Activities (previously Smart Meetings) is one of our Interactive Presentation Mode features to help you run engaging and effective meetings and workshops.
Let participants interact on the board with sticky notes and reactions, and add pre-planned activities for mid-meeting breakout sessions, voting, or timed brainstorms. Teams can interact and collaborate while you control the session.
Available for: Business, Education, and Enterprise plans
Who can do it: board owners, board co-owners, and board editors
Available on: desktop browser, desktop app, tablet browser
Step 1: Create your session
Go to the upper-right corner of your board, click the dropdown next to the Present button, and select Activities.
Opening Activities
The Activities panel will open. Here, you can create your meeting agenda, define and navigate your meeting content, and decide what the participant experience will be like during a meeting.
Activities panel opened
✏️ If frames are already added to the Activities list, clicking Activities from the Present button will activate full screen mode to start the session.
How to add frames to your session
First you'll need to add Frames. Frames are the slides shown to your participants during the session. In the Activities panel, you have 3 options:
- Add all frames from the board
- Pick existing frames from the board
- Create a new frame
Adding frames to Activities
To select existing frames, click Pick frames in the Activities panel. Hover over a frame to open its context menu. Click Add to activity list in the context menu.
You can also click on a frame directly on the board to add it to the activity list.
Adding an existing frame
When you create a new frame, you'll see a blank frame on your board and added to your Activities. You can add content to the frame directly on the board, and it will be visible to collaborators during the session.Creating a new frame
✏️ All frames added to Activities are automatically locked on the board to prevent them from accidentally moving.
How to set the duration of a frame
Once you've added a frame to your activity list, you can set up the duration of the slide. Click on the frame in the Activities panel, then click the 0 field to edit the number of minutes for your slide.Setting the duration of a slide
How to add an activity to a frame
You can add voting, breakout frames, or a timer to a frame in the Activities panel. Select your frame in the panel, and click on the Timer, voting and tools icon on the bottom right corner of your frame. The activity app will automatically open when you move to the selected frame during your session.
Voting
Set up an anonymous voting session. Choose the number of votes allocated per person and the time to vote.
Breakout frames
Use breakouts to divide collaborators into groups so they can work together on a specific frame. Set up breakouts in advance so you can start your activity with a few clicks when it’s time to meet.
Timer
Use the timer to help you and your participants stay on track during an activity, discussion or brainstorm.
Setting up Activity apps
How to change the sequence of activities
Click and drag your frames in the panel to change their sequence. You can select multiple frames while holding Cmd or Shift (for Mac) or Ctrl (for Windows) and move them together.Dragging frames to change the order of the activities
How to remove a frame from your session
In the Activities panel, go to the frame, click the three dots (...) and click Remove. To remove multiple frames at once, hold Cmd or Shift (for Mac) or Ctrl (for Windows) while selecting the frames, click the three dots (...), and click Remove.
You can also remove a frame from Activities while on the board. Click the frame and in the context menu click the Remove from activity list icon.
Removing a frame from Activities
How to set up participant permissions
At the top of the Activities panel, you’ll find the Participants experience section.
Toggle on Show creation tools to select specific tools your participants can use during the session.
Setting up participant tools
Step 2: Running the session
Starting your session
As soon as you click Present in the Activities panel, you’ll automatically switch over to full screen mode.
You can access the facilitator tools including voting, timer, or breakout frames through the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. Click the Next and Previous arrows to go through your slides. Participants are guided through the slides as you navigate.
Facilitator tools
Presenter hand-off
If you’re running a big session with multiple speakers, you can hand off your presentation to another speaker.
- In the facilitator toolbar at the bottom of your screen, click the Participants icon
- Select a user and click Hand off
The original presenter will transition to the participant view and the new presenter will be able to control the presentation. The audience will be notified that there is a new presenter.
Handing off to another presenter
How the session works for your participants
Participants don't need to do anything additional to connect to the session aside from opening the board where the session is hosted.
Once you start your session, participants that are on the board will get a notification on their screen. Once they click Join, they'll open the board to the current frame you’re presenting.
✏️ To see the real names of non-registered Miro users during the session, facilitators have the option to enable visitor names.
Participant receiving a notification to join a session
Once participants have joined, they still have the option to move around the board freely. They can switch back to the presenter’s view by clicking Return to presenter.
Depending on the participant permissions you've set, participants may or may not be able to use tools during the session. However, users who have editing rights are able to perform other actions such as moving and deleting objects on the board.
Finishing your session
Once you're ready to wrap up, click Esc to leave full screen mode. Then click Stop on your toolbar. The session also stops automatically when everyone leaves the board.
Stopping the presentation