Tag Archives: Whiteboard

About Kerika’s Whiteboards and Canvases.

What’s in our latest release

June 15, 2024Bug Fixes, KerikaBug, Microsoft, Mobile, Task Board, WhiteboardKerika

A ton of bug fixes, most of them so obscure that no end-users ever spotted them, but since we track our error codes seriously we make sure we fix stuff that no one even knew fixing. Some of the bug fixes are truly obscure, here’s a few from our latest version that’s easier to explain:

There were some problems related to how our iOS app was updating that were a result of Apple deciding not to support Progressive Web Apps anymore. (Thanks for nothing, Apple.)
When a person renamed a file attached to a task or board, the file was appearing as having unread updates (orange highlight) to the user who made the change.
For our Kerika+Microsoft users, we needed to make sure the correct OneDrive icons were appearing where files were attached to tasks and boards.
Also for our Kerika+Microsoft users: OneDrive files are better support for users of our Whiteboards feature.
When a text field could potentially be auto-filled using the browser’s saved values, if a user selected a saved value it wasn’t displaying properly. (Thanks to a breaking change in one of Chrome’s many, many updates — seriously, why are they releasing new versions every week?)
Dates shown for non-English users will now appear in the locally selected languages.
If a user opened a task on the mobile apps that had been found by doing a search, editing the task’s title was showing HTML characters.
Handling situations better where two people were making changes to the same task at the same time: users are warned if someone else has made changes that would get overwritten if they saved their own changes.
Improvements in the new user experience: this is, frankly speaking, a never-ending quest for us!
Fixed a situation where a new user who didn’t complete their signup returned later to Kerika: the language selection that’s the first thing that a new user does wasn’t working properly.
We made it easier for people to stop getting their 6AM task summary emails; we really should have done this a long time ago.
Fixed a long-existing bug that finally surfaced that omitted some tasks from the 6AM emails.

We made it easier for people to join board teams

March 26, 2024Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, UsabilityAccount, Kanban, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Whiteboarduser

Board Admins can now invite people to join their boards as Team Members or Visitors by simply sharing a unique link that’s created for each board. We added this function because some of latest users include schools that want to add large groups of parents to boards with a single action. Here’s how it works:

When you open the Board Team dialog (as a Board Admin), you will see a new option at the bottom, called Let People Join Using a Link:

Clicking on this will bring up a dialog that let’s you create links for adding people as Board Admins, Team Members, and Visitors:

For additional security, separate links are created for each role: Board Admin, Team Member, and Visitor. When you turn on one of these options, Kerika will create a special link that you can then send to a large group of people to join you board.

(We obscured the link in the screenshot above, for our own security!)

When you create a link, it’s also automatically copied to your clipboard for easy pasting in an email or chat.

If you are concerned that the link may have been compromised, perhaps because the people you sent it to have carelessly passed it on to others, you can always turn it off: turning off a link will automatically make it useless for future use.

You can then create a new link if you want to.

Try it, and let us know what you think.

Using Kerika with Microsoft 365

January 22, 2024Kanban & Lean, Kerika, TechnologyAccount, Box, Calendar, Document Management, Google Apps, Microsoft, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Whiteboarduser

We have made a very big extension to Kerika, by integrating with Microsoft 365: now you can sign up using your Microsoft ID, and have your files stored in your own OneDrive account!

Kerika+Microsoft works the same was as Kerika+Google and Kerika+Box: you can use your existing Microsoft account to sign up and login to Kerika; there’s no need to create and remember a new password:

When you upload files to your board for the first time, you will be asked to choose a preferred cloud storage: if it’s Microsoft, then you will be asked to give Kerika access to a single folder in your Microsoft OneDrive:

After you allow Kerika access to your OneDrive, Kerika will create a single folder in your OneDrive that it will use for all of your Kerika-related files:

That one top-level folder is all that Kerika will ever use: inside there Kerika will automatically manage all the subfolders you need to sort your different Kerika accounts (yes, some folks have more than one Kerika account!) and your board.

Kerika doesn’t go snooping around or altering any other part of your OneDrive!

Files you add to your Kerika boards will be automatically shared with everyone on the board’s team: Board Admins and Team Members will get read+write access, while Visitors will get read-only access.

As folks join or leave your board team, access to all the files on that board will be automatically managed by Kerika, freeing you up from all the admin work that other tools make you do.

You can even create new Office 365 documents from inside Kerika, and have them shared automatically with your board team:

And we have always had the ability to sync your Kerika due dates with your Outlook calendar, so that completes everything you need to get the most of Kerika+Microsoft!

Using Kerika’s Whiteboards: a new Tutorial Video

December 6, 2023Kerika, WhiteboardsWhiteboarduser

We have updated our tutorial video on how to use Kerika’s Whiteboards, to reflect some recent changes to the user interface and functionality.

Bug, fixed: embedded videos on Kerika

February 1, 2021Technology, Usability, WhiteboardsVideo, WhiteboardKerika

We fixed a problem that was stopping embedded videos from resizing on Kerika’s Whiteboards.

You can add any video, from anywhere, to a Kerika Whiteboard and then resize it by simple dragging it’s corners:

Guarding against XSS/code-injection

December 3, 2019Kerika, TechnologyChat, Scrum, Security, Task Board, Whiteboarduser

It’s possible to copy-paste text into a Kerika Chat message, and there are legitimate use-cases for this: for example, a developer may ask a question to a coworker who replies with a code snippet.

Kerika handles code in chat messages by storing two versions of the message: as plain-text, and as the original format. When a chat message is displayed, the original format is used but not executed, which means the embedded code is visible, but doesn’t run in the browser. This makes it easy and safe to share code snippets through chat messages.

While making this improvement, we went through all the places where a user can type in text, Card Title and Description, Board Name and Description, Tag, Attachment Name, etc. to make sure we are guarding against malicious code injection.

How files are managed when you sign up with your email

February 11, 2019Agile & Scrum, TutorialsDirect Sign Up, Document Management, Kanban, Scrum, Task Board, Tutorial, WhiteboardKerika

Most people sign up as new Kerika users using a Google ID or Box ID, but an increasing number of folks are opting for direct signup: this means signing up with your email (any email will do).

For these folks, here’s a quick tutorial video that shows you how your files are stored and shared.

https://youtu.be/AXTSyB2j7YA

An updated tutorial video on how Whiteboards work

January 24, 2019TutorialsTeams, Tutorial, Usability, WhiteboardKerika

As part of our continuing series, we have produced an updated tutorial video on how Whiteboards work in Kerika, both as standalone project boards, and when attached to cards on Task Boards and Scrum Boards:

Embedding a Twitter feed in a Kerika Whiteboard

January 18, 2019WhiteboardsUsability, Whiteboarduser

Here’s a feature that we suspect most people probably don’t know about: you can embed a live Twitter feed on any Kerika Whiteboard.

While working on a Whiteboard, click on the Add Web Content button that appears in the left-hand toolbar, towards the bottom:

You can reference Twitter feeds with a simple “@” symbol: you can add Kerika’s Twitter feed just by typing in “@Kerika”.

The Twitter feed appears as a live object on your Whiteboard:

You might find it convenient to rename the URL to something more descriptive: you can do this by selecting the object and using the right-mouse button to get this menu:

Embedded Twitter feed on Kerika Whiteboard

Showing the names of documents when they are referenced inside Kerika

March 22, 2018UsabilityDirect Sign Up, Document Management, Whiteboarduser

We added a feature recently (or did we actually a bug?) for our direct login users: when you reference a file that’s attached to a Kerika card, canvas or board, from another place in Kerika — e.g. another card’s details or chat — we now show the file’s name instead of just the URL.

This makes it easier to cross-reference file attachments from within different Kerika cards or boards, where different work items or conversations refer to the same shared file.

Here’s an example:

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