Custom Templates allow you to customise not only the Ideaflip Board but the Stationery drawer as well.

You can create bespoke templates from scratch that are precisely tailored to your work and team with a customised stationery drawer.

All users on a payment plan may create customised templates.

These custom templates can:

If you’re a consultant: you can create a set of templates unique to your clients; simplify and focus the Stationery drawer to your needs and upload a logo to create a professional look.

Are you running an event: create a set of unique templates for planning, on-the-day information and post-event feedback.

Become more efficient: turn frequently used Boards into templates that contain just the necessary stationery to get the job done.

Keeping it simple: create a minimalist Board for feedback with no complicated or confusing features and make it available publicly for quick and easy feedback.

At Ideaflip, our ethos has always been that less is more; with our new Custom Template, you can control what your users will see or not see.

The following section gives an overview of how to create your new Template, publish it, share it and make future edits.

Further specific advice is available for:

Open a new Board from the Dashboard, this is where you start building Custom Template. In the Tools drawer there is a Template switch that turns this board into a template; once enabled, a new Template tab is available in the sidebar drawer.

Toggle the template Switch to activate the Template Tab

This tab has controls for:

The Template Settings dialogue allows the template designer to name the template, provide a brief description and control its visibility.

Open the Template Settings to add basic Template information

Templates can be visible to:

There are additional settings for repeating columns and rows (see below).

The Title with its yellow ‘construction tag’ will inject the Board’s title into the text heading when you create a new Board. Click or drag the item to the Board. The construction tag can be moved over any text item to make it a Title.

The yellow constructor tag 'Title' will dynamically insert the Board Title

The Legend items allow template creators to create a key on the Board to communicate how they’d expect the different stationery items to be used in this template. These can be coloured to describe that, for example, ‘square green notes’ are for suggestions.

The Stationery drawer can be customised by adding or dragging the Stationery Group and its yellow construction tag onto the Board. Anything inside this Group will appear in the Custom Stationery drawer. Any Ideaflip stationery item can be placed here and will become clickable and draggable onto Boards created from this template.

Create your bespoke Stationery Draw visually on the Board

The Title of the Stationery Group can be altered to a custom Title and any notes or URLs entered in the Edit Panel will appear in the Custom Stationery drawer under the Title.

Pictures or logos can be uploaded into the Stationery Group so the Stationery drawer can be branded. Any Emoji added will also become an item that can be dragged to the Board in the Custom Stationery draw.

Read a more detailed Article on Custom Stationery

Repeating Groups can be added to the Board with the yellow ‘construction tags’ for COL1 and ROW1. When a new template is created in the naming dialogue panel there will be an option to set the number of rows and columns if these tags have been used. Therefore you can create the first column and row on your master template and Ideaflip will duplicate these when a new template is created based on the numbers input.

Create Repeating Groups that will render user-specified grids in the Template

Read a more detailed Article on Repeating Groups

As you build your template you will want to preview how it will look when used. By clicking the Preview button in the Template Tab you open a new Board, give it a name, choose any columns and rows you want to test and click preview. This will create a read-only preview of what your Board will look like. As you make changes to your Template source Board, refresh your preview Board to see the changes that take place.

Visualisation of the Template workflow

When all the changes have been made and the Template finished it is time to publish it so you or others can use it to create new Boards. Make sure that all the fields in the Settings panel are completed then press the Publish button. This will immediately publish the template, the button will grey and above it will say ‘This Template was published…’ and the date.

If you wish to use the new Template straight away then press the Use Now button. Otherwise, return to the Dashboard and create a new Board. When creating a new Board a list of your templates will appear in the Template drop-down as well as the standard Ideaflip templates.

Template Settings change what the New Board panel looks like

Depending on whether or not you have allowed the Template to be shareable in its settings will determine whether the template appears in this list for other people in your team.

Your Template will now appear in your Dashboard with a visual indication of 3 lines next to the Title or under the preview thumbnail. If you wish to make edits to the template you can open this Board and edit the template. Please note that this will only affect new boards created from the template (and not change any existing ones).

Once published, you can use your template to quickly create boards for online sessions that you run regularly, without needing to set it up each time. However, you can also share your templates for others to use.

Let your team know that there is a new template available in their new board template dropdown. They can use and share new boards based on this template as they do with any Ideaflip Board.

If the template settings are set to Public then you can share it with guests, drop-in guests and even embed it on a website.

A new Board based on your Custom Template

You can edit your Source Template file as you would with any Board. In your Dashboard look for your Source Template file, it will have 3 horizontal lines next to its name to denote that it's a template.

How to find your Template in the Dashboard

When you open your Source Template you can edit the Board as you would with any Ideaflip Board (normal user permissions apply). You will notice that in the Template Tab you will have a message saying that this Template has been altered;

"The Template has some new changes that haven't been published yet"

You will need to click the Publish button to confirm the changes.

It is important to remember that any existing Boards that used this Template will not be updated with your changes. Only new Boards created after you change the Source Template will feature your changes.

How to edit and republish your existing Template and understanding the workflow

We recommend only making minor changes to a Template or fixing errors. If you wish to make major changes it would be better to create a new Template altogether, otherwise, things could get confusing!