Board Controls

Board Controls are located at the top-center of the retro board and are typically viewed as a timer. The controls give facilitators and participants quick access to the timer, music, voting, and facilitation features.

Note: If the overall setting for a board control is turned off, its related icon will not appear in the control bar indicators and the control will not be available when the panel is expanded.

Timer

The timer provides a shared countdown visible to everyone on the board. Use it to time-box phases of your retrospective.

Set the duration using the time input. The default duration is configured in board settings (5 minutes by default).
Press Play to start the countdown. Press again to Pause.
Use +1 min to extend the timer on the fly.
Press Reset (visible while running) to return to the configured default duration.
A time-remaining indicator is always visible in the control bar so participants can see the countdown at a glance.

When the timer is restricted, only Facilitator and above can start, pause, or reset it. All participants can still see the countdown.

Music

Background music helps set the mood during writing and brainstorming phases. The music controls let you pick a track and manage playback.

Open the track picker to choose from the available ambient tracks.
Use Play, Pause, and Stop to control playback.
Adjust the volume with the volume slider.
A music status indicator in the control bar shows whether music is currently playing.
If music is playing when a timer ends, the music will also stop automatically.

When music is restricted, only Facilitator and above can change the track, start, or stop playback.

Voting

The board supports two forms of voting: Upvoting for quick, lightweight signaling and Structured Voting for formal prioritization. Both can be enabled simultaneously.

Upvoting

Upvoting is a lightweight alternative to structured voting. Each participant can cast a single upvote per card at any time (when the feature is enabled) to signal agreement or importance. Unlike structured voting, upvoting does not have open/close phases — it is always available.

Click the upvote button on a card to add your vote.
The upvote count is displayed directly on the card for everyone to see.
An optional upvote limit can cap how many upvotes each participant can give across the board.

Structured Voting

Structured voting lets the team formally prioritize discussion topics. A voting session moves through three phases. With structured voting, if multi-mode is enabled a single participant can place multiple votes on the same card, unlike upvoting where each participant gets one vote per card.

1. Start Vote

Before opening a vote, configure the session. Set the number of votes per participant and choose the voting mode:

Single mode: Each participant can vote for a card at most once.
Multi mode: Participants can place multiple votes on the same card.

Click Start Voting to open the vote. All eligible participants will see vote indicators appear on cards.

2. Active Vote

While voting is open:

Participants click cards to cast votes. A badge shows how many votes they have placed on each card.
Votes can be removed before submitting by clicking the card again.
Once all votes are placed, click Submit to lock in the ballot.
A progress bar in the controls shows how many participants have submitted their votes.
The facilitator can end the vote early by clicking End Vote.

3. Closed Vote

After voting ends, the total vote count is displayed. Cards are annotated with their vote tallies so the team can see which items were prioritized. Click Reset Votes to clear results and return to the start state.

Moving On to Discussion

Once a session facilitator has been picked with Choose Facilitator, that person — and only that person — gets an All votes are in popup as soon as every participant has submitted. “Every participant” is the same count the progress bar shows, so when voting is restricted to members, only members count. The popup asks Discuss voted on topics? and offers two choices:

Yes, Start Discussing — closes the vote, counting every vote cast up to that click. When Facilitator Mode is enabled in board settings, facilitation starts at the same time.
No, Leave me Alone — closes the popup and leaves voting open. Closing it with the X or by clicking outside it does the same.

If the vote is closed another way instead, such as with End Vote, and Facilitator Mode is enabled, the chosen facilitator is offered Start Discussions once voting closes. A Start Discussions button also sits beside the Voting is Closed indicator in the header, for the chosen facilitator (or, when nobody has been chosen, Facilitator and above).

The chosen facilitator only ever sees one of these popups at a time. If someone else ends the vote while All votes are in is still waiting for an answer, it is replaced by Start Discussions. Answering No, Leave me Alone keeps both popups away until the vote is reset or reopened, even if votes are reset and resubmitted in the meantime; the Start Discussions button is still there when you’re ready. That answer is remembered in the browser tab where you gave it, so reloading the page or another open tab can still show a popup. Guided sessions have their own All votes are in popup, described in Guided Mode.

Upvoting & Voting Together

When both upvoting and structured voting are enabled, they work in harmony. When a vote is started, cards within each column are automatically ordered from most to least upvotes so the team can use upvote signals to inform their structured vote.

Facilitation

When Facilitator Mode is enabled in board settings, a Facilitate Session button appears in the board controls. Clicking it activates a presenter-style view that transforms the board into a guided discussion.

The multi-column layout is replaced with a single-card focus view.
The top undiscussed card is displayed prominently, with upcoming cards visible as a stacked preview behind it.
Cards are shown in order, sorted by votes and filtered by any active filters.
Since the columns are hidden, every card in a group is labeled with the column it came from.
A counter shows how many items remain to discuss.
When the team is done discussing a card, it is marked as discussed and the next card moves to the front.
When a card or group is taller than the screen, the discussion area scrolls so every card can be reached. The Mark Discussed, Add Action Item, View Comments, and Skip buttons stay pinned at the top while you scroll, and moving on to the next item jumps back to the top so it starts at its beginning. There is extra room at the end so the last card can scroll clear of the quick-controls remote.
Drag and drop and card editing are disabled during facilitated sessions to keep the focus on discussion.

Facilitate a Session

The multi-column layout is replaced with a single-card focus view.
The top undiscussed card is displayed prominently, with upcoming cards visible as a stacked preview behind it.
Cards are shown in order, sorted by votes and filtered by any active filters.
A counter shows how many items remain to discuss.
When the team is done discussing a card, it is marked as discussed and the next card moves to the front.
Drag and drop and card editing are disabled during facilitated sessions to keep the focus on discussion.

Click End Session to return to the normal board view.

Note: Facilitation cannot be started while a voting session is active. End or reset the current vote before beginning a facilitation session. The chosen facilitator’s Yes, Start Discussing does both in one step.

Quick Controls

Once a session facilitator has been picked with Choose Facilitator, that person gets a round remote, starting in the bottom-right corner of the screen, so they can run the clock without opening the board controls:

Top — start or pause the timer.
Right — play or pause the music.
Bottom — add one minute to the timer.
Left — reset the timer to its default duration.

The center of the remote shows the time remaining. Click it to set a new time limit: pick a preset from 1 to 15 minutes, or type an exact time. Changing the time while the timer runs keeps it running from the new value. A section is dimmed when its control is turned off or restricted to Facilitator and above; hover it to see why.

The remote can be moved anywhere on screen with the small move handle on its upper-left rim:

Drag the handle with a mouse, finger, or pen.
Or focus the handle (it comes after the timer controls and the countdown when you Tab through the remote) and use the arrow keys; hold Shift for bigger steps. Its tooltip lists these shortcuts.
Double-click the handle, or press Home while it’s focused, to send the remote back to the bottom-right corner. On some phones and tablets a double-tap won’t reset it; drag it back to the corner instead.

The remote always stays fully on screen and keeps its relative spot when the window is resized. Its position is remembered in your browser, so it carries across boards and moves along in your other open tabs, and no one else’s board changes.

Other Facilitator and above can show or hide the quick controls for themselves from the Facilitator Actions menu. The choice is remembered in your browser, and no one else’s board changes.

Control Bar Indicators

Even when the controls panel is closed, the control bar shows at-a-glance status indicators:

Time remaining — live countdown in mm:ss format.
Music status — play/pause icon for the current track.
Votes remaining — how many votes the current user has left to cast.
Facilitation — when a facilitation session is active, its icon appears in the control bar. If the voting session is closed, the facilitation icon replaces the voting indicator.