Maximize productivity with an intuitive digital whiteboard and collaboration solution

What is a digital whiteboard?

Whether you’re writing math equations on a chalkboard or drawing diagrams on a whiteboard, visual tools help people solve problems together, make discussions more engaging, and invite teamwork as people spontaneously share ideas.

But what if you aren’t all in the same room?

A digital whiteboard can help. It’s an online virtual space where your team can share notes, sketches, files, and photos, just like a physical whiteboard—except it’s accessible anywhere with internet access. (That’s why it’s also called an online whiteboard.) It combines the best parts of a physical whiteboard, like text and sticky notes, with digital features like screenshots and autosave, so you never have to worry about someone erasing your ideas.

Learn more about creating the ultimate virtual workspace with digital whiteboards using Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Benefits of online whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards facilitate collaboration no matter where your team is: working from home, in different offices, or in different parts of the world. With hybrid work now often the norm, digital whiteboards are a useful tool to efficiently connect everyone. They can help you:

Increase productivity. Online whiteboards help everyone stay on the same page during meetings for faster decision-making. Because everyone has a visual reference, they can focus on brainstorming instead of taking notes.
Connect remote employees. Including everyone and making sure their voices are heard can be hard when you’re all in different places. Digital whiteboards help increase collaboration because everyone can contribute, which is more engaging and inclusive than participants simply listening to a presentation.
Be creative. Sometimes you just need space to doodle, share prototype sketches, or compile a list of product name ideas. Interactive whiteboards invite experimentation and playfulness—and that’s where some of the best ideas come from.
Get peace of mind. There’s nothing worse than losing your work because someone erased the whiteboard too soon. Digital whiteboards autosave to the cloud, so they’re always there to refer to after the meeting ends.

Virtual whiteboard software and basics

Every whiteboard app is different, but here are some common features and how to use them.

Set it up: The meeting organizer can set up the whiteboard with an agenda, meeting goals, or brainstorming guidelines. Choose from templates for things like project milestones; a retrospective; a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis; a persona builder; or a Kanban board. Pick from backgrounds like grids, lines, or a solid color.
Write and draw: Type text or write on a touch screen with a digital pen. Some software can automatically turn handwriting into text and sketches into shapes to make things easy to read.
Use sticky notes: Yes, there’s a digital equivalent of those colorful squares, and they never lose their stickiness. Write on them, circle things, and rearrange them, just like you would with physical sticky notes.
Upload attachments: Add images and drawings, paste a URL to insert a preview of a webpage, and insert a document.
Customize it: Choose your whiteboard background, template, and pen color to reflect your company’s branding or just keep things visually interesting.
Collaborate: Everyone can use the whiteboard in real time to add notes, documents, and sketches. If you’re presenting and just want people to listen, switch to read-only mode, then switch back to collaboration mode after you’ve given instructions.
Follow up: After the meeting ends, keep editing your digital whiteboard, add more contributors, export the board as an image, share it, and even print a copy for reference.

Learn how to get the most from Microsoft Teams

Enhance meetings and improve collaboration with Microsoft Whiteboard, which comes with Teams. Or go even further to expand the possibilities for your organization and simplify IT management with Microsoft Teams Rooms and Teams Phone.

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Six ways to collaborate using digital whiteboards

Now that you have an idea of what’s possible with online whiteboards, let’s look at some real-life examples of how to use them in your next meeting.

Project planning and management meetings: Map out your next sprint, project, or quarter and break it down into smaller sections. Interactive whiteboards can help you diagram each step of a new product launch or list major expenses for budget planning, so you remember to include everything.
Delegating: Once you’ve divided a project into sections, it’s easier to assign tasks. Use an online whiteboard template designed to manage follow-up, with preformatted space for assignments, names, and check boxes.
Brainstorming meetings: Create an inviting place for ideas, whether you’re meeting with customers to determine their top feature requests or coming up with potential conference themes. Start with a blank slate or a few images for inspiration, then write down suggestions. Because it’s a virtual whiteboard, you’ll never run out of room.
Training and education meetings: Liven up long trainings and educational presentations with interactive whiteboard features—test people’s knowledge with a poll, ask them to problem solve hypothetical situations by adding their ideas, and use templates created specifically for teaching.
Decision-making: Use digital whiteboards to present options to a client and get their feedback or to bring a few choices to your team and have them vote on the best one.
Remote collaboration: If one or two people are in the office, they can take a photo of an existing physical whiteboard, import it to whiteboard software, and continue working online with others. That way, you don’t have to start from scratch.

Online whiteboard best practices

Follow these guidelines to get the most out of an online whiteboard.

Prepare. For efficient meetings, take the time to set up the digital whiteboard before a meeting starts with any reference materials, guidelines, templates, and company branding.
Assign. To make sure participants know what’s expected of them, assign roles and responsibilities in advance, such as facilitator, note taker, and presenter.
Clarify goals. Some people may be unfamiliar with using a digital whiteboard. By clearly explaining the meeting goals and objectives, as well as how you’d like everyone to participate, the meeting will run more smoothly.
Include everyone. Make sure everyone is engaged and has a chance to add to the whiteboard. If you notice that a few people are doing most of the contributing, it could be a good time to add a poll or ask everyone to add a sticky note with an idea. Or use features like commenting and tagging to directly ask someone for their ideas.
Add visuals. One of the best parts of using a digital whiteboard is the visual versatility it offers. Choose diagrams, charts, and images to capture your audience’s attention and keep things interesting.
Share. Be sure to share the link with attendees after the meeting to follow up on next steps. If any other departments need to reference your whiteboard, share the link or image with them.

How to use interactive whiteboards with your existing systems

For any new tool to be useful, it must be compatible with what you already have. Here’s how online whiteboards work with your files and software.

With presentations, documents, and PDFs: When you drag and drop files into your whiteboard, collaborators can access them directly from there. Or paste one or multiple pages of a presentation or file into the whiteboard for reference. To add your finished whiteboard to another program, export it as an image and paste it into a document or presentation.
With online meetings: During a video meeting (including webinars and virtual events), share your screen that shows the whiteboard to introduce a brainstorming session, and share the link when you’re ready for everyone to contribute. People can keep collaborating on the whiteboard after the meeting ends. Or, if you don’t want any more edits, simply change the sharing settings.
With touch devices: Touch your screen to add and move sticky notes, draw, write, erase, change pen color, and highlight text. Pinch the screen to zoom or move the whiteboard content over to add more room.
With a note-taking app: Some whiteboard software can export your digital whiteboard to a note-taking app with one click.

Next steps

If you’re not sure which online whiteboard tool to get, try the Microsoft Whiteboard app. For a comprehensive solution with built-in whiteboard features, try Microsoft Teams for free or buy Microsoft 365 for business to get started right away.

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