Gather gives your distributed team a shared space to bring people together. Usually that’s your coworkers, but sometimes it might include clients, candidates, friends, or even family members. 

This guide will explain how to invite people into your Office and offer tips for managing guests. 

Overview of Office Members vs Guests

Members of an Office Space on Gather can use features like recording meetings, claiming desks, and using the Mapmaker. If you limit access to your Space (such as requiring a password), Members will also bypass those restrictions for easier access. 

Guests cannot use advanced features and will need to abide by any access settings you set. 

Both Members and Guests count toward your Space Capacity. Read our Pricing Overview to learn more about Space Capacity and picking a plan. 

Invite Guests 

When you want to meet with someone who isn't a Member of your office, you can either: 

• Invite them to the office, allowing them to enter at the lobby or come directly to you. Best for people who want the experience of walking through the virtual office. 
• Invite them directly to a meeting, in which they'll automatically join the Private Area its taking place in. Best for people who just want to join for the meeting and don't want to walk around. 

How to Invite Guests to the Office: 

1. Open the Participants Panel and click the Invite button at the top. 
2. Select Invite guests to your office.
3. This will generate a temporary invite link that you can share with your guest. Choose the duration until it expires and copy the link. 
4. When you share the link with your guest, they'll be able to enter your office.

If you've turned on any of the space access restrictions (such as entering a password or checking in), your guest will need to abide by those settings. We highly recommend the Guest Check In experience for Remote Offices. 

How to Invite Guests to a Meeting: 

To invite them before the meeting begins:

1. Create the meeting event and add the Gather meeting link.  
   1. Read this guide to learn how to connect your Google or Outlook calendar and schedule meetings in Gather.
2. When they click the link in the calendar event, they'll automatically join the meeting in Gather so they don't have to walk anywhere. They'll even join in Meeting View to help ease newcomers into the Gather experience. 

To invite them once a meeting is taking place: 

1. Open the Participants Panel
2. In your Active Area, hover over the link icon to Copy link to this area
3. Share this link with your Guest

Manage Guests

Once a Guest is in your office, you'll find several features to help you manage and moderate them if needed. 

• Guests have a label next to their name above their avatar, so it’s easy for everyone to identify when they’re walking through the space.

• You’ll see this same label near their name in the Participants Panel, so you’ll also be able to keep track of them there. 

• Any Member of the space can Mute a Guest or Kick them out if they're overstaying their welcome. (Learn more about moderation tools here.) 

• If a guest revisits your space, they’ll respawn in the lobby (your default spawn location) after 12 hours of first clicking your space link. 

To manage guests, open the Participants Panel. At the top, click the button to See Guests. This will display a list of all Guests currently active in your office. 

At the bottom, you'll see a button to Manage Guest Access. This will open your Space Settings. 

This will show you the history of Guests who have been in your space. You can also extend or revoke access to your office if needed. 

Pro-tip for Guest access to your office: To add an extra layer of security between your lobby and your office, add a Password Door or Members-Only Door.