Forum Discussion
Whiteboard app - storage and sharing
- Hi Joost
Not entirely sure of exactly what you're describing.
The current Whiteboard app (that comes with Surface Hub) stores whiteboard data in the user's OneDrive for Business storage. As such it's subject to any tenant region storage controls.
The Whiteboard Preview app that is available from the Store saved the app data in Azure linked to your tenant. Currently the data is stored in the United States, but will expand to other regions when the app goes into production. You can read more about this here: https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-whiteboard/digital-whiteboard-app
As far as I can tell there is no anonymous access to Whiteboards.
D
Hi Daniel Hudson,
Thank you for the response. It seems kind of strange that there are 2 whiteboard apps that use different storage options, where one only stores data in the US. Hopefully Microsoft will fix this.
Also when I wanted to share a whiteboard, I was expecting to define who could access the whiteboard, but instead all I got was a URL to share with somebody. The url is not behind authentication, so anyone with the URL can access the whiteboard.
Best regards,
Joost
There is nothing to be fixed in regard to the apps. There is the current Whiteboard app which ships on Surface Hub, and there is the Whiteboard (Preview) app that is available from the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 devices.
The Whiteboard app on Surface Hub stores shared whiteboards in the user's OneDrive folder (and as such OneDrive is a pre-requisite for using shared whiteboards). The Whiteboard URL only works for other Surface Hubs within the same organisation. You cannot share them externally and it will not work on any other device.
The Whiteboard (Preview) app stores whiteboard data in Azure and linked to the Office 365 tenant. As the name suggests, the app is still in preview (though we have now been given notice in Office 365 that GA is expected within the next couple of months). While data during the preview is only stored in the US, I would imagine that Microsoft will support data storage in other data centres when it goes into GA, especially due to GDPR and other requirements.
Thanks
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your response. You mentioned:
"The Whiteboard URL only works for other Surface Hubs within the same organisation. You cannot share them externally and it will not work on any other device."
Is this due to security? At times, I find it useful communicating outside my immediate team and it would be useful to share a Whiteboard externally. Do you know if this is a potential future feature? or is the design intended only for sharing within the same organization.
Thanks,
Sy
At this time of Covid, remote working and the ability to give my client the "pen" to use on a brainstorming, MS whiteboard session is really valuable. It would be a pity if another vendor came up with this feature in their product.
- Hi
Where is whiteboard for Windows 10 content stored
Microsoft has made improvements to the collaboration experience, such as inviting specific users and the ability to revoke access to boards for all users or individual users. That takes away my concern about the sharing aspect.
I am still trying to figure out if data storage has also moved to the region the Office 365 tenant is located in.
Were you able to find mention where the data atm is located?
Pekka Karppinen Quick update, saw this in the Message Centre today:
MC175885Stay InformedPublished On : 15 March 2019We're making several changes to Microsoft Whiteboard that will roll out over the next 3-4 months.
- For all organizations with Whiteboard - Microsoft Whiteboard will appear as an available product in Office 365 and the service principal will be added to appropriate tenants that have Whiteboard enabled.
- For all Office 365 tenants with Whiteboard located in Europe - Microsoft Whiteboard will automatically store whiteboard content in datacenters in that region.
- For all organizations with Surface Hubs – If you manage Surface Hubs, the legacy 2016 application of Whiteboard will be upgraded to the latest version and the legacy version will no longer receive updates.
