Microsoft Whiteboard App available in Preview for Windows 10

Imagine being able to easily connect with co-workers in the same building, across the country, or around the world to share your ideas right from your desktop. The new Microsoft Whiteboard App Preview enables that capability.

Richard Hay, Senior Content Producer

December 8, 2017

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The new Microsoft Whiteboard app is now available in preview to the more than 600 million Windows 10 active device and desktop users. It's a new step in blending touch interfaces and social collaboration. Yes, the ability to collaborate by sharing your desktop or work together on various Microsoft documents has become the norm over the last few years. Now, however, the Microsoft Whiteboard app will focus on touch and inking as the primary means of interacting with the app to facilitate easy collaboration among the members of your team. You can even use your finger to write on the screen if your touch based device does not have a pen or digitizer available.

(Of course, keyboard and mouse users can also easily participate in collaboration sessions.)

In the gallery you will find images from setup, first use, and active collaboration with others to see how the new Whiteboard app works from a Windows 10 desktop perspective.

By the way, this service is just a little more than 36 hours old and it is a preview, so expect some hiccups along the way, I certainly experienced a few glitches in my initial testing, but even at this early stage I can see the potential of this app for encouraging increased collaboration in so many ways. However, It is going to be interesting to see the progress of this app since they first showed it off back at BUILD 2017 earlier this year.

Finally, just a couple of logistic related notes:

  1. In order to collaborate on a whiteboard one of the users must be using an account from an Office 365 subscription. According to Microsoft, that includes Office 365 Home, Personal, and the business level subscriptions.

  2. For Office 365 users on a business subscription your Administrator must enable Whiteboard access. See our gallery for the steps they must take to turn this feature on for your accounts. This is a global setting and effects all users on your subscription.

  1. Surface Hub users can use the new Whiteboard App Preview on their Hubs concurrently with the devices current whiteboard app.

  1. This app is supported on Windows 10 Version 1607, aka the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and higher. It is rolling out and can be located in the Microsoft Store for download.

Let us know how your experience is going with the new app and service. Is this something your company/organization could use to reduce travel costs for teams that are remotely located from each other?

About the Author

Richard Hay

Senior Content Producer, IT Pro Today (Informa Tech)

I served for 29 plus years in the U.S. Navy and retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer in November 2011. My work background in the Navy was telecommunications related so my hobby of computers fit well with what I did for the Navy. I consider myself a tech geek and enjoy most things in that arena.

My first website – AnotherWin95.com – came online in 1995. Back then I used GeoCities Web Hosting for it and WindowsObserver.com is the result of the work I have done on that site since 1995.

In January 2010 my community contributions were recognized by Microsoft when I received my first Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for the Windows Operating System. Since then I have been renewed as a Microsoft MVP each subsequent year since that initial award. I am also a member of the inaugural group of Windows Insider MVPs which began in 2016.

I previously hosted the Observed Tech PODCAST for 10 years and 317 episodes and now host a new podcast called Faith, Tech, and Space. 

I began contributing to Penton Technology websites in January 2015 and in April 2017 I was hired as the Senior Content Producer for Penton Technology which is now Informa Tech. In that role, I contribute to ITPro Today and cover operating systems, enterprise technology, and productivity.

https://twitter.com/winobs

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