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Inviting participants and guest links

Everything here is in the Share panel of the facilitator dock.

A new board is members only: only signed-in Seat Holders of your workspace can open it.

  1. Select Share in the dock.
  2. Select Copy board link.
  3. Paste it wherever your team is.

Anyone who follows it while signed out is sent through sign-in and returned to the board.

Change the board’s access mode first. Select Share, then one of:

Guests with a verified email — a guest gives a name and a work email, gets a link by email, and follows it to join. Use this when you want to keep drive-by strangers out without asking anyone to create an account.

Anyone with the link, anonymous — a guest gives a display name and is in. Nobody signs in, and every card, comment, and vote shows as Anonymous.

Selecting either mints a join link. Copy it from the same panel and send it out.

Guests get the board without the app around it — no sidebar, no workspace navigation. They can add, edit, and drag their own cards, vote, comment, and answer the temperature check, exactly as a Seat Holder can.

They don’t get the facilitator dock. Guests are never facilitators.

A guest’s session is held in their own browser, so a refresh or a dropped connection puts them straight back on the board as themselves — their cards stay theirs.

If a guest lands on a board that isn’t accepting them, they get a specific reason rather than a dead end:

SituationWhat they see
Board is members onlyA sign-in path, plus Ask the facilitator for access, which emails you
Board is locked”This retro is locked to new participants”
Retro has ended”This retro has ended” — read-only, no new joins
Link is wrong or expired”This retro link isn’t available” — ask for a new one

An emailed verification link expires after 15 minutes, and the join screen offers Resend link and Use a different email without retyping.

Select Share, then Rotate link.

The old link stops working for anyone who hasn’t joined yet. Guests already on the board keep their session and their cards.

Use it when a link has gone somewhere it shouldn’t — a forwarded calendar invite, a public channel — and you want the board to stay open for the people already in it.

Select Settings in the dock, then Lock board.

A Locked pill appears in the top bar for everyone. Nobody new can join — by board link or join link — while everyone already in keeps working normally. Unlock from the same control.

Locking is the tool for “we’ve started, don’t let stragglers wander in”. To stop the session entirely, end the retro.

Access mode can be changed at any time, and it takes effect immediately.

Tightening a board — guest mode back to members only — cuts off guests who are already in it. They’re returned to a join screen for the new mode rather than shown an error, but their session on the board is over. Widen or tighten before people arrive if you can.

Guests are Participants: tracked so they can contribute, with no access to the rest of the workspace and no cost against your paid seats. Only Seat Holders can create boards, facilitate, or reach a closed retro’s summary. See Core concepts.