Getting Started with Whiteboard

Brightidea Whiteboard gives you the ability to collaborate and brainstorm ideas in realtime. Users can create and share multiple whiteboards within Brightidea giving your team a digital space to innovate together at anytime. The Brightidea Whiteboard functionality is available to all users right out of the box, view additional license information here. 

 

Table of content: 

• Supported Browsers 
• Accessing Whiteboard
• Create a Whiteboard 
• Navigating within your Whiteboard
• Share a Whiteboard 
• Multi-Player 
• Review Available Whiteboards 

 

Supported Browsers 

The Brightidea Whiteboard technology provides users an infinite, zoomable interface to store independent stickies, objects, images, etc. The interface requires the use of modern, up-to-date browser versions. Because of this, Whiteboards browser requirements differ slightly from other Brghtidea feature browser requirements, which can be seen here.

Whiteboards are supported with the following browser requirements:

• Google Chrome (latest version recommended)
• Mozilla Firefox (latest version recommended)
• Brave (latest version recommended)
• Apple Safari (Version 15 or higher)
• Microsoft Edge (latest version recommended)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer - Not Supported

 

Accessing Whiteboards 

• The Whiteboards feature is found on the User Homepage, example:
  https://<your-domain>.brightidea.com/userhome
  If you do not have User Home enabled you will need to set it up prior to being able to use Whiteboards. The User Home article details how to enable and configure User Home.
• On the User Home page, Whiteboards can be accessed from the menu on the left side of the screen under "My Innovations".
  
  
  
  
• Since this feature is turned on automatically for all customers, if you have a desire to deactivate it, please connect with your site administrator, and that setting can be found under system setup. 
  
  

 

Create a Whiteboard 

• When you access the Whiteboard page for the first time you have two options for creating a Whiteboard. You can select the "New Blank Whiteboard" template at the top of the screen or click the "Create a Whiteboard" button under the empty list of saved Whiteboards.

• We also provide template options to help you get started with a new Whiteboard. You can select one of the templates to create a new Whiteboard with some pre-loaded content. See the Whiteboard Templates article to learn more about the template options.
• Once the blank Whiteboard is generated, you can re-name the file and begin to use all the available tools and features.
  
• All new Whiteboards will only be accessible to the user that created them until they have been shared with other users in your Brightidea system. 

Navigating within your Whiteboard

Once you are in your whiteboard, you will want to be able to navigate around your infinite, zoomable interface.

Using your trackpad you can: 

• Slide one finger along the center of the touchpad to move the cursor
• Tap or click to select an object
• Use two fingers to move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally across the board
• Use two fingers, with a pinch motion to zoom in
• Use two fingers, with a stretch motion to zoom out  

Using your keyboard or mouse: 

• For Mac: Command with the plus (+) or minus (-) button will zoom you in and out 
• For PC: Control with the plus (+) or minus (-) button will zoom you in and out 
• On mouse, use the scroll wheel to move up and down
• On mouse, press down on the scroll wheel to pan throughout the board

Using the Zoom Reference:

• The Zoom Reference feature can be found on the top right of the Whiteboard.
• Click on the plus (+) or minus (-) buttons to zoom you in and out
• Click on the zoom percentage to expose the Zoom Reference menu

• • Click "Zoom to Fit" to set your zoom to fit all objects on the Whiteboard
  • Click "Zoom in" to zoom you in
  • Click "Zoom out" to zoom out in
  • Click "Zoom 50%" to zoom to 50%
  • Click "Zoom 100%" to zoom to 100%

Share a Whiteboard 

• To begin the collaboration process with other users you can click the "Share" button in your new Whiteboard.
  
  This will open an invitation window to invite other users to access the Whiteboard.
  
• The Share invitation window allows you to invite either existing user in your Brightidea system by entering the user's name, or new users by entering an email address. You can edit the invitation email template in System Setup > Site > System Email Messages.
  
  • Users who already have a profile in the Brightidea system will receive an automated email to join your Whiteboard.
  • Users who do not have access to the Brightidea system will receive an automated email to register, then they receive access to the Whiteboard.  
  • You can copy the link to your Whiteboard to share manually with the "Copy Link" option which will copy the URL to your Whiteboard to your computer clipboard.

• If you select "Link to selected object" you can copy the link to a specific object in your Whiteboard to share manually. You can also link to a selected object directly from the board by right-clicking on an object. 

• On default, the ability to allow access to collaborate on your Whiteboard to anyone that clicks the link is toggled on, toggle this off to change permission. 

Once set to “Anyone with link can view,” users who have link access the Whiteboard through the link (and are not specifically assigned with edit access) will not be able to edit the content or properties of the Whiteboard. They can still navigate around the board, as well as zoom in and out, but will not see the toolbar or be able to select or move objects.

Users will see Whiteboards they have view-only access to in their User Home Whiteboard list. They will also be able to Save a Copy of Whiteboards they have view-only access to. 

Sending Whiteboard invites to specific users will still give them edit access to the Whiteboard.

 

Multi-Player 

• Inviting additional users automatically enables multi-player and multi-edit capabilities in a Whiteboard. This allows users to see who is accessing the same Whiteboard and what they are doing in the Whiteboard in real-time. 
• When multiple users are accessing a Whiteboard at the same time they each be able to see:
  • The profile image of each user in the top toolbar
  • Each user's mouse cursor will be activated within the space and identified with the username.
• All users can simultaneously add and edit content/objects within the space concurrently in real-time. 

Follow Users

Allows users to quickly locate and follow each other in the whiteboard to support collaboration & review workflows. This is an inverse of the huddle feature, which is detailed within the core tools KBA. 

• Click on a user in the top toolbar to follow their view on the whiteboard
• While following someone's view, you can see a visual indicator by a colored screen border 
• To break the following rule, navigate within the board or edit an object 

Review Available Whiteboards 

• All Whiteboards = all whiteboards, whether generated by yourself or shared with you
• My Whiteboards = only boards you, as a user, originally created 
• Shared With Me = only boards in which you were invited to edit and view 
• The "Search Whiteboards" field allows users to search all Whiteboard titles in your system.