Microsoft Whiteboard Announces Preview of New Templates
Published Sep 25 2019 08:00 AM 103K Views
Microsoft

We launched Whiteboard to provide a way for people to brainstorm ideas, plan projects, solve problemstrain colleagues, and to collaborate on projects whether in person or remote, across a variety of devices. In the classroom, we wanted to give teachers and students a way to create together and share their ideas without being confined to the dimensions of a physical whiteboard. After listening to our customers, we learned that many of you like to have a easier starting point to simplify how you use Whiteboard to collaborate and work.

 

Today we are excited to announce the preview of new templates in the Whiteboard PC and iOS apps that will allow people to ideate and collaborate more easily. We are starting with several templates that allow for workplace scenarios like brainstorming, project planning, KANBAN sprint planning, etc., as well as quick start in the classroom. More templates and capabilities will be made available continuously in the coming months.  

 

Whiteboard Template Work.gif

 

The full list of templates available in preview are:  

  • Brainstorming  
  • Effective meeting 
  • KANBAN sprint planning 
  • SWOT analysis 
  • Problem solving 
  • Project planning 
  • Retrospective  
  • Project milestones 
  • KWL (Know, Wonder, Learn) for education 

 

Whiteboard Templates.png

 

Whiteboard templates are now in public preview for Windows 10 and rolling out to iOS within a few days. To add templates, tap the insert button in the toolbar. 

 

If there are any additional templates that you would like to see included, or have any other feedback about Whiteboard, please reply to this post. Thanks for helping us improve Whiteboard, we have more exciting announcements coming soon.

 

122 Comments
Silver Contributor

Great to see templates added to the whiteboard as this makes this product even better than it already was.

 

@Jeffrey Allen Thank you - we appreciate all feedback :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Copper Contributor

Nice addition. Definitely makes Whiteboard a lot more useful.

 

Here's another suggestion: Lessons Learned (Keep Doing, Start Doing, Stop Doing)

 

@Jordan Sangerman - Thank you for the suggestion, we always appreciate feedback that helps improve user experience!

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Bronze Contributor

This is really nice to have new templates added in whiteboard. 

 

@Kamlesh Kumar - Thank you for the feedback!

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Bronze Contributor

Love it! And intrigued by the 'regions' - hope that gets developed further outside of the given templates. Or build your own template and save board as template...

 

@Robin Nilsson - Thank you for the feedback - build your own templates is a great suggestion and something that we are looking into - please stay tuned for further updates on this!

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Silver Contributor

@Itai Almog, glad to see that even the template preview has come to the Whiteboard on the Surface Hubs!!!!

 

@Jeffrey Allen - Thank you for sharing your feedback :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

Whiteboard is amazing. 

 

HOWEVER as a teacher, we use cursive handwriting fonts and the lack of ability to change fonts when typing is the one thing that's stopping me from using this full time in my classroom. 

 

I so want to be able to use this but that's a massive issue for me. Please add this!

 

@MrGill Thank you! - this is great feedback and sorry to hear this is a blocker for you. Adaptation of text font is a popular request and is on our roadmap of items that we are looking into :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

Hi,

This is really great, we have large teams and I have been asked to do NLP analysis over feedback. Is this something that you would consider? This is not a big data scenario so it should be within scope for E3 and E5 Office tiers. If not where is the data stored? (I'm azure tenant admin).

 

In short:

  • Topic modelling: Automatic topic assigment, so we can cluster ideas based on dominant terms.
  • Voting, you have already solved and that was a big one!
  • Where is the data stored? Can I retrieve feedback per user. I don't mind forcing users to type in the sticky notes to get a database with  USER, COMMENT, DATETIME, SESSION.

 

Hope I can get a reply or  we can further take this in a private chat.

 

@Patricio Lobos - Thank you for your feedback and comments. Whiteboard content is automatically saved onto cloud and stored in Azure. We'd be happy to further connect offline please feel free to get in touch/PM me @Jasmin_Rashid 

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft (Customer Success Manager - Whiteboard) 

 

 

Brass Contributor

Wow! Nice Features

 

@Rob Kalis - Thank you for the thumbs up :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Iron Contributor

This is great and all, but where the heck is the Android app that was promised like a year ago?

Copper Contributor

When will Whiteboard be available for Office 365 Government (GCC) subscriptions?

Microsoft

Would love to see the ability to create custom templates 

 

@James Sheppard - Thank you for the feedback and suggestion we are currently working on custom templates :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but all stacking capabilities seem to be broken - my existing stacks still can be expanded, but I can't make a new stack of sticky notes/images or add them to existing stacks. Are stacks being removed from Whiteboard?

 

@hoopla_punta - Thank you for the feedback and observation. Stacking was disabled primarily due to low usage. We would be interested to know how much of an impact this has with your experiences in Whiteboard?

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Bronze Contributor

And love the 'note grid' that has shown up as well - very handy if you don't want to use the full brainstorming template. Yay!

 

@Robin Nilsson - Thank you for the great feedback and we are excited to hear you have found the 'note grid' feature useful to you :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

 

 

Copper Contributor

Microsoft has aligned with the Luma Institute around Innovating for People.  Are there plans to release templates that support the Luma Human Centered Design Methods?

 

@Taglotn - Thank you for the feedback, we are always open to suggestions and we do have more templates on the backlog

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

Teachers would love the ability to create their own custom templates for lessons. 

 

@Derek Fort - Thank you for the feedback! Custom templates is on our roadmap for the coming future :) 

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Copper Contributor

Templates is the only thing missing for us to use Whiteboard in our company. Feature Request: 1. Let the user store a Board as template in their own library 2. Share libraries accross users or within an organization Background: We are using another collaborative online whiteboard solution for agile software development. One of the main use cases are distributed retrospectives. We have a library of modules for each phase of the retrospective, similar to retromat.org and such. So if you want to do a retrospective you select the module for each phase and build an entire retrospective based on pre-defined templates. The team of moderators extend this library everytime they use a new module which doesn't have a template yet. The next person can reuse it afterwards. Saves tons of money and time. Inreases productivity. If templates have to be defined in some XML, JSON, HTML, .... whatever ... and "installed" to Whiteboard instead, then I am fine with that as well. Usability isn't of an issue here. Personal statement: And yes, a retrospective is more than "went well / went bad". I don't know why so many tools only support this very basic and un-fun style. Be more creative, people! ;)

 

@janekschumann - Thank you for the detailed feedback always much appreciated! Custom templates and libraries are on our roadmap, we definitely want to help with this type of experience :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

hi, could you please add detailed instructions on how to add these templates? I tried but can`t find them, unless my organization has not yet rolled them out...

 

@sylwias - Thank you for the feedback! Whiteboard templates are available on Windows 10 and iOS, and on the roadmap for Web. To add templates, open a whiteboard, tap the insert button in the toolbar and choose Template Gallery.

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

Where is the Android app? Adding more features does not help when it's limited to iOS and Windows devices!

 

@shaheen54 - Thank you for your feedback. An Android app is on our roadmap, please stay tuned for future announcements! 

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Copper Contributor

Thats a good addition to whiteboard. But i tend to use Planner in Teams, it helps manage work much better. 

 

Thanks 

Sushanth 

 

@sushanthamin- Thanks for the feedback. If you have any further comments on your experiences on planner vs Whiteboard please feel free to share we appreciate feedback of all sorts!

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

Copper Contributor

Hi

 

As mentioned several times the templates are gold but to have the ability to use our own templates that has evolved around certain techniques that we use would be really helpful. Please add this as a feature and we, and probably whole alot of companies, will be able to fully use this. 

 

Thanks

 

Oscar

 

@Lind311 - Thank you for the feedback. Custom templates is something that we are looking into and on our roadmap!

 

Jasmin Rashid. Microsoft

Copper Contributor

In the era of COVID-19, implementation of a staff paper template would be an incredible goldmine to music educators who are having their classes abruptly moved online. There are several Apple applications that do this as a default, and I'd love to see it added as a template here. I realize that by the time this message is read and considered we'll probably be a few months down the road and moving back to in-person classes...but in truth I would have used this app long before now if it offered a staff paper template. I regularly make videos for my students and this would be a useful tool whether or not we are all in self-quarantine.

 

@jeshafer23 - Thank you for the feedback, indeed it's a great suggestion! . We are currently looking to further enhance our plethora of templates and appreciate all the feedback and ideas we gather from all our customers :)

 

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft 

Brass Contributor

It is a great tool - did know of the earlier version, but just started using the new one. It seem that the whiteboard is limited to people within the company, which is quite limiting when you work with external consultants

Copper Contributor

Ideas to take the whiteboard concept further...

Would be great to be able to import templates created in ppt, to set as background template within whiteboard.  Other templates that would be useful (especially if customizable): ROAM risk dashboard, business model canvas, value proposition, portfolio canvas, value stream mapping... etc.  Voting seems to be enabled, but can this be developed so we can translate the votes to a chart so we can get an overview of the votes or other analytic capabilities?  

Is it possible to create several tabs of whiteboards - so if facilitating a virtual session with break-out groups each team has the same template to work from - but does not see the others work (only facilitator), until the work is merged by facilitator. Also interesting would be the intelligence to indicate where 2 post-its may be duplicates and suggestion to merge to facilitator.

Brass Contributor

@jah_08 great suggestions in regards to more templates that would be useful. The tab suggestion is also good.

I wonder if it is possible to create your own templates, which you can then re-use and perhaps even share with colleagues for them to use.

 

Copper Contributor

Creating several tabs is a fantastic idea for breakout groups.  

Microsoft

Would be great to make your own templates as facilitators use their own most times .

also would be good to take some of the toolset used by the digital advisors at Microsoft.  

Brass Contributor

I would like to see the ability to move notes around and also allow stacking of notes in the Note Grid. Allow the Note Grid to be a container for the notes and not require a rigid 3 column view.

Brass Contributor

I would like to be able to resize a Note without scaling the text. A 3 word note doesn't need to take up the same space as a paragraph.

Copper Contributor

Hi, we are using Whiteboard for team building sessions, specifically for the large number of remote teams that have formed due to Covid 19. Is it possible to have a new template for simple team building. We have the design and pin to the board, however it does not have the functionality of other templates. Cheers Allan

Brass Contributor

@Itai Almog I would like to join the choir of people requesting for more standard templates to be added to whiteboard. Mural has a number of cool template that would be quite useful, perhaps MS can seek inspiration there (Mural.co/templates).

It would also be awesome if we could make and store our own templates ... for that to work ideally I agree with @AllanRyan that it would be useful if the 'design pen' option could be expanded with a few tools e.e. the option to add shapes as we know from powerpoint would be great.

Keen to know an update on this from your side. Thanks

Copper Contributor

Bonjour,

 

@Malene280 je vous rejoins sur les templates que MS peut réutiliser pour WhiteBoard.

Une autre fonctionnalité qui serait très utile est de pouvoir mettre des dépendances entre sticky notes via un lien.

 

Ensuite et dernier point, la version web de whiteboard est trop légère comparer à l'application, il n'est aujourd'hui pas possible de continuer dans de bonnes conditions sur la version web.

 

Merci

Copper Contributor

Hello,

 

2 features I'm looking for:

 

1. As mentioned before ... Create your own templates.  Either "Save As Template" or a template builder.

2. Ability to "Lock" an element on the board.  This way, when moving around a large board, you don't inadvertently move an element.

 

Thanks,

 

Copper Contributor

Definitely creating own templates would be a perfect solution. Now the Whiteboard is widely used in education (because of Covid situation) and for example lesson materials could be prepared on Whiteboard, everytime on the same template, what would look very professional.

Copper Contributor

This is a great feature especially for beginners and gives them an easy jump start and various features they can learn and apply other places too. Looking forward to see more templates.

 

Can we also multilingual feature alike in Forms as our users are spread across multiple geos and ability to see it in regional language alike Russian, German etc.. will further boost the adoption?

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

how do I get the preview version as I cannot find any templates in the whiteboard app.

 

thanks,

Peter

Brass Contributor

@pekay do you not see the preview templates when clicking on the "+" like below?

 

Leon_2000_0-1586444017139.png

 

Copper Contributor

These templates are great - when will they be incorporated into the Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams meetings or the online version of Whiteboard? Having to download the Whiteboard desktop app is a barrier to us using it more

Microsoft

@Soolin - Thanks for the feedback on templates :) - Most of the features available on the Windows 10 and iOS apps will be coming to the Web app later this year. Please stay tuned for future announcements on this!

 

Thanks

Jasmin  

Copper Contributor

Love whiteboard.

 

I have been using while in isolation for the last 29 days.  I like the templates, but really would like to use my own custom ones.

looking back up the thread there is lots of posts about Custom templates and the response 'On our roadmap'. The first query was June 2019, the last query was in December 2019.  Any updates on when this backlog item will actually be delivered? (which quarter)

 

thanks.

Microsoft

@Matt-430 Thanks for reaching out and great to hear you are utilizing Whiteboard during this time :) - Custom templates is definitely still on the roadmap and we are looking at second half of CY2020 as a guideline. Please continue to stay tuned for updates on this!

 

Thanks 

Jasmin

Copper Contributor

Have just joined.  Noted a previous post about note stacking, where the functionality has been disabled now.  However, our organisation really uses this in face to face meetings.  I can note stack in boards I create, but not when using the Brainstorming template.  It would be a really useful feature.  Many thanks.

Copper Contributor

@Jasmin_Rashid Thanks for the update. It is probably better to build a toolkit so we can create out own templates...easier and more flexible than now. Cheers Allan

 

Copper Contributor

Hello!

 

Another thing I would really appreciate (beside being able to create custom templates) would be a way to integrate own extensions (apps, e.g.)!?

Thanks in advance,

Christian

Microsoft

@ipponsoft Thank you for sharing your feedback - we do have plans on our longer term Roadmap to be able to integrate other apps for e.g. such as Planner. We will of course keep you posted as this develops in the near future :)

 

Thank you!

Microsoft

Great templates. I liked the Kanban template. Please let me know if we can resize the text box or sticky notes once we add it to the Kanban board. By default it takes the existing tile size and unable to change it.

Iron Contributor

Love the new templates, they will be very popular. Am I missing something though, I can't see a way of linking to them from a Teams meeting? I always have to create a new whiteboard if based on a template which is separate from the Teams meeting and therefore not visible to attendees. Am I doing something wrong or is this expected behaviour?

Microsoft

@Laurie Willis Thanks for reaching out!. This is expected behaviour Since Teams is essentially the same as the Web experience hence why you are not able  to work with templates here yet . We are currently focusing our efforts on bringing the Web app to feature parity with our native apps within the next few months so please stay tuned for further announcements on this :)

 

Thank you 

Jasmin

Microsoft

@SamanthaRobbo Thanks for the feedback I will pass on to the PM team :)

Copper Contributor

Hello MS Whiteboard team, 

I came to enjoy Whiteboard in these times even more. Meanwhile, I use it as the main tool for note taking etc. It has really powerful features (like the seamless integration of ppt or doc). I am just wondering three issues:

  1. is there a limit of whiteboards, I can save?
  2. Can I organize them somehow (in folders)?
  3. And finally: they are stored in a MS cloud. Where can I access the original data? Not on my dashboard but a folder with the data in it?

Thank you so much and stay safe! 

Microsoft

@PDIGS Thanks for reaching out!. There are no limits and no saving is needed, since Whiteboard is automatically saved on the cloud. Hit arrow back to view all your Whiteboards or create new ones. In the gallery view (after you click back) you can hit "..." icon on any board and name the board. Folder organization is on our roadmap. Hope this helps :)

Jasmin Rashid, Microsoft

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