author: Jonathan Stuckey
Well its been 3 years since my review of the Whiteboard facelift and with my usual optimistic view of the world I guestimated 12-months before it became anything like useful. Well I got that wrong (again) - took over 2 years, and then the Whiteboard product group seem to lose focus and have handed over all the direction to the Loop product-group and and Copilot team.
Significant uplift in capability
Functionality has had a whopping 18, yes 18, official updates to the release since Q1 2023. Check out the Roadmap if you dont believe me.
Now you don't go want Microsoft to go too overboard here, I'm mean comparing the effort put against other products in the same period of time its sort of normal i.e. Visio had 9 feature releases, OneNote had 13, Microsoft Teams had 384 - you know, average really.
Well ...if you dont count the fact that 4 of the Whiteboard ones were actually Copilot feature updates, 3 were Loop items and 1 is about moving storage location from Azure to OneDrive.
So 10 feature updates in 18-months... mostly last year. ... and what were they?
Return of prodigal features
The return of original features, even under thinly veiled "new feature updates", gave back the really useful things like:
content select/copy/paste - both in ui and short-cuts
templates - including saving your own back
direct free-hand drawing integration
inserting / link external content - images, sites, documents, media
text-formatting - barely usable
But actual new functionality included the like's of 'following' user or others on the whiteboard during collaboration, adding Comments and @-mentioning ..and that's it.
Minor UI refinement
Refinements and updates introduced when unifying the UI across the tools with: adding drop-shadow to the way post-its look; rounding off the corners; adding access to Chat emojis, and of-course the equivalent of year-1 computer studies graduate programing uplift with providing 'links' between shapes for basic flow-charting.
And lets not forget the ongoing improvements in the multi-modal experience across browser, desktop app and Microsoft Teams embed which are now consistent when you move between them. Yay.
Microsoft Loop as a back-stop for innovation
The introduction of Microsoft Loop components to Whiteboard has been interesting to watch, as it is fascinating, useful, insidious and telling of Microsoft's lack of focus - all at the same time.
Its integration provides a range of missing functionality and core tools which whiteboard product group have not bothered to sort out. Namely:
Text with bullet points
Tasks with assignment
Item / action voting
Why use the Whiteboard?
Well, why bother? Functionally the Whiteboard app was always a laggard compared to everything else in market.
Whiteboard's key benefits were only really:
integrated with Microsoft Teams meetings
integration with Surface devices (touch enabled)
Basic tooling in the app is barely worth noting, when most of the new functionality is actually embedded Microsoft Loop, and Copilot integration.
This lack of visible direction leaves the roadmap of Whiteboard at a bit of dead-end. It doesn't scale for large activities, its only useful in small team scenarios. New functionality is sparse and the associated information added is disassembled using functionality like the Microsoft Loop components.
If it wasn't for the fact it's "Free" (because its thrown in with 365 licensing), its already integrated in to Microsoft Teams for meetings and Copilot does a pretty good job of digesting the content for you then I can see Miro or other tools would be the preferred options in business. If you are already using alternatives, I don't see a reason to switch to this instead - yet.
And yet, if you haven't already opted out....
We have management now...
With the latest changes in Azure storage management, Whiteboard files are being stored in the users OneDrive - along with all the other content a user generates. The identification of file format as ".whiteboard" helps in a rudimentary way, but since Search and roll-up components cant actually show a thumbnail or find content embedded in them its less than useful for the time being.
Enter Copilot
2023 - 24's improvements in whiteboard are really integration for Copilot - which is actually a really useful thing to be doing, but only if it has context i.e. understands the relationship to the rest of the content held on the whiteboard, or in Loop components.
The step-up of Copilot for translating whiteboard content to usable, or referenceable information else where is the real differentiator - this is what starts to make Whiteboard vaguely usable in business (single-user / small group).
The ability to have Copilot automatically summarise your board and translate that to Loop bullets, notes and tasks actually brings the information out of the whiteboard and into something which streamlines the subsequent thought-process.
Now that is useful for the individual's (or small team).
What about the future?
3 years on an I'm still a fan of the app (no really I am), its just I very rarely use it now. I really appreciate Microsoft has sorted out the storage situation so we can actually manage them like we would documents, media etc. With the integration of Copilot this has real potential as toolset - if Microsoft ever scale it beyond just embedding it in individual boards or documents.
The vision is rosy(ish) when you talk to MS direct - but its not written down or committed in the schedule - and unfortunately its all dependent on Microsoft Copilot or other tools, nothing about scale or translation of the whiteboard content to other formats or needs.
There's just a lack of focus from the product group, and little genuine innovation in the actual product. ...well if you don't count hitting it with the generative AI idiot stick - and somehow I don't.
Recommendation.
If you need a Whiteboard for regular meetings, or want to do anything which may need your own repeatable template it is actually usable and I have used this tool, but you need Microsoft Loop and Copilot for Microsoft 365 as well. In fact you need the whole 365 suite and base your meeting from Microsoft Teams as starting point, then it all works.
If you have gone down the Miro, or Limnu route it would be messy to pull everything back together in Whiteboard and 365 - but the investments into Generative AI coming to these tools may make it worth the effort revisiting how committed you are to other platforms.
About the author: Jonathan Stuckey
Comments