🤩Running Your First Session

You've setup your board and it's time to get started! Follow these tips to effortlessly invite your team mates or guests and run your fist session with Metro Retro.

Switch to Meeting Mode

At the top of the board, click on 'Start Meeting' to enter Meeting Mode this switches the UI to display the collaboration tools (you will see the left toolbar update) and enables Private Writing.

You become the Meeting Host and get access to the Host toolset including a Timer, Polls, Anonymous Mode, and Ready Check. Everyone else is designated as a participant.

Start Meeting now changes to 'Meeting in Progress', if you click on this again you will see a list of available Facilitator controls.

Meeting Tool	Function
Change Tools	Change the board tools available to meeting participants
Hosts	Add or remove hosts to help with your meeting
Private Writing	Enabled by default. Show or Hide text on participant sticky notes
Meeting Timer	Enable/Disable a timer for your meeting
Hide Identities	Create a space for candid feedback by making everyone anonymous
Ready Check	Provides a button for participants to mark themselves as ready
Run Poll	Anonymously ask your participants a question and view results
End Meeting	Finish the meeting

Changing tools for meeting participants

In the Meeting Tools menu you can adjust what your participants are able to access, these options are grouped in 3 categories, Collaboration, Design, and Gestures.

If you do make any changes to our defaults, be sure to click the 'Update' button when you're done.

Share your board

Now that your board is prepped and you've customized your participant experience it's time to invite your participants.

Click the 'Share' button in the top right of your board. From here you can copy the board link and set access restrictions if needed.

Once a participant joins your board, you will see their avatar moving around the board in real-time!

TIP. Clicking on an avatar in the right hand participant list will let you access additional options specific to that person.

Switching back to Design Mode

The Meeting Host can switch back to Design mode at any time to edit the board layout. Participants will stay in Meeting mode. This allows you (the host) to make on-the-fly changes to your board and meeting structure. Add Templates, Zones, Gadgets, Shapes and more.

For more detailed information on modes, read our full guide for Design & Meeting Mode.

Ending your Meeting

Once the last of the confetti has popped and you've completed the best meeting you've ever had, click on the 'Meeting in Progress' indicator at the top of your screen and select 'End Meeting'.

Ending a meeting puts you back in to Design Mode. Your boards are stored in your dashboard indefinitely, they do not expire or auto-delete.

We read all of our meeting reviews, so please do leave a rating and if there's anything we can improve, let us know.

Exporting meeting insights

Need to get all of those great meeting actions and insights into another platform? You can export board data by clicking on your board name and selecting Export. For a more detailed information on this, take a look at our Export your board guide.

These are just the basics for running a session in Metro Retro, use our guides in the left hand menu to discover more great ways to create and host meetings with your team and guests in Metro Retro. Most importantly, have fun! 🎉