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Surface IT Pro Blog
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Unified Whiteboard experience coming to Surface Hub

yoabar's avatar
yoabar
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Feb 10, 2022

The new Microsoft Whiteboard, completely redesigned for the hybrid workplace, is coming to Surface Hub this month – and it is fully integrated into Microsoft Teams. If you manage Surface Hub in a corporate environment, here’s what you can expect.

 

Whiteboard inside Teams meetings on Hub

Surface Hub and Surface Hub 2S devices will automatically get the new Whiteboard experience via Windows Update in a phased global rollout, February 14-28. So if you're on a Teams call, and share the Whiteboard within Teams, you'll be enjoying the latest whiteboard experience with the same features available today across PC, web and mobile platforms.

 

Select Share content > Microsoft Whiteboard to begin. You’ll continue seeing all the meeting participant video feeds simultaneously in an optimized layout. The best part is that all attendees in a meeting, who are also members of the tenant hosting the call, will have the ability to collaborate from their individual devices or other Surface Hubs using Teams. To learn more, see Welcome to the new Whiteboard!

 

Microsoft Whiteboard in a Teams meeting on Surface Hub

 

New standalone Whiteboard app for Surface Hub

Your current Microsoft Whiteboard app will automatically update when it rolls out to Surface Hub devices from March 7-March 25. Although it will provide the same core experience, some features will be unavailable, and the way users share whiteboards outside of a Teams meeting will change. To learn more, see Use the new Whiteboard on Surface Hub. 

 

OneDrive for Business storage enables richer collaboration features

Microsoft Whiteboard will transition from Azure to OneDrive for Business storage as part of a global phased rollout from March 15 to April 15.

 

OneDrive for Business storage enables new collaboration features allowing you to:

 

  • See who’s actively collaborating in real-time or who made the last edit.
  • See other people on the board and what they’re working on (using collaborative cursors).
  • Use familiar sharing features found in other Office products.
  • Point a laser to draw attention to something on the whiteboard.
  • Find your whiteboards on Office.com.
  • View and restore previous versions of a whiteboard.
  • Recover deleted whiteboards from the Recycle Bin.

OneDrive for Business storage enables richer collaboration features

 

To learn more, see Microsoft Whiteboard on OneDrive for Business.

 

Note: Whiteboard on Surface Hub will use OneDrive for Business storage for new whiteboards in most cases, with one exception. If the whiteboard is shared directly from the Surface Hub instead of by another participant in the meeting, it will temporarily use Azure storage. If you need to prevent use of Azure storage in this scenario, please contact Microsoft Support to block this.

 

Learn more

Updated Mar 09, 2022
Version 2.0
  • Christian Schacht's avatar
    Christian Schacht
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    Apr 20, 2022

    HaraldRau Great question! 🙂

    With the "old" Teams on Surface Hub client, the local Whiteboard App got started automatically when joining a Teams Call,
    BUT the Whiteboard was disconnected from the Meeting in this case and it was just an offline whiteboard.
    Many users got confused by this, as they thought the Whiteboard was already shared into the meeting. 

    In the new Teams Client when a Whiteboard is shared via the Teams Client, it automatically shares an collaborative Whiteboard session with everyone in the meeting, to keep everyone on the same page.

  • HaraldRau's avatar
    HaraldRau
    Iron Contributor
    Apr 20, 2022

    When the Surface Hub is used as a companion device in a Teams Room with an MTR (both configured for Coordinated Meeting), the Hub will automatically join the meeting once the MTR has started the meeting as expected. Earlier, the Hub would show the Whiteboard right away and add it to the meeting. Now, the Hub shows the Teams client with the video streams of all participants. Since that's also displayed at the MTR connected front-of-room screens, in-room users find that a bit confusing.
    If the team want to launch a Whiteboard, they need to do that manually on the Hub.
    Is there a way to launch a Whiteboard automatically on the Hub in a coordinated meeting scenario? After all, that's the main purpose of having an additional Surface Hub in an MTR room. 

  • chrisloup's avatar
    chrisloup
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    Apr 05, 2022

    on a surfacehub, how do i invite another person to collaborate now?

    seems like I now need to 
    a) have a notebook, launch the whiteboard app, obtain the sharing link. convey the sharing link to the other party. (eg: via teams) 

    b) other party then needs to use their notebook to open the link (eg: on teams). 

     

    c) then now both parties sign into their surfacehub whiteboards.

    literally from 1 step process into a multiple step multiple device experience.

    its not like you can paste the link into teams session in the surface hub cos there is no chat in surface hubs teams.
    (or maybe it requires extra logins to teams.microsoft.com on the edge browser on the device)

    --

    also ruler and ink to text is gone. 

  • SurfKansas's avatar
    SurfKansas
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 29, 2022

    One question - how do I get my old Whiteboard back? This rolled out to our surface hub and now one of my favorite collaborative tools became all but unusable. With all the highlighting of new features, it is important to note how this significantly negatively impacted the Surface Hub. It feels like Whiteboard was redesigned with remote work in mind, but completely forgetting that many companies still do in-person collaboration.

     

    Our Surface Hub has two digital markers associated with it. In the past, we could have one team member using each pen with a different selected color. Two people could be drawing at the same time with different colors. This made for highly effective collaborative design working sessions. Now, each contributor has to draw one at a time. And, the color picked by one contributor affects both pens.

     

    The erase feature isn't even an eraser anymore - it's a delete tool. Sometimes you draw just a little bit too long of a line and want to shorten it some. The new "erase" will completely delete the entire object.

     

    When writing or drawing, there is now a noticeable lag between the gesture and the response, and touch sensitivity has become much less accurate.

     

    When we got our Surface Hub, it was a wonderful upgrade from dry erase boards. Based on the current version of Whiteboard, going back to a dry erase board would be an upgrade.

  • yoabar's avatar
    yoabar
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    Feb 16, 2022

    ToddMethven Thanks for the feedback.

    Whiteboard in Teams will land in your tenant during the dates listed above.

    From this moment on, the new Whiteboard experience will be available in Teams meetings. If users launch the Whiteboard during a meeting, it'll launch as part of the meeting within Teams. There is no need to update the Whiteboard app to receive the new Whiteboard experience in Teams.

  • ToddMethven's avatar
    ToddMethven
    Brass Contributor
    Feb 16, 2022

    yoabar Great article and finally gives a pretty complete answer to how and when the new whiteboard is rolling out.

     

    Just one quick question in our own tenant i have a couple of test hubs and one is using the new experience of whiteboard and the other is still using the older one.  How is the update of the new In Teams whiteboard experience rolling out and if in a situation like ours is there a way to force the Surface Hub to update to the new Teams experience?

     

    Thanks!