In a way, calling it Whiteboard doesn't really do it justice anymore.An online whiteboard is defined as a visual-aid tool that allows real-time collaboration among two or more people using a digital white-board, with basic features such as writing, editing, erasing and importing multimedia files and documents. What started as a replica of a physical medium is becoming a robust tool that works with other services and that provides a unique experience. Whiteboard is on a similar journey to Teams and many other remote working applications. Life took us into the digital space, and then we saw how it provided options that weren't available before. I ran into a similar situation when Microsoft Teams helped save my American football team. "Even more than it must have, it was kind of like we wish we had already adopted it yesterday or pre COVID because then we would have had people used to it." "COVID hits, and it becomes a must-have for almost literally, and I'm not exaggerating this, every organization," Mikutel says. Remote working forced organizations to look for solutions. Physical whiteboards aren't going away, but they have limits, especially in a world affected by a global pandemic. With more hybrid and remote work becoming the norm, tech like Microsoft Whiteboard will become common.
You can already use Templates in preview in the Windows 10 Whiteboard app, but they'll roll out to general availability in the future. Instead, I could just jump right into what we'd like to get done. Since I'd use this setup for each week's film review, I wouldn't have to spend time setting it up. I could then work with all of these side by side with inking and collaboration. I could have a template that shows video embeds of our plays, PDFs of our play designs for comparison, and Excel spreadsheets with statistics for analytics. In this scenario, I use Whiteboard to review our game film. Mikutel and I discussed a hypothetical situation in which we make a template for the American football team I coach. Templates have preset layouts with different types of content. " tremendously because you're able to essentially preset your whiteboard for a scenario that you know you're going to use," Mikutel said. Templates are a new feature for Whiteboard that allows people to trim down the startup time for meetings. Mikutel says that one of the top priorities for people was jumping into work quickly. Getting to work more quicklyĪs Whiteboard developed, it became clear that people wanted to use it for a variety of situations and workflows. Microsoft will roll out support for Fluid components over to Whiteboard, Outlook, and OneNote in the near future. You can't annotate in between them like you can do in Whiteboard." Now all of a sudden, you just split your screen into like five apps, right?. "I need to have a PDF, a webpage, a spreadsheet. While most devices can multitask, Mikutel illustrates how splitting the content up isn't as fluid: "A lot of users just love the fact that I can drop a PowerPoint slide, I can pretty soon a Fluid table that has the same data … It's actually putting multiple content types right next to each other." Mikutel explains how Whiteboard is a natural place for these types of components. They're Lego-like pieces that you can pop into place across Microsoft 365 apps. For example, you could create a spreadsheet in Excel and then bring it over into Word, Whiteboard, or other apps. Working across Microsoft 365įluid components allow people to create content and carry it across Microsoft 365. Whiteboard will take a giant leap in this area with the rollout of Fluid components. People can also embed rich content within Whiteboard, opening doors to entirely different workflows than what you'd be able to do on a physical whiteboard. "If you have a keyboard or a mouse or a trackpad, you're actually gonna have a really great fun experience and productive experience," Mikutel promises.
To improve inking with non-pen devices, the Whiteboard team added features such as auto smooth, which makes ink written or drawn with a mouse more legible. Mikutel says that Whiteboard delivers "ink for everyone," regardless of whether they have a digital pen or a device that supports a stylus. While physical whiteboards work only with ink, Microsoft built its Whiteboard app to allow different types of input. Mikutel explains that it's still a challenge to get people to think of Whiteboard as more than a physical whiteboard facsimile.
Due to its digital design, Microsoft Whiteboard gained features over time that you couldn't replicate on a physical whiteboard, including embedding rich content, syncing across devices, and people being able to work within the same space without bumping into each other.