5 easy steps to introduce new collaborators to Mural

MURAL is built for collaboration. Your whole team can get their thoughts out visually to find creative solutions together. The more of your colleagues who know MURAL, the better.

This article will help you introduce colleagues to MURAL. Read on to learn about the 5 key things we recommend for getting others started quickly.
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1. EXPLAIN WHAT MURAL IS

Here are three tips on how to describe MURAL to your collaborators:

Describe the basic technology in simple terms
MURAL is a web application. Everything is automatically saved to the cloud. Multiple people can join a mural at once. And it’s flexible and versatile, so you work as you want.
Use metaphors and analogies to help others understand MURAL
Let them know it’s like a board, whiteboard or a canvas. Or, as the term “mural” suggests, a wall. We’ve even heard people say that MURAL it’s like a project war room.
Think about how you’d explain MURAL to your grandmother
Describe MURAL in completely non-technical terms. We’ve heard things like this: “It's a cork board in your computer that you can pin things to.”
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2. DEMONSTRATE ADDING CONTENT

MURAL is all about mapping content in different formats. When you’re introducing MURAL to others, show them the left toolbar. In particular, focus on how to:

Add text, shapes and icons
You can find all of these options on the left side. Be sure to show how to add a sticky note quickly by double clicking, as well.
Upload images and files
Show others how to add images with the image search on the left. They can also upload images and files right from their hard drive as well, including PDFs and other documents.
Include Links and media
Demonstrate how to add links: just copy and paste a URL into a mural. Then, double-click on the link to open it in a new tab. YouTube videos playback right in the mural.

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3. PRACTICE NAVIGATING

It’s critical to be able to zoom and pan in MURAL. Get your colleagues comfortable navigating.

Zoom in and out
Have colleagues zoom all the way in (to 200%) and then all the way out (to 10%) so the get a sense of the range. Also tell them about scale in MURAL, outlined in this post.

Pan around a mural
Move left and right, and up and down. Show them the mini-screen in the lower right for orientation. Remind them they can navigate with the controls in the mini-screen too.

Show the different control settings
Help your colleagues find the setting to change the navigation mode from Trackpad Mode to Mouse Mode. Just go to Account Settings (lower left) > Controls.

4. SHOW COLLABORATION FEATURES

MURAL is all about working together. That’s why we’ve built in collaboration features. Demonstrate some of these to your colleagues before you get started. They are very intuitive, but may not be obvious to find.

Follow each other
The Follow features is great. Show others how to click on a team mate’s avatar to see what they are seeing. Point out the “invite to follow” option as well.

Comment on content
Let your team know that they can right-click on any piece of content to add a comment. Others can then respond.

Vote on ideas
People love the voting feature. Just start a voting session in the upper left. After everyone is done voting, discuss the results.
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5. DISCUSS HOW TO MANAGE MURAL

Finally, be sure to show folks how to manage murals, rooms and permissions. Just a brief overview is usually all that is need. Focus on these three areas first:

Show others how to get to My Murals
Have them click on My Murals in the upper left of any mural. This is the overview of all murals. You can switch from grid view to list view in the upper right. Rooms are on the left.

Talk about organizing murals into rooms
Tell your colleagues that rooms are like folders. There are private rooms, by invite only, and public rooms, that anyone on a team can see if they have permission to see public rooms.

Discuss permissions
You might also want to go over permission settings. Access can be restricted at different levels - on team, mural or rooms. Learn more here.

That's it! We’ve found that it typically only takes a few minutes to get people comfortable with MURAL. If you focus on the 5 steps above, you’ll make it easier for everyone involved. You’ll also be confident you didn’t leave anything out.

Below is a "Project Kickoff" template you can use to introduce others to MURAL.