Free Plan Questions

  • 13 October 2021
  • 13 replies
  • 597 views

Can a person create a Miro account under a Free plan, and then create/start a board (as the owner) and invite 4 other team members to both "View and Edit" the board(s) (up to 3), as long as each of the 4 team members have a Miro account? (i.e., none of the 5 people will need a paid Miro subscription?)

The Free plan allows only ‘public’ boards (not ‘private’) - is that correct?

Also, if one of the team members is visually impaired, can he/she access the team member's (owner) board (under the Free plan) and both "View and Edit" the board using a screen reader? As a ‘guest editor’ or regular team member? If not able to use a mouse or trackpad, how would a visually-impaired person add to/edit the board?  

Can you export a full board to a PDF in the Free version? (i.e., is a PDF considered a high-resolution export?)

Thank you!


13 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@Denise Kreiger

Can a person create a Miro account under a Free plan, and then create/start a board (as the owner) and invite 4 other team members to both "View and Edit" the board(s) (up to 3), as long as each of the 4 team members have a Miro account? (i.e., none of the 5 people will need a paid Miro subscription?)

Boards in Free Plans can only be edited by registered Miro account users who are a member of the Free Plan in which the board is located.

If you try to add someone to a Free Plan board (with view, comment, or edit access) they will also be added to your team:

 

If you want someone to be able to view a Free Plan board, but not be added to the team, you will have to use the public/guest access feature:

 

The Free plan allows only ‘public’ boards (not ‘private’) - is that correct?

Partially. The Free Plan does not allow for ‘private’ boards, which means only the board owner can see it and no other Free Plan team members. No Miro plan only allows for public boards, which would mean that all boards are accessible to anyone with the link.

Can you export a full board to a PDF in the Free version? (i.e., is a PDF considered a high-resolution export?)

Yes, but at a lower quality.

 

You can read more about export options in the Board export Help Center article:

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017572754-Board-export

 

Also, if one of the team members is visually impaired, can he/she access the team member's (owner) board (under the Free plan) and both "View and Edit" the board using a screen reader? As a ‘guest editor’ or regular team member? If not able to use a mouse or trackpad, how would a visually-impaired person add to/edit the board?  

I’m sorry, but I cannot answer this.

Thank you! @Robert Johnson - Could you please clarify one of your responses: 

“The Free Plan does not allow for ‘private’ boards, which means only the board owner can see it and no other Free Plan team members. “

 

If the Free plan doesn’t allow for “private” boards, don’t you mean that “anyone” can see a team’s board? (you said only the board owner can see it and no other Free Plan team members).

 

Also, do you find the small-size PDF (which is available in Free plan) ‘readable’?  This is for grading purposes in the LMS.

 

Thank you!

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@Denise Kreiger - Good catch - here’s what I meant to say:

“The Free Plan does not allow for ‘private’ boards, which would mean that only the board owner can see it and no other Free Plan team members.“

While all members of a Free Plan team will always be able to see every board that is in the team, the board owner can restrict access to View or Comment only:

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Also, do you find the small-size PDF (which is available in Free plan) ‘readable’?  This is for grading purposes in the LMS.

When you do a board export, it exports frames as pages, so there needs to be at least one frame on the board. The quality should meet your needs as long as you don’t make your frames really big and with many objects in it, e.g. 100s of sticky notes.

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

For example, attached is a Free Plan board export with two frames - both frames are the A4 aspect ratio.

The first frame was created while the board was at 100% zoom and and 12 sticky notes in it that are set to size of “S” small.

Then I duplicated the frame, made it bigger, and copied sticky notes until I had 144 of them.

Finally, I exported the board as PDF (small size).

Thank you @Robert Johnson for both responses!

Let me re-phrase one of my questions to be clear to see if my understanding is correct . . .

You’ve said there are no “private” boards with the Miro Free plan. Does that mean that other (non-team) Miro users could possibly view other teams’ boards that use the Free plan?

I’m asking for FERPA reasons - these team boards with the Free plan would be for students in higher ed. Ideally, it would be best if their boards are “private” (i.e., no other Miro users can see the boards unless they are shared or given the link) but am I understanding correctly: that any Miro user could possibly locate and view other “Free Plan” boards? Thank you!

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@Denise Kreiger - You’re welcome :slight_smile:

Perhaps I will use Miro’s own words to explain this as per the Public boards vs. private boards Help Center article:

What is a private board?

⚠️ Private boards are only available on TeamEducationBusinessConsultant and Enterprise plans.

Private boards are not shared with anyone and accessible by the Board owner only. Depending on default sharing settings, all created boards on a paid plan can be set as private until shared by the Owner or shared with the team automatically. Learn here how you can create a private board in a paid or Education team.

On a Free planall boards created will be accessible to the team and do not need to be explicitly shared. The Share window for Free plan boards lets users know it is available to the whole team by default.

  Board_share_menu_on_Free_plan.png
Sharing settings of a board on Free plan

 

What is a public board?

A public board is a board accessible by anyone who has the board link. To set your board public, choose Can view/comment/edit next to Anyone with the link option on the board Share menu. Once you copy and share the board link with other users, they will be view/comment/edit your board content - the board will become available for unregistered users as well. 

Public boards are not indexed by search engines.

sharing_miro_boards_with_guest_editors.gif
Setting a board to become public

✏️ Apart from sharing boards publicly, Miro allows invite collaborators via email, enable team/Company/projects access. Learn more in the article Sharing Boards and Inviting Collaborators.

Thanks @Robert Johnson for your helpful explanations! 

Follow-up questions about the Free Plan - if  @Robert Johnson  or someone can answer:

  1. If the owner of a Free Plan team board suddenly leaves, can ownership be given to one or more of the other team members (e.g., total of 5 team members)? If yes, how? Can there be “co-owners” of a board for this reason so the other team members can continue to access, view, and edit the board (and take over ownership) in the event that the “owner” leaves? Is there documentation on this?
  1. The Free Plan doesn’t allow for “custom templates” - is that correct? So does this mean team members can only use the vanilla templates in the Miro universe? If someone has a custom template they would like team members to use, is there any way the custom template can be exported/imported into a team’s board in the Free Plan?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

 

If the owner of a Free Plan team board suddenly leaves, can ownership be given to one or more of the other team members (e.g., total of 5 team members)? If yes, how?

There are at least two ways to change board ownership:

  1. The owner can add a team member directly to the board:


    Then they can go back into the board Sharing settings and promote that person to owner role:
     

     

  2. If someone were to leave the Free Plan team, then Miro will prompt you to transfer all boards to a new owner:


     


     

You could also Duplicate a board and which point you are the owner of the Duplicated board. This can be handy if, say, someone was off on vacation and you needed to makes changes to a board that only the owner can. You could duplicate the board, use it, and rename the other board to something like “DELETE ME - old board name”.

Note: Only a Team Admin can delete users from a team, so I suggest that you have at least two Team Admins on your team.

 

Can there be “co-owners” of a board for this reason so the other team members can continue to access, view, and edit the board (and take over ownership) in the event that the “owner” leaves? Is there documentation on this?

There is a new Co-owner role, however, this currently only exists for Consultant and Enterprise Plans:

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021580759-Board-co-owner

Templates

The Free Plan doesn’t allow for “custom templates” - is that correct?

Correct. 

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019018899-Custom-templates

 

So does this mean team members can only use the vanilla templates in the Miro universe?

Correct.

 

If someone has a custom template they would like team members to use, is there any way the custom template can be exported/imported into a team’s board in the Free Plan?

They could add the template to a Miro board, set the “Anyone with the link”/public/guest access to “Can view”, set the Board content settings to allow for “anyone with the access to the board can copy” and share the board link with the Free Plan user. The Free Plan user could then open the board, click the board title, and use the duplicate button.

You can try this now by opening this board that it is in my account and clicking the board title where you will then see a Duplicate button.

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_kl4Sue4=/

 @Robert Johnson - thanks so much for the thorough explanations with examples - very helpful!

For the Templates . . . is it a “Duplicate” button or an “Export this Board” button”?

 

Also you say: “Note: Only a Team Admin can delete users from a team, so I suggest that you have at least two Team Admins on your team.” -

Can you be both an Owner and a Team Admin? And a team member and a Team Admin.?

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

 @Robert Johnson - thanks so much for the thorough explanations with examples - very helpful!

For the Templates . . . is it a “Duplicate” button or an “Export this Board” button”?

If you open this board and click on the board name/title at the top-left, you will see a Duplicate button:

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_kl4Sue4=/

 

 

Also you say: “Note: Only a Team Admin can delete users from a team, so I suggest that you have at least two Team Admins on your team.” -

Can you be both an Owner and a Team Admin? And a team member and a Team Admin.?

You can. Both teams and boards have their own roles. Have a read through Roles in Miro:

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017571194-Roles-in-Miro

Thanks so much again for your help! @Robert Johnson

Reply