Products
Draw together on a canvas
Draw with stickies, shapes and arrows, vote, run a timer, share a guest link, and turn notes into tasks.
A canvas is a live whiteboard. The people of a workspace draw on it together, and the troop reads it. This page tells how to make a canvas, draw on it, and run a session with a timer and votes. It also tells how to share a canvas with guests, and turn notes into tasks.
Before you begin
Canvas is a product. A person sees it only when it has the product. See Invite people and choose their roles.
Make a canvas
- Open Canvas from Products, then select New canvas.
- Type the Canvas name.
- Under Start from, pick Blank, Brainstorm (ideas, questions and next steps) or Retro (what went well, what to improve, actions).
- Confirm. The board opens.
Draw
The toolbar holds the tools. A key picks each one.
| Tool | What it makes |
|---|---|
| Select | Picks items, to move, resize or change them. |
| Sticky note | A note with words. |
| Text | Words with no box. |
| Rectangle and Ellipse | Shapes. Press the key again to switch between the two. |
| Arrow | An arrow. It can join two items, and follows them. |
| Pen | A line that you draw by hand. |
| Frame | A box that holds other items, with a title. |
| Image | A PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP image, 10 MB at most. |
| Comment | A pin with a thread of comments. |
- Select an item, then press Enter to edit its words.
- Delete or Backspace deletes what you picked. Escape clears the pick.
- The arrow keys move what you picked. Cmd with Z undoes, and Shift with Cmd and Z does it again.
- Hold Space and drag to move the view. + and - zoom. Shift with 1 fits everything in view.
- Bring to front and Send to back change the order of items.
Work together
Each person on the canvas shows as a cursor with a name, and what each person picked shows too.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Follow | Select the face of a person to see what they have in view. |
| Bring everyone here | Everyone on the canvas follows what you have in view, until they move. |
| Timer | Start a timer for everyone. Pause the timer, Resume the timer or Stop the timer. "Time's up" shows at its end. |
| Dot voting | Each person votes on notes. The counts show on each note. |
| Reactions | Send a reaction that floats over the board for everyone. |
| Private mode | New notes stay hidden from others until you reveal them from the pill on the board. |
| Comments | Pins with threads. Resolve closes a thread. |
Ask the troop
Select Ask the troop to ask a teammate about the canvas, such as "Sort these notes into themes" or "Sum up this canvas in three points". The teammate reads the words of the canvas.
- When you ask, the Chief of Staff adds notes or sorts them into titled themes.
- The Engineer and the QA tester do not read canvases.
Turn notes into tasks
- Pick the notes.
- Select Make tasks. Each note becomes a task on the board.
Share with a guest link
- Select Share with a link.
- Pick Who the link lets in: Can view or Can edit.
- Select Copy link, and send it.
A guest sees the board with no account. What guests add is marked as theirs. Anyone of the workspace deletes what guests added, or all of it at once from Share. Make a new link stops the old one, and closes the open boards of guests. Only the person who made the canvas, owners and admins change its link.
Guests have their own limits: 500 live items, 5,000 items in all, and 50,000 points of pen.
Export and delete
- Export as a PNG saves the board as a picture. Export what's picked as a PNG saves only what you picked.
- Delete canvas deletes everything on it, images too, for everyone. You cannot undo it.
The canvas and the brain
The brain holds the words of each canvas, after the canvas was quiet for a minute. It leaves out the notes that private mode hides, and the words of guests. Only people and teammates who read tasks find a canvas in search.