This guidance only applies to Government Community Cloud (GCC) customers. Enterprise and education customers looking for guidance about Whiteboard on Azure or interested in Whiteboard’s move to OneDrive for Business (ODB) should visit the Whiteboard administrator page.
Manage Whiteboard Access
Whiteboard on ODB is enabled by default for applicable Microsoft 365 tenants. It can be enabled or disabled at a tenant-wide level. You should also ensure that “Microsoft Whiteboard Services” is set to enabled in the Azure Active Directory Admin Center > Enterprise Applications. Whiteboard does not appear in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Controlling access to Whiteboard can be done in the following ways:
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Enable or disable Whiteboard for your entire tenant using the SharePoint Admin PSH module
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Show or hide Whiteboard for specific users in meetings using a Teams meeting policy – it’s still visible via web, native clients and Teams tab app
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Require conditional access policies for accessing Whiteboard using Azure Active Directory Admin Center
Note: Teams policy (#2 listed above) only hides Whiteboard entry points, it does not prevent the users from using Whiteboard. Conditional Access (#3 listed above) prevents access to Whiteboard, but does not hide the entry points.
To enable or disable Whiteboard for your tenant, do the following:
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You will need the SharePoint Online PowerShell module to enable or disable Whiteboard in your Office 365 tenant.
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Enable Fluid using the Set-SPOTenant cmdlet
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Set-SPOTenant -IsWBFluidEnabled $true
The change should take approximately 60 minutes to apply across your tenancy. If you do not see this option, please update the module.
To show or hide Whiteboard for meetings:
Manage Whiteboard Data
Data is stored as .whiteboard files in ODB. An average whiteboard may be anywhere from 50KB to 1MB in size and located wherever your ODB content resides. To check where new data is created, see Where your Microsoft 365 customer data is stored and look at the location for ODB. All properties that apply to general files in ODB also apply to Whiteboard, with the exception of external sharing.
Managing Whiteboard data can can be done using existing ODB controls, see the OneDrive guide for enterprises.
You can use existing ODB tooling to satisfy data subject requests (DSRs) for GDPR. Whiteboard files in ODB contain version history of changes made to the file. If you wish to ensure that all previous changes are removed from the file, you must delete the entire file.
Whiteboard files can be moved in the same way as other content in ODB. However, share links and permissions may not move.
Controls supported today:
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Retention policies
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Quota
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Legal hold
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DLP
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Basic eDiscovery - .whiteboard files are stored as files in the creator's OneDrive for Business. They are indexed for keyword and file type search, but are not available to preview/review. Upon export an admin needs to upload the file back to ODB to view the content. Additional support is planned for the future.
Controls coming in future:
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Sensitivity labels
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Analytics
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Additional eDiscovery support
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Storing whiteboards in SharePoint sites
Manage Whiteboard Clients
Whiteboard clients are currently being updated to support ODB.
Clients supported today:
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Stand-alone Whiteboard web application at https://whiteboard.office.com.
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Microsoft Teams meetings, chats and channels using Teams desktop and web.
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Stand-alone Whiteboard application for Android and iOS.
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Stand-alone Whiteboard applications for Windows 10.
Clients coming in future:
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Whiteboard in the Office.com app launcher.
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Whiteboard in Teams meeting rooms.
Manage Whiteboard Sharing
The sharing experience differs based on whether you’re in a Teams meeting, if you're using a shared device and what tenant-level sharing settings are enabled.
Sharing in Teams meetings
When sharing a whiteboard in a Teams meeting, Whiteboard creates a sharing link that’s accessible by anyone within the organization and automatically shares the whiteboard with any in-tenant users in the meeting. Whiteboards are shared using company-shareable links, regardless of the default setting. Support for the default sharing link type is planned.
There’s an additional capability for temporary collaboration by external and shared device accounts during a meeting. This allows these users to temporarily view and collaborate on whiteboards when they’re shared in a Teams meeting, similar to PowerPoint Live sharing.
Note: This is not a share link and does not grant access to the file. It provides temporary view and collaborate on the whiteboard for the duration of the Teams meeting only.
If you have the external sharing for OneDrive for Business allowed, no further action is required.
If you restrict external sharing for OneDrive for Business, you can keep it restricted and just enable a new setting in order for external and shared device accounts to work. To do so, follow these steps:
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Using PowerShell, connect to your tenant and ensure the SPO module is updated by running the following command:
Update-Module -Name Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -
Then run the following command:
Set-SPOTenant -AllowAnonymousMeetingParticipantsToAccessWhiteboards On
This setting applies only to whiteboards and replaces the previously shared settings, OneDriveLoopSharingCapability and CoreLoopSharingCapability. Those are no longer applicable and can be disregarded.
Note: By default, the Teams meeting setting Anonymous users can interact with apps in meetings is enabled by default. If you have disabled it, any anonymous users (as opposed to guests or federated users) will not have access to the whiteboard during the meeting.
These changes should take approximately 60 minutes to apply across your tenancy.
|
Scenario |
Storage and ownership |
Sharing settings |
Sharing experience |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Start the whiteboard from a desktop or mobile device |
Storage: ODB Owner: User who creates the whiteboard |
Enabled |
In-tenant users: Can create, view and collaborate External users (coming soon): Can view and collaborate during the meeting only Shared device accounts (coming soon): Can view and collaborate during the meeting only |
|
Start the whiteboard from a desktop or mobile device |
Storage: ODB Owner: User who creates the whiteboard |
Disabled |
In-tenant users: Can initiate, view and collaborate External users: Cannot view or collaborate Shared device accounts: Cannot view or collaborate |
|
Start the whiteboard from a Surface Hub or MTR |
Not yet available |
Adding as a tab in Teams channels and chats
When adding a whiteboard as a tab in a Teams channel or chat, Whiteboard will create a sharing link that’s accessible by anyone in the organization.
|
Scenario |
Storage and ownership |
Sharing settings |
Sharing experience |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Add the whiteboard to a channel or chat from a desktop or mobile device |
Storage: ODB Owner: User who creates the whiteboard |
Not applicable (only applies to meetings) |
In-tenant users: Can initiate, view and collaborate External users: Not supported Teams guests: Can view and collaborate Shared device accounts: Not applicable |
Creating and sharing in Whiteboard native clients
When sharing whiteboards from the web, desktop or mobile clients, users can choose specific people or create a sharing link that’s accessible by anyone in the organization. Share links for external users outside of the organization are not currently supported.
|
Scenario |
Storage and ownership |
Sharing settings |
Sharing experience |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Create the whiteboard from a desktop or mobile device |
Storage: ODB Owner: User who creates the whiteboard |
Not applicable (only applies to meetings) |
In-tenant users: Can share within their organization External users: Sharing with external users is not supported at this time |
|
Create the whiteboard from a Surface Hub |
Storage: Local Owner: None |
Not applicable (only applies to meetings) |
In-tenant users (coming soon): User will be able to sign in to save and share the board External users: Sharing with external users is not supported at this time outside of a Teams meeting |
|
Create the whiteboard from an MTR |
Not yet available |
External sharing links are not yet available, but will be added in future.
