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What is visual collaboration?

What, why, and how visuals create meaning with others.

Understand the concept of visual collaboration
See visual collaboration examples in action
Learn how MURAL encourages and supports visual collaboration for its users

Everyone see things differently whether it's in their head or in front of their own eyes - take for example, color blindness. Visualizing concepts in our head help us reach similar understandings, but not clarity.

Ideas and important pieces of information tend to get lost in translation without visual collaboration.

You do not need to be an artist to work visually - Mural enables everyday people to leverage general artifacts and tools to work visually.

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What do your thoughts look like? If you could hire an artist to make a masterpiece of your ideas and challenges, what would they create? Would it be black and white or full of color? Would it be full of lines and orderly grids; or would they flow and squiggle where they want to go?

At MURAL, we believe in showing your thoughts and concepts rather than telling. When you show your thoughts, you create clarity. Clarity that helps you and your teammates, customers, and clients work together to accomplish results. Clarity that solves complex problems and creates exciting innovations.

You do not need to be an “artist” to work visually. All you need to do is learn a few basic features and principles that help you show what your ideas look like… then, the determination to keep practicing with MURAL.

Soon, you will be able to work visually with your teammates, customers, and clients. Everyone will be able to show what they mean. Everyone has clarity because they created the visual together.

That’s how we envision work at MURAL. Helping people like you work together to create a shared understanding. To show thoughts rather than tell. To go from me to we.

That is visual collaboration. We believe you can bring your thoughts to life in MURAL.

What is MURAL?

Your digital workspace for visual collaboration.

Describe MURAL to collaborators
Analyze the benefits of MURAL

Solve challenging problems together

Collaboration is about bringing bright minds together to solve problems and innovate. While documents and slides help teams present information, innovation requires creative thinking and approaches. MURAL is a cloud-based application that allows teams to work across locations, time zones, and disciplines to solve these challenges.

You can access MURAL across devices through our web-based application or native apps for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

Why use MURAL?

We’re the leading digital and visual collaboration platform for enterprises, educators, non-profits, and consulting agencies. We’re proud to be:

  • Enterprise proven: scale across thousands of users with best-in-class security and admin features
  • Partners in transformation: become part of a supportive community providing you with impactful learning and transformation expertise
  • Facilitation focused: allowing teams to plan, lead, and sustain impactful workshops and meetings
  • Intuitive features: accessible and simple to use for first-time collaborators while empowering visual experts

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Hello there, I'm Hailey Temple. And let me be one of the first to welcome you to MURAL and answer your questions about it like, "What is MURAL?" Well, remember those moments when you were working with your team, maybe in an office, and you had those a-ha moments. It was maybe a great idea or things just started to come together. Well, MURAL is your digital space to make that kind of work happen. At MURAL, we believe that happens when you use visuals like maps, process flows, diagrams, images that help people align and create a shared meaning. The great part about MURAL is, you can use it, whether you're in an office or around the world. And you can use it across devices. MURAL is an awesome way to work with your teammates, and clients, and customers, to meet your meeting and project goals while having fun.

MURAL's great because you can use it both in your meeting, and before, between, and after meetings. So it plays well with any time you need to work and with other tools. Next, you're probably wondering, "How do I start using MURAL?" Well, you can use MURAL for lots of different things. To get your team aligned, to get organized, get creative, get inspired, present and design, and so much more. We believe that this type of work, what we call at MURAL, imagination work, is limitless. And you can use MURAL for whatever you set your mind to. I'll be here along your journey, as you learn to use MURAL features, learn best practices, and functionality that make your imagination work possible. I'll see you in MURAL.

Add, create and customize sticky notes

The original visual collaboration object goes digital.

Different ways to add notes to murals
Resize sticky notes

Why use sticky notes?

If you’re brand new to the world of visual work, then sticky notes are a great introduction. They allow you to quickly organize your thoughts and ideas. Use sticky notes to categorize, color code, and show connections between concepts. You can add sticky notes in two ways: shortcuts or from the toolbar.


Add sticky notes with shortcuts

To add a sticky note directly to the canvas, double-click the location where you want the sticky note to land. Once you’ve added your first note, you can use the tab key to quickly add more notes in the mural.

Add sticky notes from the toolbar

MURAL also has a variety of sticky notes in the toolbar. To add a sticky note:

  1. Click the sticky note icon in the left toolbar. This opens the sticky note options menu.
  2. Once you select your sticky note, click and drag the sticky note onto the mural.

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Hey there. I'm Hailey Temple, and whether you love or hate sticky notes, you have to admit they are handy when you're organizing lots of information and making sense of your work, especially online.

Now, let me show you a few ways to add sticky notes to a mural. One way is on the toolbar over here. So this first icon looks like a sticky note, and it's where our sticky notes live. When you click that icon, you get a menu of options. So I can add them from different shapes and some default colors. Once you make that selection, you click, hold it, and drag it on to where you want it to go on your canvas.

Now, think of this sticky note here as kind of the standard-sized sticky note you might see when you're collaborating in person. So I do not recommend trying to make this sticky note bigger or smaller. Just keep it as is and use the navigation to zoom in and out.

So another way to add a sticky note is simply to double-click on the canvas. When you do, MURAL will recognize other sticky notes nearby and adapt that same color and shape. Now you can start adding in your ideas on sticky notes, moving them around as you need, and color coding to your heart's content. Happy collaborating and creating in MURAL.

Tour the mural

Explore the major features that help you create, navigate, and collaborate.

Evaluate the importance of avatars
Use outlines for navigation
Meet collaborators using avatar

What is a mural?

Murals are the individual files upon which you add, create, and edit your content. These can be created newly from templates, or from a blank slate. Within a mural, you have the canvas. This is the space where you add content with collaborators. 

The mural also contains features that help you move around, to manage collaboration sessions, and keep track of changes to your mural. Let’s explore the basic ways you can successfully use a mural and its features.

Collaboration at different scales

MURAL gives you the freedom to move, zoom in to see details, and zoom out to see all of the content on a mural. Think of it more like Google Maps than working in a document or presentation. When you’re working on your laptop or desktop, you can adjust your zoom settings for your device.

To change your zoom settings:

  1. Navigate to the lower right corner of your mural
  2. Underneath the mini-map, you'll see a Navigation bar
  3. Click "Zoom settings" to change your navigation settings

You can also use the outline to follow along in a mural. The outline breaks a mural into different sections, like chapters in a book. Open and click through the outline to view each section of the mural.

Meet your collaborators 

The avatar represents you while working in the mural. When others join the mural, you can see their avatars next to yours in the mural. Avatars contain additional features for helping you connect and follow the conversation in a meeting. For example, you can:

  • Show and hide cursors
  • Follow other collaborators

What’s on the toolbar?

The toolbar is where you can add objects to the mural. These include:

  • Sticky notes
  • Text
  • Comments
  • Icons
  • Frameworks and areas
  • Images
  • Drawings

You can also import files into the mural from your computer or other apps like Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox.

Plus, you can quickly save and add your frequently used content by saving it to the content library.

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Hi there, I'm Hailey Temple and you are about to get a grand tour of a mural, which is the file where you get work done. I'll show you a blank mural and a mural that we've added some work to for some reference and creative flair. To start this blank space here waiting for you to add work is called the canvas. Now, to get around this canvas, you can use these navigation settings like this mini map and our zoom settings. So in this mural, I can use the mini map to see what content I'm looking at a given time. And that way I can zoom into the details or zoom back out for the big picture. Next, let me talk about avatars. So your avatar is your little person or animal and mural that represents you while you're working.

Your avatar is always the one to the left hand side, and your collaborators are next to you. So there are some really handy features on your avatar. So, test out and see how they work. This toolbar is actually where you can add elements to the mural, like sticky notes, text, shapes, icons, frameworks, images, so much to do sketches. It's crazy. So, that is how you start actually adding work and filling your canvas to something like this someday, I know you can. Now couple things at the top of this mural that I want to let you know this time timer, for example, will be running sometimes in a meeting. And it's really helpful to keep track of your group while you're collaborating. So you'll see when someone sets the timer, it starts ticking down. And when it ends, they'll hear a nice friendly noise letting you know. Now, magic in MURAL happens when you can share your work with others.

So, this Share button is where you find links to send people or you can invite them by email to come in and work with you. Plus, you can take your mural on the go by exporting it or simply exporting other pieces of the mural to a project management tool of your choice. A few more things I promise. Now. This activity log is great to keep track of something maybe you accidentally deleted or and you want to recover. You can also do that by clicking this Undo button over here always helpful for changing your work or misplaced something, you can add it back.

And then this outline feature. It's great for breaking a mural up into different chapters. And if you are working on a mural, it becomes a really handy navigation tool. Because anytime I click on these tiles I'm brought to a different part of the mural. Let's say you wanted to find something specific in a mural. You can use this fine feature to search for things by keyword or by color. Last but certainly last but certainly not least, if you need help in mural, our customer support team is here to help. So this question mark button will give you an ability to chat with customer support or to take a Look at our Help Center, and so much more. You are going to have an awesome time collaborating and mural. And if you think about this canvas, this mini map, the avatars, the toolbar, and the invitations as your space to work, then you are off to a great start. Happy collaborating.


Connect concepts with lines and arrows

Build flowcharts and diagrams together in a mural.

Add lines and connectors with a toolbar
Change the properties of lines
Link lines to sticky notes

Why use lines and connectors?

Your team needs to discuss a process or build a journey map. MURAL is the space for your team to collaborate and co-create these diagrams together. You can connect content in the mural to demonstrate the movement and flow through these processes. Our diagramming capabilities allow you to quickly build out flows as you work in real time.

Add lines and connectors

You can add lines and connectors in two ways: the toolbar or with keyboard shortcuts. To add lines and connectors from the toolbar:

  1. In the left toolbar, click the shapes and connectors icon. This opens the options menu.
  2. Select the line or connector you want to add to your diagram.
  3. To connect the line to an object, click one end and drag it to the edge of the object. The line will “magnetize” to your object.
  4. Complete the connection to your second object by clicking and dragging to the second object. Now, these two objects are connected with the line or arrow.

To add lines and connectors with shortcuts:

  1. Hover your cursor over the object you want to connect. 
  2. Hold the C key on your keyboard. Then, click and drag your cursor to the second object you want to connect. The line or connector will snap the two objects together.

Quickly add the same shape to a diagram 

When you add a line or arrow using the “C” shortcut, the suggestion popup now allows you to add the same object as the first choice. It will have the same color, border, and text formatting and size as the previous object.

Formatting lines and arrows

Once you create your lines and connectors, use the formatting menu to change the width, line type, color, and style. Connectors can also be formatted to be straight or curved. Access the formatting menu for the line by selecting the line in the mural.

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Hello there, I'm Hailey Temple and you have ideas to connect in MURAL. So, let me show you how you can use lines and connectors to make that happen. One way to add lines and arrows is the toolbar. So this second icon on the toolbar has a menu that you can click to get a straight line, a straight arrow or a curved arrow. Let's take this straight line, click and drag it to my work here. And now it's connected with this sticky note. Let's say I want to connect it to this neck sticky note. What I'll do is hold down this arrow, drag it over to the sticky note. And now I have two concepts connected together. That's awesome. Let's say I wanted to Use a shortcut, things can work way faster, right? So if I hold down the C key, I get this cursor. And now I can click and drag an arrow, and another and another until I've connected all of my ideas. So no matter where I move these sticky notes, everything will still be connected. Let's say you wanted to change the color of the arrow to a dotted arrow, change direction, change thickness, or change the type of arrow. All of that is possible in mural. So use these lines, arrows connectors to get your work done, and happy collaborating.

Navigating around the mural

Learn to navigate the mural and understand the scales you can work on.

Navigate the mural
Set your own scales to work on
Change navigation and scroll settings

Choose your own view

MURAL gives you the freedom to move, zoom in to see details, and zoom out to see all of the content on a mural. Think of it more like Google Maps than working in a document or presentation. When you’re working on your laptop or desktop, you can adjust your zoom settings for your device.

To change your zoom and pan settings: 

  1. Scroll to the lower right corner of your mural
  2. Find the navigation bar underneath the mini-map
  3. Click Zoom settings to change your navigation settings

Work at different scales

It might be tempting to make objects big on the mural. That might make it challenging for other collaborators to add their own ideas and you’ll quickly run out of space. Instead, practice working at different scales in the mural with the mini map. 

The mini map offers a fully zoomed out or bird’s-eye view of your mural. On the map, you will see where you are on the mural. You can also see other collaborators and what they’re seeing in the mural at any time. 

Move around, but keep content in place

You can move around the mural without worrying about moving your collaborators’ contents with Move mode. Click the hand icon next to the mini-map to start move mode. You can also hold the M key on your keyboard to start Move mode.

Shortcuts for navigating a mural

Move around the MURAL with ease on your device with these keyboard shortcuts. You can access the shortcuts key any time under the question mark (?) icon in the mural.

Move around the mural: ARROW KEYS

Move around the mural faster: SHIFT + ARROW KEYS

Pan without moving elements: Hold SPACEBAR + Drag

Zoom in: Z + Marquee

Select part of mural: Z + Click

Zoom out: ALT + Z + marquee select part of mural

Fit to content: SHIFT + CTRL + 0

Actual size: CTRL + ALT + O

Pop-up an element: X + Hover element


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While MURAL is the name of the application, a mural is also the canvas where you will collaborate

with your team. The first thing you should do is make sure that you feel comfortable moving around the canvas and zooming in and out to collaborate with agility. Let's go into our zoom settings. Here you have the option to switch between trackpad mode or mouse mode. In trackpad mode, you can zoom in and out by pinching similar to how you zoom on your smartphone. In mouse mode, you can zoom in and out by scrolling up and down. You can also zoom in by using the zoom bar above the mini map. 

There's also a few helpful shortcuts you could take advantage of to zoom in and out quickly. If you hold down X and hover over an element on the canvas, it will pop up so you can read it easily without ever having to zoom in. Or, you can click on an element and select the magnifying glass icon to zoom directly in. 

Next, let's take a look at the mini map in the bottom right corner. Here you'll find an outline of some of the key elements on the canvas. You can jump around the canvas by clicking anywhere on the mini map. This box represents where you are on the canvas, and the location of your collaborators is represented by the color of their avatar. Let's say you want to move around the canvas without accidentally moving any elements you can enter into move mode by clicking on the hand icon to the left of the mini map move mode. What's you click and drag across the canvas without wearing about accidentally editing anything you can exit move mode by clicking on the hand icon once again. 

Now that you've mastered moving around the canvas, let's talk about a few of the other key buttons on the interface to the left. You'll find content to add to the mural on the top toolbar. You'll find your mural's name on the far left. You can click on the arrow next to the title to go into the mural settings and quickly access a few other features. Next you'll see the undo and redo buttons. To the right is the voting icon, which you can use to start voting sessions. 

If you are the mural owner or a facilitator, you'll see the timer icon that you can use to time box certain activities with your collaborators. Further to the right, you will find the number of collaborators who have access to your mural and can see who is currently online. Next, there's a big pink share button. This is where you can share your mural with your collaborators. 

You can also export your murals as an image or PDF. Finally, you'll find the chat the activity log, where you can catch up on what's been changed since you were last online. The outline in case you set up different areas and want to present your mural and finally, the help button. 

Now that you understand how to navigate the mural in the basics of the interface, start creating Thank you for watching. If you have any questions, click on the question mark in the upper right corner of the MURAL application to view our help center or chat with our support.

Upload files from different sources

Bring all of your project work into a mural for easy reference.

Share documents with collaborators
Import files from your computer and cloud-based applications

Working in one space together

You use MURAL alongside other apps to get work done with your team. When you need collaborators to access all of your work in MURAL, you can import files from programs like OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. You can also import files from your computer.

Add files to the mural

  1. While you’re in a mural, click on the files option on the toolbar.
  2. You’ll see a popup that allows you to choose between your computer, a OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox account. If you choose to import from OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox, then you'll need to sign in to your account before uploading.
  3. Select the files that you want to add to your mural
  4. The mural generates a thumbnail or preview of the document into the mural.
  5. To open the file, double-click the preview image. The document opens in a new tab.

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Hello there, I'm Hailey Temple and let me show you how to import files into a mural. So first things first, navigate to the part of the mural where you want the file to go. So, I will go down here next over in the toolbar and you will select this files icon and you have a few options you can upload from your computer or from another file storing software. So I'll select from your computer, and MURAL prompts me to choose one of these files. Now, MURAL will upload the file. And what's awesome is I'll actually get a little photo preview of my PDF that I've added here. So anybody who visits this mural. If they double click on the file, they can get a preview and a full picture of what this document is. And it's not just PDFs, you can upload PowerPoint or other slide sharing presentations. You can add images, Word documents, and so much more. So, use MURAL to share your documents and start collaborating.

Work visually with icons

Show what you’re thinking about without drawing anything from scratch.

Access over two million icons in a mural
Add and edit icons

Show rather than tell

Icons are powerful ways to represent concepts and ideas. When collaborators in your mural need an introduction to working visually, icons act as an introduction to explore what’s possible when you think and work visually. In MURAL, you can choose from millions of free icons in the Noun Project library to enhance your murals.

Search and add icons to murals

If you're looking for something specific, you can search by keyword for exactly the concept you want to represent visually.

  1. In the left toolbar in the mural, click the star icon. The mural displays examples of popular icons from the Noun project.
  2. Within the icon menu, click into the search bar. Type in a keyword for your concept.
  3. Select the icon you want to use by clicking and dragging it onto the desired location in the mural

Once you add an icon, you can edit its size, shape, color, and more using the formatting menu.

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Oh hey. I didn't see you there. Gino for MURAL here. And why don't we use this time to talk a little bit more about icons. Icons in MURAL are a great way for you to actually showcase what you were thinking about visually without having to draw anything from scratch. In order to pull from our icon library, head to the left toolbar and click on the star icon. Once you click that, all of our icons will pop out, and you can simply scroll down to view all the different ones we have. But as there are over 2 million different icons to choose from, you might want to search by a keyword. First thing that comes to my mind is Thor. He's a pretty buff dude. So we're imagining myself as Thor. It's not the worst thing I've ever thought. But save some time rather than just one. Why don't we use a bunch of different icons together we've got Iron Man, wearing a bikini with a buff arm and a cartoony arm. And he's looking pretty good there. Other than just having fun with icons, you can actually use these when people are getting together with their ideas rather than just stating you're going to go to the park. Why not actually show people the idea of going to the park? This is how you can use icons to showcase your thoughts more visually. Go forth and prosper.

Draw in a mural

Fast, precise inking lets anyone sketch, write, and erase to bring concepts to life.

Use the MURAL drawing feature in the web browser app
Demonstrate hand-drawn designs on touchscreen devices
Create lines with different thicknesses and color

Draw in the web browser app

MURAL’s browser-based drawing allows you to use your cursor to draw freehand objects using your mouse or trackpad. Within a mural, you can access the draw tool on the left toolbar

Create a drawing in a mural:

  1. Click the pencil icon on the toolbar. This opens the drawing features at the top of your mural. You can also hit D on your keyboard to begin drawing.
  2. Select one of the pen tip options for your drawing. To change the color of your line, select the dropper icon and select a color.
  3. Click the canvas and hold to begin drawing
  4. To erase your drawings, select the eraser from the top toolbar
  5. When you’re done, select “Done Drawing” or hit D on your keyboard to exit the drawing experience.

Draw with touchscreen devices and displays

Instead of using the web browser app, you can draw on tablets and mobile devices. You can access the draw feature from the toolbar on these devices. To do this you will need to download the MURAL app for your device.

On these devices, the draw tool also appears in the toolbar. When you select the pen icon in the toolbar, you can switch to draw mode. On a tablet you can use a pen, while on mobile devices you can draw with your finger.

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Hello there, I'm Hailey Temple. And let me show you how to make hand-drawn work in MURAL. You can do this either from your web browser or from a touchscreen device using the MURAL apps. So, let's start with the web browser. I am in a mural, and I'm going to head over to the toolbar. There's a pencil icon, and when I click it, I get a specific drawing toolbar where I can start working. I can create lines of different thicknesses, but let me just start with medium. So I'm using a mouse to do this. So, it's not going to be pretty, but it's going to be there. Here we go. Last one, boom star great and mural makes it a little bit more refined for me. But it has that nice hand drawn feel. If I wanted to change the color of the line, click this drop icon, and I'll change it to blue. And let's say I wanted to make a shadow on this, I can use our highlighter tool, and it'll create a really nice shadow for me. Here we go. All right. So when you're done drawing, click done drawing. And now it's ready to go. And you can start adding other elements to it. Let me show you how to draw using a touchscreen device like this Microsoft Surface Hub. I've already downloaded the mural app on this touchscreen device. And I have a pen instead of a mouse, which is way more precise. So I have this drawing toolbar at the bottom of the mural app already, which is so he to be and so I can just select the pen thickness, I can change the color No, all I do is put the pen to the surface and start creating. So you can see it's a lot easier to quickly create in this touchscreen device. To erase anything here, all I do is click the eraser and skim over whatever I want to remove. So, you can draw in the web browser or on a touchscreen device, but whatever you do, drawing can bring your work to life. Happy collaborating.

Shortcuts for adding objects and elements

Work with speed on the mural to add sticky notes, icons, and more

In this lesson, you’ll learn to:

  • Locate shortcuts in a mural
  • Add sticky notes to the mural with shortcuts

Need for speed building content

Shortcuts help you work efficiently when adding content to a mural. We have a variety of shortcuts that help you add and modify content. When you’re working in the mural, you’ll find these shortcuts under the question mark (?) icon.

Practice adding shapes and sticky notes with shortcuts

Use the shortcuts to add shapes, sticky notes, and other content to build out your space where you’ll complete the Rose, Thorn, Bud activity.

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Hey, it's Daniela, let me show you a few shortcuts to add elements to your murals. My all time favorite has to be adding a sticky note, you just double click anywhere on your canvas and you will get sticky notes. If after that you hit tab, you can create as many as you need in just one click. My second favorite would be to create connectors. 

If you hold down the letter C, your cursor will change into a connector. And so when you drag and release, you will get a whole menu of shapes to connect to So once again, hold down the letter C, drag and release. And that's how you create connectors. There are a lot more shortcuts that we have for adding content so your mural for example, control option will let you upload images.

Just very easily Ctrl option m will create a larger sticky and then again you can use the tap. Control option x will create circles stickies and then again tap tap tap. Do you need to remember all of these? No you don't we have you covered. If you go to the top right corner under the question mark, you will find an entire list of shortcuts so no need to use your brainpower for this.

Get to know the MURAL dashboard

The workspace dashboard is your home to move between rooms and murals.

Navigate around the dashboard
Save murals and rooms for easy access

What’s the dashboard?

The dashboard contains the list of all your rooms and murals. Here’s what you can do with the dashboard:

  • Switch between workspaces via the upper left corner
  • Join open and private rooms
  • Invite other to collaborate via email or link sharing from the Share button in the top right corner

You can also see Templates and example murals from the dashboard and switch to other workspaces via the upper left corner.

Switching between workspaces

You can see the name of your current workspace on the top left corner of the screen. If you are a part of multiple workspaces, you can quickly switch between them. Here’s how:

  1. Click the arrow next to the workspace name in the top left corner
  2. From the drop-down menu, click the name of the workspace you want to switch to

View recently opened murals

While working on several things at a time, it’s normal to lose track of where your team’s mural is. That’s where ‘Recently opened murals’ comes in handy. Just click on this tab on the top left corner to see the 32 most recent murals you’ve accessed.

Templates 

A template is a predesigned set of activities that can be repeated in a mural. You can also access templates from the top left corner of your dashboard.

Favorite murals and rooms

Save time searching for content you're frequently using by adding it to your favorites. Access them from the 'Favorite murals' section on the left side of your workspace dashboard.

To add a mural to your favorites

  1. Locate the mural in your room or on the dashboard. On the top left corner of your mural, you will see a star icon. 
  2. Click the star to select that mural as a favorite.
  3. Find it in the 'Favorite murals' section. The order of murals in your Favorites will show the most recently updated first

To favorite a room on the dashboard

  1. Hover over the space to the left of the room name.
  2. Select the star room name. Your favorite rooms now appear at the top of your open or private room section of the dashboard.

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Hello there. I'm Hailey Temple. If MURAL is your digital work space than the dashboard is like the welcome mat where you can quickly jump in and start working. In this dashboard, I know that I'm in the MURAL Magic workspace and I can actually change between workspaces from the dashboard. 

I can also see all of the murals that have recently been edited that I can access so they are actually sorted by when they were last edited. I can also look at what I've recently opened, maybe a mural that I favorited and templates, which are pre built murals that we've created to help save you time. 

Plus, if you are new to MURAL, this learn section is so helpful to get quick tips and watch some videos to get started. These are your rooms, which hold different murals like a file Cabinet, and you can access any of these rooms from your Dashboard. You can even favorite rooms, so they show up at the top of your list. If you're working in a room and you want to invite someone else to work with you, you can ask them to join by their email address. or with a link. 

Finally, if you need to find something in MURAL, go ahead and click this search button. Let's say I wanted to find something related to design. I can find murals I've worked in and have access to rooms and templates related to this keyword. If you do need any help while you're working in MURAL, go ahead and click this question mark and you can reach out to our customer support team and our help center. So that's our dashboard. Have fun navigating MURAL and happy collaborating.

Browse the template library

Find repeatable and scalable activities for your project directly in the MURAL app.

Navigate the template library
Move templates

What are templates?

A template is a pre-designed mural that has been created to save time building works in the mural. Some templates have activities, prompts, instructions, and sticky notes. You can create different murals directly from these templates.

Global and workspace templates

Within the template library there are two tabs of templates. The first contains MURAL’s global template library. The second has workspace-specific templates.

MURAL’s global template library contains templates for a wide range of use cases and purposes. Any MURAL member can access and use these templates. If you have a template to share with the world, you can also submit your template to be part of the global library.

Workspace templates have been published by members of your organization to the workspace. Workspace members can share these templates with anyone, but they are only published in the specific workspace. These templates are valuable for sharing specific processes for your organization or team. 

If a template is part of your workspace library, you can still share a link to the template with collaborators. Here’s how: 

  1. Go to the templates section on the MURAL dashboard
  2. Locate the desired template and click on its thumbnail to open the template.
  3. Click share on the upper right corner of the template.
  4. Copy the link for the template to share with collaborators.

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Hi there, I'm Hailey Temple and let me introduce you to templates. A template is a pre- designed mural that we've created for you to save time building your work in MURAL. So you can see here, this template already has some activities. It has some prompts and questions here, instructions and sticky notes. So I can create a mural directly from this template. And now I've saved time building and creating a mural for my work. You can find a huge selection of templates within your MURAL workspace under the templates section. 

We have lots to choose from so you can scroll through or you can search for murals by category. So all of the brainstorming murals are right here. These are global templates, but we also have specific templates that others may have published in your workspace. 

So this is fantastic If you are using a specific process, you're going to repeat it again and again. Having a template available is incredibly helpful to share and use again for yourself or to share with others.

Another way that you can create a mural from a template is actually within a room. So if I click on a room where I want a mural to live, I have this create new mural piece right here. And I only have this if I have editing rights in that room. I'll click Create new mural. I can search the same template library, and once I've decided which one I want to use, simply click Create mural and I'm ready to go. 

So remember the template library in your mural workspace. It is a great place to quickly get started with repeatable and scalable activities.

Create a new mural

The first step of collaborating with your teammates is to create space to house your ideas.

Create a blank mural
Create a mural from templates
Describe your MURAL dashboard

What is a mural?

The mural is the file where collaboration happens. Murals contain individual canvases where you add, create, and edit content. These can be created from scratch or with pre-created methods in the MURAL Template Library. You can create a new mural in any room where you’re working.

Create a blank mural

From your MURAL dashboard, go to the room where you want to create your new mural.

  1. Select “Create new mural” in the room. A new window opens with options to create a new mural.
  2. Select the “blank mural” option

Create murals from templates

From your MURAL dashboard, go to the room where you want to create your new mural.

  1. Select “Create new mural” in the room. A new window opens with options to create a new mural.
  2. Search for templates by keyword or by category. You can read the titles and descriptions for templates as you browse. To preview the mural before you create a new mural, the eye icon on the top right of the template thumbnail
  3. Select the template you want to use. Then, click create mural to create the mural from that template.

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Hey team. Agustin from MURAL here, and today I want to teach you how to create your own murals. It's super simple. Once you log in, you'll be pulled right to your dashboard, which is where I am right now. 

Once you're inside, simply click on the room in which you want to create the mural and select the Create a new mural button. And you'll be able to pick a blank canvas or one of our many many templates. Once you've decided select Create mural. And now you will have a brand new canvas which you can modify as you see fit. And you can repeat this process as many times as you want, because there's not a limit to how many murals you can create.

Invite collaborators to MURAL

Allow your team to access work at different levels to maintain security or create an open collaboration space.

Compare different invitation methods
Create and invitations in MURAL
Choose permissions for your collaborators to access content

Different levels of access to MURAL

MURAL structures content into three different levels: workspace, rooms, and murals. Depending on your project and permissions, you want to ensure you’re giving the right permissions and invitations to your collaborators. Let’s start at the mural level.

Invite collaborators to a mural

When you want collaborators to join a specific mural, there are two ways you can invite them to join you: email and link. Sending an email invitation will allow your collaborators to reference the mural from the workspace. The links provide a quick and convenient way to invite collaborators in real time to join your mural.

Which link do I use?

There are two links in a mural to invite collaborators. The invite people link is great for collaborators with a MURAL account. If you want to be able to see who is contributing content to the workspace, the invite people link invites your collaborators to sign into MURAL.

The visitor link allows collaborators to join a mural without an account. Use the visitor link to invite collaborators without signing into MURAL. The collaborator can identify themselves by name and with an animal avatar. However, keep in mind that your collaborator’s avatar won’t remain beyond the session.

Invite collaborators via email

  1. Click the pink share button at the top right of the mural. This opens a menu for invitation options.
  2. Decide whether you want your collaborators to edit the mural or view the mural.
  3. Enter the email address of the collaborator you want to invite. You can also import a list of collaborators by uploading a CSV list of email addresses.
  4. If you want to add a message, click the add a custom message checkbox. Type in your message below.
  5. Click Send to send the invitation. Your collaborator will get an email invitation to join the mural.

Invite collaborators via link

Invite members and guest to the mural:

  1. Click share at the top right of the mural. This opens a menu for invitations.
  2. Under the invite people tab, copy the link for the mural. 
  3. Share the link with your collaborators. When they click the link, they will be prompted to sign into MURAL.

To invite visitors to a mural:

  1. Click share in the upper right of your mural. Toggle to the Visitors tab.
  2. If it hasn’t been generated already, generate a share link in the 2nd tab. (Only a mural owner can do this.)
  3. Select Edit or View-only permissions from the drop-down menu.
  4. Share the link with your collaborators. When they join the mural, they will be prompted to join as a visitor or have the option to sign in if they have a MURAL account.

Invite collaborators to a room

You can also invite collaborators to an entire room so they can see all related murals related to a project. The invitation structure is similar to invitations to a mural, but there are no visitor links. Here’s how:

  1. Open the room you want to share.
  2. Click share at the top right of the room. You can invite via email or copy the link to share with anyone.

Invite collaborators to a workspace

If you have admin permissions in your workspace, you can invite collaborators to the entire workspace from the MURAL dashboard. Here’s how:

  1. On your MURAL dashboard, click invite on the top right corner
  2. You can either type someone's email, and even include a custom message. Alternatively, you can create a share link and send this to your collaborators.

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Hello there, I'm Hailey Temple. The magic of MURAL starts when you invite others to work with you. So, let me show you how to do this in a mural at a room level. And if you have the right permissions, you can do it at a workspace level. 

Let's start with a mural. So I want to invite someone in to work with me. So I'm going to click this big pink share button. Now, I have a couple of options. If I want somebody to sign in, so I know who they are when they're working with me in the mural, then I'm going to use this invite people tab. 

I can invite someone via email address or with a link. I'll make sure I have the right permissions so they can collaborate with me in this mural, so I'll send them an email and send an invitation, I can even add a custom message. And off we go. Now, I don't want somebody to have to sign in, just come in and start working with me, no worries about signing in, then the visitor link is ideal. So, if I copy this link and share it with anyone, then they will be able to join me and depending on my permissions start working with me. So, that's how you invite people into a mural. From a room and workspace level depending on your permissions in that mural, it's fairly similar.

So here, I can invite somebody into this room by very similar clicking the share button and inviting somebody with a link and I need to create a link or with an email At the workspace level, if you're an administrator, then you can invite people in at the workspace level. I'll go up to the workspace name, click this down arrow. And now I can click invite people to the workspace. Very similar, you can create a link and invite someone that way or send it by email. 

If you want to revoke access for a group of people or an individual, you can always delete that link and you can be rest assured your work is safe. So that's how you invite people to collaborate with you in MURAL.