A blank canvas is freeing, but sometimes you would rather start with structure already in place. Templates give you a ready-made canvas as a starting point, filled with believable example content, so you can begin from something shaped roughly like what you need and adapt it, instead of building every board from nothing.
Starting from a Template
When you create a new space, the space is made there and then, saved where new spaces go (see Default Folders). The empty tab then opens on Start a Workshop: its Recommended templates first, then every template in groups beside them, with a search. Click a template and the tab fills with it; from there it is an ordinary canvas, to move, edit, add to and delete from as on any canvas.
Every new tab, and every tab you empty, offers the same start. Close it with its × to begin from a blank canvas; while the tab is still empty, Show Templates in the strip under the palette brings it back.
The search at the top of the start shows up to six matches, with Show All for the rest, and pressing the down arrow in the search box takes you to the first card it found.
What's in the Catalogue
The templates are grouped by what they are for, in twelve categories listed in alphabetical order, and a start skips a category that has nothing in it. A template lives in one category, and a few also appear in another where you would naturally look for them (a RACI Matrix is under both People & Teams and Planning), so they are listed under each:
| Category | Templates | Also shown here |
|---|---|---|
| Brainstorming | Affinity Map, Brainstorm Board, Crazy 8s | |
| Decisions | Prioritization Matrix, Risk Matrix | |
| Goals & Metrics | Objectives Planner | Opportunity Solution Tree |
| Meetings & Workshops | Meeting Agenda, Workshop Board, Lean Coffee and Town Hall Q&A | Brainstorm Board, All-Hands Hall, Crazy 8s |
| People & Teams | RACI Matrix | Stakeholder Map |
| Planning | Roadmap | RACI Matrix, User Story Map |
| Product & UX | User Journey, User Story Map, Empathy Map, Opportunity Solution Tree, User Persona | Affinity Map, Crazy 8s, Value Proposition Canvas |
| Quizzes & Games | Pub Quiz, Icebreaker Questions, Two Truths and a Lie, Would You Rather, Find Someone Who Bingo | |
| Retrospectives | Retrospective, Start, Stop, Continue, Mad, Sad, Glad, 4Ls Retrospective, Sailboat Retrospective, Incident Postmortem | |
| Strategy | SWOT, Business Model Canvas, Stakeholder Map, Value Proposition Canvas, PESTLE Analysis | Roadmap |
| Teaching & Learning | KWL Chart | Pub Quiz |
| Virtual Spaces | Virtual Office, Coworking Space, Team Pod, All-Hands Hall |
Find a template finds a template by its name, its description, its category, or the everyday words people use for it: try "1:1", "retro", "bmc", "pestel" or "icebreaker". Every word you type has to match.
Blank Space leads the Popular shelf, apart from the categories since starting from nothing is not a kind of diagram: an empty tab to run a retro, town hall or workshop with timers, votes and polls to hand (see Workshop Mode). After it, Popular shows a few of the templates most people start from.
Each template arrives as real elements rather than a picture: a Retrospective's notes are sticky notes you drag, a Roadmap's cards are shapes you can move or delete. Nothing in a template is locked or special.
Changing the Theme
A new space starts on the Default theme, and a template picked on a start takes the tab's current theme. Once you are on the canvas, click the Theme & canvas button in the bottom-right corner to open the Tab Style dialog and try a different theme: it recolours the whole template at once.
Making It Your Own
A template is just a head start, not a constraint. Everything in it is fully editable: rename and recolour the elements, restyle the whole thing with a different theme, or strip out the parts you do not need. Because the canvas works the same as any other, you can also add tabs, invite others, and share it once you have shaped it into what you want.
Templates pair naturally with themes: pick a layout that fits your content, then try a few themes from the Tab Style dialog to find the look you want. Double-click a theme to apply it and close the dialog in one go.
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