The better and improved Teams Whiteboard

Microsoft Whiteboard got nice improvements to both Teams and web-version during the summer. In this post you can see what the improvements are and how they work together with the Whiteboard app.

First, the most important improvements

• Write text anywhere in Whiteboard at Teams & web
• Add & edit notes in the whiteboard
• Move objects in the whiteboard
• Improved performance

The details are in the blog post here.

The Whiteboard seems to perform better than before but I didn’t time any performance before and after the rollout.

Whiteboard in Teams now

It is good to know that both Teams and Web Whiteboard share the same functionalities. That makes it usable to use whiteboard also in mobile on Android (iOS has an Whiteboard app available).

When you share a new Whiteboard to Teams meeting you will instantly see some changes compared to before: the toolbar is now in the top and it has two more capabilities added: text and note.

And thus it is easy to add notes and text to the whiteboard.

From the gear (settings) you can also export the whiteboard canvas as a picture.

The Whiteboard app has still mostly the same capabilities than before. It is important to understand and to know that not all objects are seen on the web/Teams version of the whiteboard.

Whiteboard in Android Teams

It is quite nice how you get the same experience than with Teams Desktop (smaller screen of course). You can go back the call also if you so wish.

The Whiteboard takes over the whole screen on mobile, but it allows to add content via mobile version as well. And even when there are unsupported objects it doesn’t stop from using the Whiteboard. Also note the liked content!

You can also zoom in and out as well as move objects around the whiteboard – in Teams, web and mobile version.

More improvements to come

The biggest improvement missing from this update was the guest access. It is very much anticipated feature, but it is in the roadmap! This feature will give externals/guests access to the Whiteboard during the meeting – but not after the meeting is finished. Roadmapped for Q4/2020 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?rtc=1&filters=In%20development&searchterms=66759

There are also other great features that should be rolling out soon to Whiteboard

• Presenter mode: presenter can set the Whiteboard to read-only for attendees. Rolling out should start soon (this month). https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?rtc=1&filters=In%20development&searchterms=66758
• Whiteboard as tab application, making it possible to add a Whiteboard tab to team channel. Roadmapped for Q3/2020 which should be at the end of September. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?rtc=1&filters=In%20development&searchterms=66760

There are also other great features on the roadmap for the Whiteboard like locking content, ability to see who added content the board, per user licensing and moving it to European datacenters for example. The roadmap can be seen here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?rtc=1&filters=In%20development&searchterms=whiteboard

Are you using Microsoft Whiteboard? What are your best successes with it?