How to Use Zoom Whiteboard? A Step-by-Step Guide and List of Tools

Our use of online collaboration tools like digital whiteboards has skyrocketed in the last two years. Nearly 80 percent of employees used collaboration tools for work in 2021, up from 55 percent before the pandemic, as per Gartner’s 2021 survey. Digital whiteboards allow teams to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously, creating a single source of information, reference, and ideation. Further, it is a visual collaboration aid, which is easy to understand and utilize at a glance. One of the premier whiteboarding tools available for remote work is Zoom Whiteboard, part of the company’s meeting and collaboration experience.

What Is Zoom Whiteboard?

Zoom Whiteboard is an online collaboration hub for real-time and persistent (asynchronous) communication through text, diagrams, sticky notes, and other visual elements that can be accessed from a Zoom meeting, a Zoom Rooms for Touch device, or from the app. 

The video conferencing company launched its whiteboard offering in September 2021 and intended to provide users with a “creative space” that they could access anywhere. It is possible to use Zoom Whiteboard from the following interfaces:

•  The web – You may create a new whiteboard or access one that you already have simply from your web browser.
• The desktop Zoom client – To begin collaborating on a whiteboard in the Zoom client, go to the Whiteboard tab on the top navigation bar.
• During meetings – To create a new whiteboard or access an existing one during a meeting, choose Share Screen from the Zoom Apps menu, or select Whiteboard from the Zoom Apps tab.
• Zoom Room – Start a whiteboard on a Zoom Rooms for Touch device for a more engaging experience on a screen larger than the average desktop.

Eventually, users will also be able to access the Whiteboard from a metaverse environment, using Oculus Quest or Meta Quest. Zoom and Oculus have joined hands to develop virtual meeting rooms. Zoom Whiteboard and Zoom Meetings will be integrated with Oculus’ Horizon Workrooms as part of this agreement. Zoom said its newly introduced whiteboard would allow seamless, asynchronous communication across numerous devices inside a virtual reality environment.

The Best Zoom Whiteboard Features

Not only can users create whiteboards, but they can also share them with others through Zoom Chat or email. This enables chat participants to access the shared whiteboard directly from inside the Zoom Chat interface, allowing them to collaborate in real-time with other participants. Its key features include:

• Sticky notes – The whiteboarding experience supports sticky notes that you can attach to any part of the canvas or its components. Users can write on sticky notes to explain an idea or highlight an action.
• Comments – The whiteboard has a comments panel that appears on the right side of the window. You can also attach a comment to a whiteboard element and mention collaboration participants using the @mention functionality.
• Versioning – Zoom whiteboard has full-featured version control capabilities. It lists all the saved versions of the canvas and time stamps and author names. It also includes a summary of the edits that each author made.

How to Use Zoom Whiteboard? Follow these 6 Steps

The best way to use Zoom Whiteboard is during an ongoing meeting. It will allow all the meeting participants to annotate the canvas and engage in real-time visual collaboration. Here are the steps to follow:

1.  Click the Share Screen button from the menu bar of an active Zoom conference.
2. Select Whiteboard and then Share.
3. Using the page controls in the whiteboard’s bottom-right corner, add new pages and switch across these pages.
4. Access the annotation tools from the toolbar. When you click on the Whiteboard, the toolbar vanishes. Restore it by clicking on Whiteboard once again.
5. The following is a checklist of the tools available on the toolbar:

• • Select – You may select, move, and resize annotations using this tool.
  • Stamp – Use preset icons, like a star, and insert them into the canvas.
  • Text – Insert text anywhere on the canvas.
  • Draw – Include lines, arrows, and other shapes in the drawing. It can also work as a highlighter tool in some situations.
  • Spotlight – When your mouse is inside the shared area, your mouse pointer will be visible to all participants, called a spotlight.
  • Arrow – Instead of using your mouse pointer, use a little arrow to grab everyone’s attention.
  • Format – Customize the formatting parameters for annotated items, such as color, line width, and font.
  • Eraser – Use the Eraser to remove portions of your annotation by clicking and dragging.
  • Clear – Delete all annotations from the document.
  • Save – This option saves all annotations on the screen as a screenshot

6. When the whiteboarding session is complete, click on the Stop Share button.

Keep in mind that only the presenter will be able to create and switch pages, while the other participants can only add to the contents.

Using Zoom Whiteboard: Tips for Administrators

An admin must activate the setting from the Zoom web portal before you can use Zoom Whiteboard during a meeting or share the canvas through private/group chat. To enable whiteboard for an entire organization, admins must follow these steps:

1. Log in to Zoom’s web portal as an administrator with the ability to modify account settings.
2. Click Account Management and Account Settings in the navigation menu.
3. Navigate to the Meetings tab.
4. To activate the whiteboard, click the Whiteboard option under In Meeting (Basic).
5. Click Enable to confirm the modification if a verification box displays.

To make this option mandatory for all your users, click the lock symbol and confirm the setting by clicking Lock.

Another way to use Zoom Whiteboard is through the company’s certified touch devices and displays. On a compatible device, users can navigate to the home screen, where the whiteboard button appears clearly for your convenience. Additionally, this interface has an extra feature that smooths out hand-drawn shapes when using a touch display. Zoom will bring new enhancements to Whiteboard across 2022 – watch this space for more.

 

 

from UC Today https://ift.tt/Bs6bcpu