How to Use SmartDraw as a Digital Whiteboard

What is a Digital Whiteboard?

A whiteboard is a common name given to a shared visual workspace that teams use to plan and generate ideas. A digital whiteboard is accessible from anywhere by anyone and doesn't require that your team share a physical location.

In the physical world, whiteboards are used to sketch concepts and visualize workflow with markers, and brainstorm using sticky notes and even strings to illustrate connections. This can all be recreated online using a whiteboarding app like SmartDraw.

What Type of Visuals Belong on a Whiteboard?

Typically, a whiteboard consists of sticky notes and one or more visuals used for collaboration. These might include:

Kanban board
Mind map
Brainstorming
Roadmap
PI board
Daily stand-up
Retrospective
Customer Journey Map
Gantt chart
Common diagrams such as a flowchart, org chart or decision tree.

It is often useful to bring in visuals based on external data. For example:

Jira cards
Network configurations like AWS and Azure
Database schema
Class diagram

Start Collaborating

Create a new board by opening any template under New Document from the dashboard. A good spot to start may be one of the templates under the Brainstorming & Ideation category.

Invite your team to collaborate using the Share button in the upper right. Your team can share ideas and build your board together in real time.

Click the Share button.
Choose Copy Link from the drop down.
Make sure the option "Anyone with this link can View and Edit" is selected.
Click the Copy Link button and drop that link in an email, Slack, or Teams channel.

Add Ideas

Any team members can drag and drop sticky notes, express opinions using emojis, and group ideas together.

Your team can double-click to add text to any notes.

Some templates have frames and some have columns and rows. SmartDraw has built-in smart formatting to make working on these easy.

When you drag-and-drop new notes, SmartDraw will automatically make room for new notes. You can also use your keyboard to enter new notes. Simply select an existing sticky note and then hit Ctrl and the arrow key in the direction you want to add a new note.

You'll never have to pause brainstorming to draw or reformat your board.

Powerful Collaboration Tools

In addition to adding sticky notes and emojis to any drawing, you can use the whiteboarding tools located in the upper right corner of the app to help facilitate collaboration.

You can use the pen or highlighter to draw attention to a specific shape or text to help focus a discussion.

Add a timer to track your whiteboarding session. You can stop, pause or add time to your timer as you need. It's never been easier to keep your team on the same page and working together.

Add Technical Diagrams to Your Brainstorm

You can even take your whiteboard to the next level by adding more technical diagrams using the Plus+ (or Insert Comment) menu to the left.

You can select from a large selection of blueprints like flowcharts, mind maps, retrospectives, customer journey maps, and more. You can also add visualizations built from external data like AWS and Azure.

Each blueprint added to your board is inside a frame making it easy to move and position.

Frames Help Organize Your Whiteboard

When blueprints are added to your workspace, they will appear inside a frame. Frames contain your visual and make it easy to move around.

Frames resize as the diagram inside them resizes. You can add or remove shapes, and the frame will adjust accordingly.

You can change the frame color, add a title, and modify their behaviors as needed.

Dynamic Controls

When you are working with a diagram blueprint and select one of the shapes, the controls shown in the left panel change to reflect the type of diagram you are using.

Click on a flowchart and you'll get the flowchart controls to help you build flowcharts, and then click on a roadmap and notice how your controls are now relevant for roadmapping.

Add Jira Tickets

When dealing with product development and engineers, you'll need the context Jira provides. You can add a Jira ticket as a card to your board easily.

Click the + icon to switch the SmartPanel into the Insert Content view.

Once on the Insert Content view, select the Add Data Visualizer section and click on Jira Issues.

Connect to your Atlassian account and choose the Jira issue you want to create a card for.

You can also push ideas and tickets generated during your brainstorming session back into Jira.

Click Create New Jira Issue in the SmartPanel to bring up the dialog to add a Jira issue.