Boards holds the tools that make things, apart from Memory, which keeps what the business knows. Its first tab is Mind Maps: a plan, a launch, a promotion, an event or a problem to think through, drawn as a map you can change. Its second is Context Boards, where what a piece of work draws on is gathered for the assistant to write from (see Context boards). Switch Boards on under Admin, Modules; it is there for each login whose Boards switch is on (owners, admins and managers start with it, and an owner can turn it on for anyone under Settings, Logins).
Making a map
- Open Boards and choose New map.
- In the one box, say what the map is about in your own words: "our spring promotion: posts on Instagram and TikTok, an email to the regulars, a referral offer, and the window display". Or choose Dictate and say it: the words are tidied (the ums and false starts taken out) and shown to you to read through before they go in.
- Choose Make.
The assistant draws the map: the main subjects as branches, and what belongs under each beneath it, in your words. When the assistant is not switched on for the app, or your business keeps health information, the app draws the map itself from the words as they are, a sentence a branch, and the map says so; change it as you like. An outline pasted into the box (lines with dashes, numbers or indents, or headings) is drawn as you wrote it, and so is an OPML file from another outliner or mind map app. Start blank gives a map with its title alone.
A meeting's mind map can be opened here too: on the meeting's page, choose Open as a mind map. The copy keeps a link back to its meeting, under More, and opening it again opens the same copy. A context board's answer can be made into a map as well (Make it a mind map, on the answer); the map keeps a link back to its board, under More, Open the board, for whoever may see the board.
Who sees a map
A new map is yours alone. Under More:
- Share it with the team: everyone whose login includes Boards sees it and can change it;
- Keep it for the owners: the owners see it and can change it (an owner's choice);
- Keep it to yourself: back to you alone.
A map is never shown more widely than what it came from: a copy of a meeting's map stays with you or the owners, since a meeting is seen only by the people who were in it. Whoever made a map, or an owner, says who sees it.
Changing a map
Tap a branch to pick it. The bar above the map acts on it, and so do the keys:
| Key | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| Tab | adds a branch under the one picked |
| Enter | adds a branch beside it |
| F2 | changes its words (or double-click it) |
| Delete | takes it off, with everything under it |
| Space | folds it away, or opens it again; a folded branch shows how many it hides |
| The arrows | move from branch to branch |
| Alt and the arrows | move the branch up, down, in under the one above, or out a level |
| Ctrl+Z | undoes; Ctrl+Shift+Z does it again |
Add a note keeps a few lines on a branch (a dot on the branch shows it has one). Grow this branch asks the assistant for the branches that belong under it, added where you picked; pick the title to grow the main branches. Drag to move about the map; pinch, or Ctrl and the wheel, to zoom; the square button fits the map to the screen. Under More, the map's branches go on both sides of the title, or every one to its right.
On a phone, the Outline tab is easiest: the same map as indented lines, each its own field. Enter adds a line beside, Tab moves it in under the line above and Shift+Tab out again, and the buttons above do the same with a phone's keyboard.
Saving, and two people at once
A map is saved a moment after each change; the top of the map says Saved, Saving… or Not saved. If someone else saved the map after you opened it, your changes are not saved over theirs: the map says so, and you choose Keep mine as a new map or Open the map again. Nothing is overwritten without a word.
More, Earlier versions lists what the map held before someone else saved it, before the assistant grew a branch, and every ten minutes or so of one person's changes. Look at one, and Put this version back; what the map held is kept as a version too.
Exporting
Export saves the map as a picture (PNG), a drawing (SVG), a page (PDF) sized to the map, an outline of indented lines, or OPML for other mind map and outliner apps.
Archiving
More, Archive this map takes it off the list for everyone who sees it. Find it under Archived, open it, and choose More, Bring it back.
The assistant and the API
Ask the assistant to "make a mind map of" something, and it makes one for you, kept for you alone, under Boards. The business decides under Settings, Approvals whether an AI makes maps at once (the start), asks first, or never; changing, growing, sharing or archiving a map asks a person first. Programs reach maps through the API's Boards part (/maps), as the person who made the key may see them.
Best practices
- Say the parts you already know when you make a map ("posts, an email, a referral offer"): the map starts from them, in your words, and Grow this branch fills in the rest where you want more.
- Keep a branch to a few words, and put the detail in its note.
- Fold what you are not working on, so the map stays readable; the outline shows the same folds.
- Share a map with the team once it is worth their time; until then it is yours alone, and nobody else sees it.
- Copy a meeting's map to plan from it, rather than changing the meeting's own: the copy keeps its link back, and the meeting stays as it was.