Run a workshop

Workshop mode turns a private board into a guided session. You decide when the board opens, what everyone is working on and when the ideas become visible. People can take part without an account, from a phone, by scanning a code.

Workshop mode is a Club Facilitator feature. Everyone you invite takes part for free — there is nothing for them to buy or install.

What you’ll learn

How to turn a board into a workshop.
How to let people take part without an account.
How to guide a session with an instruction and a timer.
How to collect ideas silently and reveal them together.
How to check what the room is looking at.
How to finish a session.

Turn a board into a workshop

Open the board and select Workshop. The panel walks through a session in the order you run it: set it up, get people in, then start.

Under Set up the session, fill in:

Facilitator name — how you are introduced to participants. This can differ from your display name.
Instruction — the central question of the session, for example “What slowed us down this sprint? One idea per note.”
Hide author names on notes — optional. Notes then appear without a name. People still edit only their own notes, and you can still moderate; only the name on the card changes.

Select Turn on workshop mode. The board is now in Preparing. Anyone opening the link at this point sees a waiting room, not your board, so you can add example notes, create columns and arrange things at your own pace.

Any existing board can become a workshop, and a workshop board stays a normal board. Nothing about your notes, columns or layout changes.

Get people in

Under Get people in, choose how long the link should stay valid and select Create workshop link.

Anyone with that link can take part, so it always expires. Four hours suits a morning session; seven days is the maximum.

For each link you can:

Copy link — paste it into a chat message or calendar invitation.
Show QR code — a small code, handy to check.
Show on screen — a full-screen code with the address written out underneath, for the screen in the room. Not everyone’s camera scans, so the address is there to type.
New link — creates a replacement and kills the current one immediately. Use this when a code ends up in a photo or the link travels further than you intended.
Revoke — ends access without creating a replacement.

A board holds up to 50 participants.

Participants who do have an account can also be invited by email in the usual way. They do not need a paid plan.

Open the room

The bar at the top of the board is where you run the session. Move it forward with the buttons there, or from Run the session in the Workshop panel.

Lobby open — participants see a waiting room with your instruction, your name and a few house rules. The board itself stays hidden. Use this while people arrive.
Workshop running — the board opens and participants can add notes.
Finished — input closes and the session is done.

You can also move a session back: from Workshop running to Lobby open for a break, or from Finished to Workshop running to reopen. Nobody needs to refresh — a participant’s screen follows within a few seconds.

Guide the session

Everything you need during a session is in the bar, so you never have to open a settings panel while people are waiting for you.

Instruction

The Instruction for participants field saves as you type. Everyone sees the new text within a few seconds. Use it to narrow the focus halfway through: “Two more minutes — stick to causes, not solutions.”

Timer

Select 2, 5, 10 or 15 min, or type your own number of minutes and select Start. Everyone sees the same countdown, whatever their device clock says.

Pause and Resume hold and continue the remaining time, and +1 min adds a minute — also when the timer has already reached zero.

At zero the timer stops and stays at 0:00. It does not close the board: you decide when the room is done. That way you can give somebody the ten seconds they need to finish a sentence.

Close input

Close input stops new notes, including your own. Comments, hearts and dot voting keep working, because that is exactly what happens after collecting: you discuss and prioritise what is already there. Open input lets ideas in again.

Silent brainstorm

Silent brainstorm hides everyone’s notes from everyone else. Each participant only sees their own, so nobody is anchored by the first idea on the board. You see everything, so you can follow how it is going.

While notes are hidden, participants cannot drag notes around — a single drag would reorder notes they cannot see. Select Reveal all notes and everything appears at once, for everyone, without a refresh.

See what the room sees

Select Preview as a participant under Run the session. You then see your own board exactly as the room sees it: no controls, the waiting room when there is one, and only your own notes during a silent brainstorm.

Nothing changes about what you are allowed to do — your controls are hidden, not gone. Select Back to facilitator view to leave the preview.

Finish a session

Set the status to Finished. Input closes, everything is visible, and any voting results stay as they are.

To share the outcome with people who were not there, create a View link under Share. That gives a read-only version of the board that anyone can open without an account.

Archived marks a session as done and keeps input closed. It does not hide the board or remove it from your board list.

Good to know

Participants only need the link. No account, no install, no app.
A workshop link always expires, and you can replace or revoke it at any moment.
Everyone edits and deletes only their own notes. You can delete anyone’s note as the Owner, but never rewrite someone else’s words.
Closing input never switches off comments, hearts or voting.
Participants whose browser data is cleared return as a new participant. Earlier notes stay on the board under the name they used at the time.
The nickname of a participant without an account is removed 30 days after their last activity. Their contributions stay.