At our LevelUp conference in November 2021, we couldn’t wait to break the news on the next big thing we had in the works—ClickUp Whiteboards. 🎨
Whiteboard software has been booming for some time now, and although we’re not the only project management platform to welcome a similar tool into its feature list, we are one of the few platforms to build their own digital whiteboard feature from scratch.
This means zero integrations are required to access your Whiteboard because it’s a part of ClickUp already. A huge advantage for distributed teams who:
✅ Want to limit where they share sensitive information
✅ Are already juggling a complicated tech stack
✅ Rely on asynchronous communication
✅ Want to act on their ideas ASAP, and more!
Seriously, Whiteboards are that versatile.
But before you start throwing objects on your Whiteboard like Picasso, let’s take you for a spin around the feature first. Whether you’re a seasoned whiteboard user or simply a productivity junkie, we have the tools, tips, features, and use case examples to have you optimizing your workflow with Whiteboards in no time.
🎨 Welcome to our most collaborative feature
Remember the MTV show, Cribs? Where celebs would lead a film crew on a tour of their gorgeous home? Those are the vibes we’re going for here. Kick off your shoes, pop open a soda water, and come along as we guide you through everything you need to know about ClickUp’s most collaborative feature, Whiteboards. 💜
A step beyond the classroom smartboard that blew your fifth-grade mind, ClickUp’s new digital whiteboard tool gives you access to the same ease and transparency from virtually any device.
If you love ClickUp Mind Maps, feeling creative at work, and improving on your processes, then Whiteboards are right up your alley. With productivity already at the core of every ClickUp feature, this is our next step in helping teams achieve clarity from the get-go—by acting on your thoughts and connecting ideas to your workflow faster.
Like our powerful ClickUp Docs, Whiteboards allow you to work alongside your group with real-time editing and live cursors to know who is viewing or contributing to your session. Choose your tools by hand or revert to your favorite ClickUp Slash Commands to pull up rich editing, formatting, objects, and more to maintain your creative momentum.
Start laying down your thoughts on a sleek, endless canvas, or choose from one of ClickUp’s nine designated whiteboard templates to strategically kickstart your ideation process.
Whether you’re presenting a SWOT analysis to stakeholders, writing stand-ups, or concept mapping, ClickUp has created thorough and intuitive templates to enhance your Whiteboard experience.
Our favorite template? Animal Drawing Battle—the ice-breaker guessing game where each team member has 30 seconds to finish their doodle before the clock runs out.🦄
🛠 The perks of Whiteboards
Whiteboards give you the flexibility to convey and manage almost any project visually which creates a more inclusive experience for cross-functional teams, or individuals who simply process information differently.
It allows people to work freely while still offering the flexibility, structure, and features you’ve come to know and love from ClickUp.
Why else do we love Whiteboards? Because they can benefit basically anyone. They are as creative as they are collaborative—so you can marry the productivity power of ClickUp with the joy of Microsoft Paint circa 1991.
📈 Features to make the most of your whiteboards
More than a brainstorming session, Whiteboards offer a visual and idea-first approach to workflow management, distance learning, meeting preparation, and OKR planning. We understand that ideas can happen anywhere and your editing toolbar is there to help you immediately capture and act on them from the moment they hit you.
Either by a click of the mouse or stroke of your keyboard, you can easily add colorful and clean shapes, draw freehand, write in text, make sticky notes, embed websites, link to existing tasks, and more!
Find the same powerful formatting and styling options you know and love from ClickUp Docs and comments like quotes, banners, code blocks, and headers in any form of text on your board—even draw relationships between objects to help your workflow take shape.
For someone who’s already done some shopping around or experimenting with other whiteboard software, these features might sound standard. But what makes ClickUp Whiteboards stand apart from other tools you may know, is the ability to convert virtually anything on your board into a task in a matter of a few clicks.
One more time for the people in the back: instantly connect your ClickUp Whiteboard to your existing processes.
This crucial feature will help you use your whiteboard beyond the ideation phase and see through your strategy from the first stages of development to the last. Imagine leaving a productive meeting and not having to re-write every topic discussed to integrate them into your workflow? Sounds almost too good to be true, huh. 😎
What does this really look like, though? We thought you’d never ask. 🥰
💪🏼 Putting your whiteboards to use (case)
Yes, whiteboard tools sound cool, but we’re here to answer your most burning question: what’s in it for me?
Different teams, industries, and fields use Whiteboards in different ways, here is a breakdown of how some of these groups can introduce these tools into their current processes and start reaping the benefits.
Whiteboards for EPD teams
Whiteboard software makes a huge difference for those working in engineering, product, or design (EPD). With reviews between every step in their workflow, these teams value speed, reliability, and seamless collaboration to scope, design, develop, and ultimately, ship faster.
In this use case, your Whiteboard may act as a living document that team leads can add to as stages are completed. For individual designers and developers, Whiteboards are their often referred-to source of truth—where members can check for critical information like:
The movable canvas lets you easily navigate around your board to present specific areas to key stakeholders and store multiple mind maps in the same space without ever running out of room. 🙌🏼
Plus, ClickUp Whiteboards allow teams to mention each other anywhere on the board to quickly spot updates and provide feedback by text or on sticky notes, upload images, or convert objects into tasks to expedite turnaround times.
Whiteboards for work management
When we say that Whiteboards are versatile enough to benefit anyone, we mean it. Work management may reach a hand into almost any department—including marketers, project operations, program managers, and even HR teams.
The visual elements of whiteboards help marketers execute projects on time, appropriately scope their work, and deliver campaigns that positively impact revenue, brand awareness, and high-quality leads.
These teams may start with a whiteboard in preparation for a meeting with creatives, where they’d store meeting agendas, ideas they already have, images, media, notes, and drawings. From there, they can present their whiteboard and being noting feedback and changes immediately. This not only shows the history and progression of ideas but allows all further ideation to grow directly from that initial thought.
Past the creation phase, the team may repeatedly return to their Whiteboard for:
✅ Flowcharting user journey maps
In this case, speed and reliability are still paramount—teams rely on Whiteboard’s real-time editing to elevate their brainstorming sessions and align the team quicker, setting their thoughts in motion and cutting down on the number of review cycles.
Whiteboards for services & agencies
Whiteboards will help freelance agencies and internal problem-solver teams like IT make a bigger impact by optimizing turnaround time. They can easily build out complex diagrams, move them around, never run out of space, and continuously collaborate on their deliverables with this reliable and fast tool.
Business owners, freelancers, project managers, and creatives are always looking for software that can keep up with their ideas and perform well. They can lean on ClickUp Whiteboards to quickly build out detailed and attractive diagrams that can connect directly to a project. This leads to. a more streamlined operation, faster project delivery, and more satisfied customers. 💜
External teams and agencies especially love whiteboards for effective:
✅ Diagramming
✅ Brainstorming
✅ Flowcharting
Get started freehand or use any of our designated diagram, flowchart, and brainstorming templates to waste no time in your productivity!
While it’s not about the bells and whistles for these groups, they certainly don’t hurt, and the colors, shapes, sizes, styling, and formatting options of ClickUp whiteboards help clean up fast creations into presentable works of art.
Learn more about Whiteboard project management! 👉
.gif_%3b%20filename_%3dutf-8%27%27whiteboard%2520lp_updated%2520(1).gif)
☀️ Looking into Whiteboard’s bright, bright future
Here’s the thing, this brand-spanking-new feature is loaded with key tools that seasoned whiteboard users have come to expect from their online canvas tools and then some.
The roadmap ahead for ClickUp Whiteboards is busy with new additions and updates that are already well into the works. So if you don’t see your favorite whiteboard feature yet, trust us, it’s coming. Here’s a little teaser into what’s to come in the very near future:
- A designated timer and countdown feature to monitor your Whiteboard productivity and stay true to your project plan
- Commenting, tagging, and voting for even easier feedback, prioritization of ideas, and board organization
- Frames to up-level your design plans
- Custom templates that fit your unique processes and add to ClickUp’s own growing library
We already can’t wait. 🙂
🚀 TL;DR: ClickUp is your one-stop whiteboard shop
Like chocolate chip cookies, Whiteboards are better when they’re made from scratch—so that’s exactly what we did!
Since it was released in beta, we’ve been hard at work brainstorming, building, and testing a feature-rich and flexible Whiteboard experience that we are finally ready to share with the world in its official launch.
Whether your team is distributed or huddled around a conference table, collaborate in real-time with fast and reliable live editing, then keep your Whiteboard relevant and automatically updated way past the ideation phase by connecting your thoughts directly to your workflow.
This completely new ClickUp tool is already packed with features with even more on the way, making Whiteboards as competitive as they are cost-effective. So you can consolidate your tech stack and save money without compromising on key features. 💯
Still leaning on other work apps to get the job done? Not a problem, ClickUp integrates with over 1,000 tools to make your experience as smooth as possible.
Give the all-new ClickUp Whiteboards a try for free, forever, and join us as we layer even more powerful, productive, and fun features on top of this game-changing tool.
Let us know what you think and what features you’d love to see from us next!
Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.