder creation step is required.

Creating Multi-level / Hierarchical Collections

When creating or renaming a collection, enter a path using forward slashes.

Examples

Marketing/Advertising

Marketing/Advertising/Performance

Sales/EMEA

The hierarchy will be created automatically.

Collection Creation Helper

A helper message is displayed beneath the collection name field:

To have nested collections, simply use a slash e.g. Collection/Sub-Collection

Permissions

Important

Permissions are applied to collections, not folders.

Virtual folders exist only for organisation and do not have their own security settings.

Permission Behaviour

Permissions are:

Set per collection
Managed independently
Not inherited from parent collections
Not inherited by child collections

Example

Collection

Members

Marketing/Advertising

Marketing Team

Marketing/Email-CRM

CRM Team

Marketing/Advertising/Performance

Performance Team

Each collection can have completely different permissions.

Having access to one collection does not automatically provide access to another collection within the same folder structure.

Visual Example

Marketing├── Advertising│   └── Performance└── Email-CRM

Behind the scenes:

Marketing/AdvertisingMarketing/Advertising/PerformanceMarketing/Email-CRM

Only the collections above exist.

The Marketing folder is a virtual organisational container and does not have its own permissions or access controls.

Best Practices

Organise by Team

Marketing/AdvertisingMarketing/Email-CRMMarketing/Brand

Organise by Geography

Sales/EMEASales/APACSales/North America

Organise by Business Function

Finance/Board ReportingFinance/ForecastingFinance/Budget Planning

Organise OEM Content

Customers/Acme CorpCustomers/Global RetailCustomers/Healthcare Group

This helps keep large workbook libraries organised while maintaining independent access control for each collection.

Astrato Collections Articles

You can find more articles about Astrato Collections in the Astrato Help Center.