skrbl FAQ New What is team-skrbl ? Team-skrbl is a premium version designed for teams of upto 5 people working together. In addition to our whiteboard, resources are shared between team members. Document editing, co-browsing, shared task lists, video conferencing, enhanced whiteboard... are some of the new features we've introduced in the team edition. Which one is right for me, a team account or the free account ? A list of features is available here. Our recommendation is that you will find the team edition especially useful if you tend to work closely with a small team of peers. In addition to brainstorming you will appreciate the communication and resource sharing capabilities that will help you save time and money. The free version of skrbl is great for online whiteboarding and collaboration but for ongoing collaboration with a small trusted group the team version is unbeatable. How do I create a Team account ? You can check pricing and features on the products page Or sign up here. The signup is simple and takes only a few seconds. We do not ask for any personal information other than what is required (eg. for payment processing), we do ask for your email for support related issues (password reset for instance), however we do not share your email with anyone else and we do not spam. What is 'Groupname' ? Your groupname (or team-name) is used to set up a subdomain for your own group and give you your distinctive URL. For instance if the name you select is 'MyBusiness', your subdomain will be - MyBusiness.teamskrbl.com. The subdomain is an area that is restricted to users in your team other skrbl users do not have access to your subdomain. This helps restricts your data, and resources to your team users. Where do I log in to team-skrbl ? The team login page is http://www.teamskrbl.com, you can click on the 'Team Login' link on our home page, to be redirected. Alternately you can go directly to your subdomain for instance MyBusiness.teamskrbl.com, notice that if you go directly to your team's subdomain you don't have to type in the Groupname. What is the bulletin board ? The bulletin board is where team members land once they login. It is a place for users to post messages for all others to see - just like a bulletin board in the Real World. What is the dashboard ? The dashboard replaces the 'my skrbls' page from the free version. It shows information for you and your team members, for instance it lists not just your whiteboards but also whiteboards owned by other team members. In addition to the list of whiteboards, files and pictures, the dashboard widgets also list users & tasks. Other widgets are planned and we will keep useful functionality over time. Click on any widgets title bar to see a detailed view, the UI is simple and the functionality will be familiar to skrbl users. How do I add other users to my team ? Click the 'Add User' button in the user management widget. You provide a username, password & email for the new user, of course users can change their password once they login, just click on the title bar. A cool new feature is the skype call, if you and your team members are skype users (who isn't?) add your skype ID to the user profile, then skype calls to skrbl team members are just a click away. What are tasks ? Create a task as a reminder to yourself, the task list helps team members see what everyone is working on. What is new on the whiteboard ? The team whiteboard is an enhanced version. You can get working on it immediately without having to learn anything new, & if we have done our job right you will discover the new features naturally in your work. Here's a list Security - By default the board is shared only with team members. To share it with outside guests you have to make it public (from the dashboard - click on the My skrbls title bar). Left Nav - The slide-in left nav lets you get to the team's whiteboards, files & pictures or return to the dashboard. Marquee tool - select an area of the whiteboard using the marquee tool (dotted box in the toolbar). Move the marquee to move all selected objects or delete marquee to delete all objects. Do be careful, there is no undo button. Document view - You can now view, annotate and edit documents on skrbl. Click on any uploaded document with the extension .doc (in the left nav file list), the document opens in view mode where you can annotate. Click the 'edit button' on top to make inline changes in the document. Once you are done you can download it back to your desktop in .doc format. Co-Browse - Clicking on the co-browse icon brings up an address bar. Type in a URL to open it in the whiteboard - all users on the whiteboard can now annotate (draw/type) on top of the opened web page. Your notations are saved so you can get them back when you revisit the site. Mouse over the the 'history button' to see a list of websites visited, you can click on any one to return to the site. Erase button - Erases the contents of the entire whiteboard. Video conference - Click on the camera icon to start a video conference with all users currently on the whiteboard. Any guest (not just registered team members) can also participate. Skype call - If you've added skype ID to your profiles the user list shows a skype icon for all online members Just click to start a skype call. Chat - Click on the 'speech bubble icon' in the user list to start a chat with that user. How does the evaluation period work ? At present we have not started charging for team skrbl accounts and you may feel free to use it for the time being without being charged. However do note that team-skrbl was always intended as a paid service and we plan to start processing payments over the next few weeks. Once we are ready, we will notify account owners that their evaluation period has started. At this time account owners will be asked for payment information (credit card/paypal...). The first month after notification will count as a free evaluation period and account owners will not be charged. We will process payment at the end of the month for the subsequent month. There is no lockin period and if you cancel your account at any time, you will not be charged for subsequent months. However we will not pro-rate payment or refund payment for partial months. What next for team skrbl ? We have other widgets planned that (we believe) will help your team work together better. You should see us making continous improvements in the service in the same way as we built upon the free version based on your feedback. So please keep your feedback coming and help us give you the great tool you want. And of course we need to start collecting payments quickly :). What is MyPage.skrbl.com ? mypage.skrbl.com is a place for users to publish skrbl sessions as web pages. Write, draw, share files/pictures and when you are ready to show your skrbl to the World, publish at the click of a button. Why would I publish my skrbl sessions? Use it to save and share the results of your brainstorming as an online bulletin board to post your skrbl art (a blog of drawings/skrbls ?) ... (Your idea here) :) How do I create and publish my skrbl pad as a web page? Use skrbl to brainstorm, collaborate, create, when ready, just click the button. The first time you publish you get to choose a page name. Select a name of your choice (if it is available) and we publish the page and give you the URL. Can I modify the page once it is published? Yes, go to the skrbl session you published from, make the changes, and click 'Publish' when done. This will update your published page. I have published my session but want to change the page name now - how do I do that? Sorry, a page name, once published, cannot be changed. Will mypage change everytime I make changes in the skrbl pad? No, the page is updated only when you hit the Publish button. My sessions are private, I dont want to publish them what do I do? Rest easy, you don't have to do anything, your sessions remain private. The page is published when and IF you, the owner choose to. How many pages can I publish? Each skrbl session that is published will be associated with one page however you can have multiple sessions and publish them all. How do I create a graffiti for my site? Login, go to your 'my skrbls' page. Click on 'My Graffiti'. To create a new Graffiti board click on this link 'Click here to create a new Graffiti board'. Copy the embed code and include it in your HTML or use the URL, whichever suits you. I have multiple sites where I want to use the skrbl Graffiti board, how do I do that? You can create different Graffiti boards for each of your sites or you may choose to use a single skrbl graffiti board on multiple sites. If you use the same graffiti board across multiple sites users of one site can see what others are scribbling, if this appeals to you, feel free to use one graffiti board across multiple sites. Can I change the size of my graffiti board? Yes you can. The default size of the graffiti board is set at width = 510px and height = 400px. You can see and edit these values in the embed code. It is safe enough to experiment with, just be sure to preview your page after embeding graffiti, to check that everything else is in place. Features How do I erase a line? How do I share files? How do the passwords, private flag and guest access work? How do I draw? How do I erase? How do I share my session? What is the difference between skrbl hosts and guests? How do I keep my skrbl session private? Can I password protect my sessions? How do I change the title of my session? How do I change my nick? Can I register or login from the skrbl session? How can I see who are sharing a session? What is the icon? What is the icon? How does skrbl search work? How do I format text? How do I delete a tag? How do I upload pictures to skrbl? Can I give others read only access to my sessions? About skrbl What is skrbl? Why 'login' when I can skrbl without registration? What browsers do you support? What next on skrbl? Where do I report a bug/feature request? How to use skrbl? Brainstorm - Using a whiteboard helps in communicating and developing your ideas but what about when you can't be in the same room together? Use skrbl as your online whiteboard, just like a whiteboard, write things as they come to mind, erase or edit what you want to change. skrbl (like a 'real' whiteboard) is a flexible, and spontaneous medium let your ideas flow free without the constraints of formal communication as in other media like a document or eMail. Use skrbl to brainstorm and collaborate online. Meeting Notes - Record observations, to do items, task assignments and other takeaways from meetings on skrbl. All attendees can record their own notes on the meeting Whiteboard, and since everyone is watching the same whiteboard, corrections can be made immediately. Avoid miscommunication, save some time and resources. Clipboard - Use skrbl as an online clipboard, write personal notes, Telephone numbers, schedules, reminders, etc. Literally the kinds of things that you'd normally scribble on some handy piece of paper, put these in skrbl and you can access them anytime, anywhere. Mark your skrbl 'private' and it can't be accessed by other users. Bulletin board - Introduce your team to skrbl and use it as a bulletin board for your team or project, post announcements, notices, notes... etc. All the things that need to be announced to the entire team. We think it is so much more convenient than emails with long cc lists. How do I erase a line? We have introduced a delete mode in the skrbl drawing menu , you just 'point and click ' to delete a line. Select to switch to Delete mode, 'mouse over' the line, the cursor changes to let you know that the line is selected, just click to delete. When you are done deleting, click on to return to drawing mode. How do I share files You must be logged in to upload files. First upload the file using the file menu or right click inside a tag for the context menu. The uploaded file is automatically added into the current selected tag and you see an icon with the file name. All users on the whiteboard can download shared files or pictures, but only registered users can upload to skrbl. To stop sharing the file in this dashboard, just delete the icon. Please remember that your file remains online. You can see all your online files and pictures in the file menu. To add a file to any skrbl whiteboard, just go to file menu - my files and click on the file. To delete your online files use your 'my skrbls' page and click on 'my files', your file is now deleted from the online storage and not available on any skrbl. How do the passwords, private flag and guest access work? All skrbls are shared and accessible by default, unless you, the owner, restricts access. Access can be restricted in two ways 1 - Set a password - The owner of a skrbl session can set a password for the session (from the Myskrbls page). All visitors to a password protected session (whether registered users or unregistered guests) are prompted for the password. 2 - Make session private - The owner can choose to make a session 'private'. A private session is not accesible to anyone else, only to the logged in owner. In order to access a private session from multiple machines a user could login from multiple machines. How do I draw? Use the icon to switch to drawing mode. Current drawing ability is limited to freehand drawing using your mouse (or other pointing device). Choose a color for your line, click and drag to draw free form lines. How do I erase? To erase a line switch to delete mode using the button, point to the line you want to delete and click, done. Point and click on any/all of the lines you want to delete, you can return to drawing mode using the button. To clear/erase an entire whiteboard, use the button on your 'My Skrbls' page. Do keep in mind that the button will DELETE ALL CONTENT from the selected whiteboard, so be very sure and very careful. How do I share my session? Copy your session URL - from your browser's address bar and give it to your team. The skrbl session URL looks like www.skrbl.com/xxxxxxxxx WHERE 'xxxxxxxxxx' is the session ID. All your visitors need is your sessionID to be able to visit your session. What is the difference between hosts and guests? The person who initiates the session is the host. All other visitors to the session are guests, the host is the owner of the session and has additional privileges. How do I keep my skrbl session private? Registered users can keep skrblboards private. Log in to your skrbl account, go to your "My skrbls" page, you will see a list of sessions you own, check the private option on any skrbl session you want to keep private. Private sessions are accessible only to you and will not be shared with other users. Can I password protect my sessions? Yes, on your 'My skrbls' page, click on the icon for the skrbl session you want to lock, and set your session password in the prompt that shows. Once you set a session password, all users attempting to join this session will be prompted for password. Using password protection you control who can see your skrbls. Share your password with your friends and team, trusted users you collaborate with. If you do not want any one else to access a skrbl session, use the 'Private' feature instead. How do I change the title of my session? As session host you simply click on the current title (where it is displayed on top of the page) and edit it. How do I change my nick? All users can change their nick, simply click on your current nick (on the skrbl tool bar near the bottom left corner of your browser) and edit. Can I register or login from the skrbl session? Yes, you can start or join a session anonymously and then register or login without leaving your session. To register click on , if you are a registered user you may click to login. How can I see who are sharing a session? Mouse over the icon to see a list of all users sharing the current session. What is the icon? Click on to zoom in. What is the icon? Click on to zoom out. How does skrbl search work? Start typing in the search box, skrbl highlights matches as you type. The results are filtered as you enter more text. How do I format text? skrbl supports wsywig formatting, use the formatting buttons in the tool bar. How do I delete a tag? Right click on a tag to see the context menu and select ‘delete’ from the context menu. Or you could select a tag and click on the delete button . How do I upload pictures to skrbl? To upload pictures to skrbl, use the 'Picture Upload' option from the 'File' menu. Or you can right-click in a tag and use the context-menu to upload pictures. You can also 'Copy' and 'Paste' pictures into skrbl from other websites, this is a way to show the picture to the session participants rather than just sending along the link. We save the reference, and all participants on the session see the picture. Can I give others read only access to my sessions? No, skrbl assumes all visitors to your session are trusted visitors, any visitor to your session can edit or delete all the data on that session. Similarly you should also be careful with the kind of information you store in your sessions. Please do not put any private or confidential information on your public sessions. What is skrbl? Skrbl is a web based application, it can be used as a ‘shared session’ where you collaborate with your colleagues and friends or it can be your own private online clipboard saving your data . Since skrbl is web based you can access your clipboard/sessions from any computer connected to the Internet. Why 'login' when I can skrbl without registration? Sure you are welcome to use skrbl as an unregistered user, this is part of our effort at keeping skrbl easy. But if you are a frequent flyer you can login to manage your skrbls, for instance you may choose to keep some sessions private, or you may want to add password protection so only invitees can get to your skrbl whiteboards. In any case registration is simple too, other than a User-Name and password you provide your email. Your email is used for password retrieval. We do not spam and we do not share users' emails with others. What browsers do you support? skrbl was originally developed on IE 6, we currently support IE, 6 & 7 and Fire fox 1.5 & 2. What next on skrbl? :) we have additional features in the works and hope to release the next enhancement in August 2007. Watch this space. Where do I report a bug/feature request? We don’t have separate pages for these at this time, please use the feedback page. Your comment will be posted publicly and we will get to work on it.