Whiteboards
Whiteboards are an endless canvas for diagrams, retros and brainstorms, built on Excalidraw. Draw together in real time, start from a template and connect your drawings to real issues.
Create a whiteboard
- Click Add content under the project in the sidebar and choose Whiteboard.
- Give it a name.
The new whiteboard opens with Start from a template: pick one, or close the picker to start blank.
Templates
| Template | What you get |
|---|---|
| Retrospective | Columns Went well, To improve, Action items with sticky notes |
| Roadmap | Now, Next, Later |
| Brainstorm | A central topic with ideas around it |
| User story map | Activities on top, stories by release below |
| Flowchart | Start → step → decision → outcomes |
| SWOT | Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats |
Open Templates in the toolbar any time to add one to your board.
Drawing
Use the Excalidraw tools: shapes, arrows, text, freehand, images and sticky notes. Pan and zoom freely.
Saving
Whiteboards save automatically a few seconds after every change. The status shows Saving…, Saved or All changes saved. Save saves right away; Save & exit saves and leaves the editor. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, Brainitive asks first.
History
Click History to see checkpoints. One is saved on Save and Save & exit, and at least every 30 minutes while you edit. Preview any checkpoint read-only and restore it.
Draw together
Several people can work on the same whiteboard at the same time: shapes, sticky notes and images appear for everyone right away, with a named cursor for each person, like Miro. Avatars show who is drawing with you.
It keeps working when your connection drops ("Offline — changes kept on this device") and catches up when you're back.
If live drawing isn't available, you draw alone and the whiteboard saves as usual. Should someone else have saved in the meantime, a banner says Someone else changed this whiteboard while you were editing: choose Load latest or Overwrite with mine.
Issues on the whiteboard
Add issue cards
- Click Issues in the toolbar → Add issue cards.
- Search the project's issues, tick the ones you want and click Add selected.
Each issue appears as a card coloured by its status and linked to the issue. Cards update when the whiteboard opens; click Refresh cards to update them now. Issues on this whiteboard lists every linked issue.
Turn sticky notes into issues
Great after a brainstorm or retro:
- Select the sticky notes.
- Click Issues in the toolbar → Create from selection and pick a Board.
- Confirm.
Each sticky becomes one issue (in the board's first column, or the backlog on a Scrum board), and the stickies turn into live issue cards.
Linked issues list the whiteboard under Referenced by.
Whiteboards in docs
You can also insert a drawing into a doc with the Excalidraw slash command.
Who can do what
Project editors and admins create and edit whiteboards; viewers can look at them (pan and zoom, see live changes) but not edit. See Roles and permissions.