What are Confluence Whiteboards, and how do you use them?
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What are Confluence Whiteboards, and how do you use them?
Simon Kirrane
3rd June, 2024
4 min read
Simon Kirrane
3rd June, 2024
4 min read
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What are Confluence whiteboards?
How to create a Confluence whiteboard
How to rename a Confluence whiteboard
How to share a Confluence whiteboard
Confluence whiteboard templates
Collaboration as you’ve never known it before - here’s everything you can do with Confluence whiteboards.
If you’re a consistent Confluence user but need a more flexible approach to collaboration than regular pages allow, Confluence whiteboards are for you. New to Confluence? Check out our article What is Confluence? to learn more.
Whiteboards bring you and your teammates together and help you to organise your thoughts in a visual way that makes them easy to work with.
Whiteboards bring you and your teammates together and help you to organise your thoughts in a visual way that makes them easy to work with.
What are Confluence whiteboards?
Like traditional whiteboards, Confluence whiteboards let you brainstorm and organise ideas - but this time within a Confluence space.
Confluence whiteboards give you more flexibility over how you collaborate and capture thoughts than traditional Confluence pages. You can drag sticky notes to your whiteboard to instantly add a thought, or even connect two ideas with a connecting line.
What makes Confluence whiteboards even more powerful than third-party solutions is its integration with Confluence. Not only can you access your whiteboard at any time from your Confluence space, you can also share it with other users in Confluence too.
The most exciting thing? It’s easy to turn your ideas into reality thanks to the "convert" function.
With "convert", you can instantly switch sticky notes into Jira issues and Confluence pages, and even connect Jira issues together.
Want to understand the differences between Confluence and Jira? Check out our guide Jira vs Confluence to discover which platform best suits you.
Confluence whiteboards give you more flexibility over how you collaborate and capture thoughts than traditional Confluence pages. You can drag sticky notes to your whiteboard to instantly add a thought, or even connect two ideas with a connecting line.
What makes Confluence whiteboards even more powerful than third-party solutions is its integration with Confluence. Not only can you access your whiteboard at any time from your Confluence space, you can also share it with other users in Confluence too.
The most exciting thing? It’s easy to turn your ideas into reality thanks to the "convert" function.
With "convert", you can instantly switch sticky notes into Jira issues and Confluence pages, and even connect Jira issues together.
Want to understand the differences between Confluence and Jira? Check out our guide Jira vs Confluence to discover which platform best suits you.
How to create a Confluence whiteboard
Creating a whiteboard in Confluence is easy. Simply:
1. Head to the Space where you want to create your whiteboard.
2. Click the blue Create button in the top bar.
3. Select Whiteboard.
From here you can browse the available templates to get started, or create a whiteboard from scratch.
How to rename a Confluence whiteboard
1. On your chosen whiteboard, click its name in the top-left corner. It should select the whole name.
2. Type its new name, then click elsewhere on the whiteboard (or press Enter) to update.
How to share a Confluence whiteboard
1. Click the blue Share button in the top-right corner of your whiteboard.
2. Choose where to share your whiteboard. You can invite Confluence users and click Share again, or you can click Copy link and paste it wherever you like.
Note: If you’re sharing your whiteboard with users outside of Confluence, you’ll need to ensure that your whiteboard is publicly visible.
Confluence whiteboard templates
With a clear goal in mind for what you’ll be using your whiteboard for, Confluence whiteboard templates help make your goal a reality. Here are a couple of our favourites:
Prioritisation matrix
The prioritisation matrix template ranks your goals, making decision-making easy. The whiteboard has three exercises - Share goals, Work to be done, and Prioritise.
In Share goals, you and your team list the project goals and decide which are the most important to focus on. This helps everyone to stay on the same page.
In Work to be done, it’s time to collect together all the work you need to do. Add sticky notes to the board, and include any context that will help you to make a decision (like risks and the level of effort).
Finally, it’s time to Prioritise! Drag each sticky note to one of four quadrants (sections) on the matrix. The template measures tasks based on impact and urgency - which is similar to an Eisenhower Matrix - but you can change these metrics to whatever makes sense to your goals.
In Share goals, you and your team list the project goals and decide which are the most important to focus on. This helps everyone to stay on the same page.
In Work to be done, it’s time to collect together all the work you need to do. Add sticky notes to the board, and include any context that will help you to make a decision (like risks and the level of effort).
Finally, it’s time to Prioritise! Drag each sticky note to one of four quadrants (sections) on the matrix. The template measures tasks based on impact and urgency - which is similar to an Eisenhower Matrix - but you can change these metrics to whatever makes sense to your goals.
Elevator pitch
Unsure how to communicate your next project in a concise way? The elevator pitch template is what you need!
As a team, you fill in the different sections on the board with sticky notes to get an overview of your project. These sections include customer needs, the market category, and the key benefit (to name a few). Once you’ve finished brainstorming, everyone votes on the idea from each section that best represents the project, and then you pull it together to create your elevator pitch. It’s that simple!
As a team, you fill in the different sections on the board with sticky notes to get an overview of your project. These sections include customer needs, the market category, and the key benefit (to name a few). Once you’ve finished brainstorming, everyone votes on the idea from each section that best represents the project, and then you pull it together to create your elevator pitch. It’s that simple!
It isn’t just whiteboards that Confluence provides templates for. If you want to quickly set up a Confluence page, read our guide on Confluence templates.
Make your ideas stand out
With Content Formatting Macros, visuals like buttons, cards, and backgrounds help your team create a true vision.
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Written by
Simon Kirrane
Senior Content Marketing Manager
With a 20-year career in content marketing, Simon has represented a range of international brands. His current specialism is the future of work and work management. Simon is skilled at launching content pipelines, establishing powerful brands, and crafting innovative content strategies.
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