Whiteboard in Teams is great but can get confusing when you try to use it properly, leading to missing work and much frustration 😤
In this video find out the best way to work with Whiteboard in Teams and the standalone desktop and mobile apps so that you don't lose anything you need to collaborate on.
Want more creative ways to collaborate in Teams?
By the end of this video you'll know all about how to use Microsoft Whiteboard and how to get the best out of it using Teams and the stand-alone Whiteboard apps on desktop and mobile.
So watch until the end to save all of your confusion.
I've got new videos on Teams coming out every Tuesday so make sure you hit the subscribe button, and the bell icon to get notified every time a video comes out.
I'm Gavin Jones, a former transformation manager for a Fortune 500 company, and now help organizations of any size with modern workplace transformations.
If you're interested in working together then stick around until the end to find out more.
Part 1: Use Microsoft Whiteboard In A Teams Meeting (Chat)
Whiteboard can be really useful when you're in a meeting.
But at the moment it's way more confusing than it should be, especially if you wanna use the outputs of that Whiteboard somewhere.
It's probably less useful than just using a piece of paper and taking a picture because sometimes it disappears.
So for the first part of this video, gonna explain why it's more complicated than it should be.
And in the second half, then you'll understand why I want you to do what I'm recommending that you do so that you don't lose any work.
So let's jump into Teams and just have a look at some of the issues of using a Whiteboard in a meeting.
So, to understand all the different ways about scheduling a meeting and why it's a bit more confusing in Teams than maybe other programs, then check out this entire tutorial on Teams meetings first.
But if you have got a general gist then you'll understand the difference between scheduling the meeting and a meeting in a channel, or the meeting going into a chat.
Okay. So we jump into a scheduled meeting which we've got on our calendar, which as we know, won't be in a channel, and join that one.
Then, just get a Whiteboard up whilst you're in a meeting, click on the share content tray, and it's there, right there. Microsoft Whiteboard, collaborate on a Whiteboard. And if you click that, it's gonna open the Whiteboard which is really useful to sketching out some ideas, basically using it as a a flip chart like you would in real life. And, you can just draw it with your mouse. If you've got a touch screen PC, you can draw it with your finger on the screen. And, if you've got an iPad and you're using the iPad Teams app, you can just draw on that with an Apple Pencil. Or, if you've got any other device with a stylus, that will work as well.
So, if we just have that as our notes we can add some sticky notes, if we want, and do text on them. Everyone that's in the meeting can collaborate all together at the same time on this Whiteboard. So there can be multiple people drawing things around. It's got sort of near infinite zoom out. So you can have lots of different areas of the Whiteboard that you're working on, if you wanted to, and then get back together. But, presume you've spent a lot of time doing that in the meeting, you then want to be able to get back to it somehow. So that's from a scheduled meeting. If we leave that meeting and dismiss that, then as we know that should show up in our chat. And then we've got this test Whiteboard meeting. And it's got chats, files, meeting notes that we haven't used, but we did use in the previous videos. If you wanna know about that then watch that video after this one. And the Whiteboard tab. So if we click on that we'll then see our Whiteboard. And it's got exactly what we expect on there.
But, as we know, if you've got a meeting that is just a scheduled meeting it only appears in the chat, unless everyone pins that chat, same as we said in the meeting notes video, the previous one. Unless everyone pins that chat, the likelihood of you going back to that specific meeting and then finding that Whiteboard tab to go and find the information you want, is rather slim. So it's better to try and keep all of your meeting assets in the Team, if you can.
Part 2: Whiteboard In A Teams Channel Meeting
But, the downside of a Whiteboard is if we then go into Teams and say we had either a scheduled channel meeting or just to meet now in the channel, when we then go to use Whiteboard, we can get the same in-meeting experience as we've just done. Going share content, Whiteboard, draw something on it. I'm not sure that will... Face, because that's what happens in most business meetings, right? People doodling. And then leave. And, you know, maybe I spent hours on that creation. There was lots of people collaborating. I had loads of great ideas on that Whiteboard. Cool. Let's go and review it. Or, we'll use it in the next meeting. Well, we can't because there's no way of clicking on that meeting to find out what's in it. It hasn't created a Whiteboard tab for us in the channel. And whether we did meet now or did a scheduled meeting, see here's one I did earlier, that won't have to go, oh you're doing the whole thing again? If we click on that, well we do get some meeting details cause it's scheduled in the channel. We then don't have a Whiteboard tab there either. So it's sort of like, it's not working for channel meetings right now, which isn't great.
Say that we did have a Whiteboard that we worked on in a previous meeting. So, maybe this is the next meeting that we've got to talk about the same stuff and we wanna then carry on working on that Whiteboard. So, cool. Let's go to Whiteboard and click on Whiteboard and we can bring up the old one. Well, we can't because there's no option to load any other Whiteboard than the one that we've already done. There's no way in the settings. There's no menu. It's quite a cut down version of Whiteboard in Teams. And it doesn't even have all the functionality, on which we'll have a look at the Desktop app, later. But everything can't get back and show another Whiteboard that we've already worked on, which isn't great. So the only way of doing that is to bring that up, which I'll go through in the second half, and then share your screen, and share the Whiteboard app.
Part 3: Using Microsoft Whiteboard As A Tab In Microsoft Teams
So, because neither of those two things are great, in that, If you did it in a channel it's completely disappeared. We can't really get back to it. Or if we go into the chat, that is gonna go off the bottom of the screen.
Then I would recommend starting a Whiteboard tab, so at least you know that's in the channel and it's permanent and it's linked to that channel. So if you click on plus, tab, and go to Whiteboard, we can then name it. So, I'll just call it Whiteboard YouTube for this purpose. Save. And at least we've got a Whiteboard that is pinned in the channel. So we know exactly where it is.
If it's pinned in the channel, we get exactly the same functionality because the Whiteboard in Teams is the same. It's quite cut down. We can still, though, draw on it and everything's hunky-dory in that regard. And, it's gonna be saved because we know it's pinned in the channel. So if you wanted then to share that over a meeting, we could then share our screen and then go back into the Team and see in the Team. And carry on where we left off.
So comment below and let me know if you used Whiteboard before this video and if it's useful, and that you're gonna try it after watching the video. Let me know.
Part 4: Microsoft Whiteboard Apps (Desktop, iPad, iOS, Mobile)
So if we jump into the Whiteboard desktop app now, so even though we couldn't see a lot of those things that we just did from Teams, everything that we did in Whiteboard is still saved in the Whiteboards app. Which is great 'cause we can then go back to it. So, all of these ones that we sort of lost or were difficult to find are still here. But there's the one that we've just done. It sorts it in reverse chronological order. So the one we just made, the tab is there for us to see and go and work on. And then if we jump into that specific one, this is a lot more options in the Whiteboard app.
So you've got all the same pens, ruler, lasso. We can add text, sticky notes the same. We can put images in, which I don't think we could have done before, either through search or adding one. And then we've also got loads of other stuff that we didn't have before. So we can have a note grid. So we can arrange all of our notes in a nice little grid so we don't lose them. These ones we can drag around and these ones stay within the grid. We can add a list of stuff. We can add a follow-ups list, which is the same but with an assigned to. And, if we assign it then we can pick who it's assigned to there.
And then we've got this thing called templates. So, lots of ideas to make your creative workflow work a bit better. So it's problem solving, project milestones, project planning. We'll do an effective meeting 'cause that sounds, that sounds cool and what a lot of people are gonna wanna do. And that's just, a collation of some of the other assets that we've just been through in Whiteboard. So, to find your agenda, keep an eye on the clock. Make sure everyone is heard. Keep track of follow ups. Understand what's out of scope. Tips for running an effective meeting. But it's a nice little picture there for you. But basically it's just got The title has got a couple of ?? Lists, that it's called agenda and it's got follow-ups so you can assign people. And a parking lot. So it's used the note grid there. But all of that's all sort of under one banner which you can drag around all as one block, which all of that you don't get in Teams.
But you could then just go into the meeting in Teams, share your screen, and then show the desktop app. If I just jump into Whiteboard app on my iPad, you then see exactly the same thing as the desktop app And just to show you, I've got my Apple Pencil here and we can see the same thing as on the desktop app. And then I can just go around and draw and it updates and it updates pretty much in real time as we are typing. Typing? Writing. And so hopefully you can then see why that is the best thing to do. To go into Teams, pin a Whiteboard into your channel, so at least it's fixed in Teams you know where to get back to it. If everyone's using the Whiteboard app they can then go and see that anyway, as long as they've been invited to that team and on the team will show up in their Whiteboard app. If you just had a meeting that had only be visible to people in the meeting, but then it would be difficult to get back to unless they went back to their Whiteboard app. If that makes sense? Whereas this is always permanent in that team.
Okay. So I just shown you that there's more to using Teams and Microsoft 365 for even creative uses and brainstorming. So if you wanna find out more about making your whole organization more productive no matter what industry you're in then book a free strategy call with me using the link in the description below.
So check out these videos next, remember to give the video a like, subscribe and if you really like the video, consider supporting the channel by buying me a beer. It really does help support the channel. But thanks for watching so far and we'll see you in the next video.