🕹️Host controls

The controls a Meeting Host uses to run a session: hosts, tools, private writing, timer, anonymity, ready check and polls.

The Host controls are available when Meeting mode is active, and they help you run a productive collaboration session.

Turn on Meeting Mode

Select 'Start Meeting' at the top of the board:

Meeting controls

Click on the 'Meeting In Progress' status indicator at the top of the board.

Meeting Tool	Function
Change Tools	Change the board tools available to meeting participants
Manage 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. See Run a poll
End Meeting	Finish the meeting

Who is the Host?

The person who starts the meeting becomes the Host. Use 'Manage Hosts' to add co-hosts or to hand the meeting over.

• Only members of your organization can host. Guests can never be a Host.

• If you remove every Host, there is no single Host and all team members on the board act as Host.

• If every Host has been away from the board for 10 minutes, team members see a 'Take Over Meeting' option under the meeting status button.

• If you are the only person on the board, you become the Host automatically.

Bring everyone to you

Click your own avatar in the participant list and choose 'Everyone To Me' (or press Shift + B) to move every participant's view to where you are. Only Hosts can do this.

Ready Check

Ready Check adds an 'I'm ready' button beside each person's avatar. As people mark themselves ready, a counter shows how many are ready and who you are still waiting for. The Ready Check ends automatically when the meeting ends.

Run a poll

Polls let the Meeting Host ask everyone on the board a question and see the combined answers. Answers are anonymous.

1. Start a meeting, then click 'Meeting in Progress' at the top of the board and choose 'Run Poll'.

2. Pick a poll type.

3. Write your question and, for choice polls, your answers.

4. Choose 'Start Now' to run the poll straight away, or 'Save As Button' to place a 'Start Poll' button on the board that you can press later.

Poll types

Type	How it works
Single Choice	Everyone picks one answer
Multiple Choice	Everyone can pick more than one answer
Number Scale	Everyone picks a number on a scale. The default is 0 to 10

Questions can be up to 140 characters. Choice polls take between 2 and 10 answers, of up to 70 characters each.

Poll results

The poll opens for everyone who can edit the board. Results appear once everyone connected to the board has answered.

The Host can then choose 'Add To Board' to place the results on the board as a chart, or 'Finish' to close the poll.

TIP / Save polls as buttons while you prepare your board, so a check-in or confidence vote is ready to start with one click during 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.

By default participants get the collaboration tools: stickies and cards, pages, topics, tokens, icons, voting, reactions, comments, connectors, tags, the marker and gestures. Shapes, text, zones and frames, gadgets and Insert are off until you enable them.

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

Hide Identities

One of our Host Controls which requires special mention is Hide Identities, it allows you to make all participants anonymous, and to stop Spreo tracking what they wrote or where they voted.

When Hide Identities is on:

• you can’t tell who is who

• you can’t tell who wrote a sticky note, ever!

• voting is anonymous

Hide Identities is a mode that you can turn on and off, to use whenever you need - whether for the whole session or just one activity.

With Hide Identities enabled

Anything written or voted on when Hide Identities is active stays that way, forever. Nothing can ever be tied back to an individual.

When you’re done, turn Hide Identities off to go back to regular mode, where all new contributions and votes are tracked again.

Regular mode	Hide Identities on
Everyone has an avatar	All avatar pictures replaced with a single question mark
All sticky notes show the author	No authors
Individual handwriting for each person	Everyone’s handwriting is the same font
Can spotlight a person’s stickies and votes	Spotlight disabled in anon mode
Can spotlight a person's votes	All votes are anonymous
Can Follow other people	Following is disabled during anonymous mode
Export contains who wrote and voted	Export does not contain who wrote and voted while in anon mode
Participant list shows everyone on the board	Participant list is hidden
Comments show who wrote them	Comments are anonymous

Messages inside Spreo also call this Anonymous Mode. While it is on, the author of a note is never saved to the board.

Why isn’t everything always anonymous in Spreo?

In short - we don’t believe anonymity should be default for team sessions, but we recognize that anonymity can be a useful tool in certain scenarios:

• helping newer teams raise awkward issues

• reducing bias like zombie groupthink, or the HIPPO effect

• is another useful tool in a facilitators toolbox