# Introduction

## What is Publicboards.com?

PublicBoards.com is an application you put in front of your Linear workspace, that acts as a client portal for your customers.

While Linear is focused on Product Owners and Developers, Publicboards.com is focused on your customers. Together, they are the perfect match.

Setting up a board only takes a few minutes. Best of all: everything lives in Linear, so there's no vendor lock-in. You can drop Publicboards.com at any time without losing important project data.

## What problems do we solve?

Why wouldn't you add your clients to Linear? Let's see what problems can be solved by using Publicboards.com.

### Privacy

Your clients don't need access to all projects, they also don't need access to internal documents or notes. When they type @ you don't want them to get a list of all your coworkers and other clients.

### Legal

Giving your clients access to your entire workspace or team can not only be a privacy issue, it can get you into legal trouble.

### Financial: unlimited users included

You're paying per user in Linear, and adding your clients and all project stakeholders can quickly become very expensive. At Publicboards.com, every plan comes with **an unlimited amount of users**.

### Efficiency

You'll spend less time:

* Explaining to new clients how you and your tooling work.
* Enforcing your workflow on customers and stakeholders.
* Checking if your client didn't change something he wasn't supposed to.
* Repeatedly asking for additional information you need that was forgotten in your customer's request.
* ...

### Customer experience

You can give your customers the CX they deserve: kanban boards for projects, a helpdesk for ongoing support, a product roadmap, or a changelog for your SaaS users,... It makes their journey with you more pleasant, it makes you look more professional, and it makes everyone's life easier.

### Developer experience

We love Linear, like we love all products that improve developer experience. That's our goal, improving both customer and developer experience. With Publicboards.com, you'll be able to manage more from within Linear. No more switching between different tools for project management, customer support, product communication, etc. That's a better experience for you, on top of the great customer experience.


# Getting started

{% hint style="info" %}
Currently, we're in closed beta. To request access, please email <eap@publicboards.com>
{% endhint %}

{% stepper %}
{% step %}

### Connect your Linear Workspace

You can connect your Linear workspace by going to your dashboard > [Integrations](https://publicboards.com/app/integrations) > "Connect Linear". You'll be redirected to Linear to grant Publicboards access to your workspace.

<figure><img src="/files/xsybgYbD2ZgtbZU05IJ8" alt=""><figcaption><p>Integrations overview</p></figcaption></figure>
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Add your first board

You can add your first board by going to your dashboard > [Boards](https://publicboards.com/app/boards) > "New board". You'll see there are a few options:

* **Title**\
  This is pure for your own information, give it a title so you know the purpose of this board. On the board itself, the project name from Linear will be shown instead of this title.
* **Integration**\
  If you have multiple workspaces connected to Publicboards, you can choose the one you want to use.
* **Project**\
  Once you selected the workspace in the previous field, your projects will be loaded in this select field. Choose the project you want to use.
* **View**\
  Choose how the board should be visualised. More information about the different views [can be found here](/boards/board-views). Currently, only the kanban view is available.
  {% endstep %}
  {% endstepper %}


# Your account

## Update your account

You can update your name, email and password by clicking on your name in the top right corner, under '[profile](https://publicboards.com/user/profile)'.

<figure><img src="/files/qvMzoIgYhTGoIe3yObjl" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Enable 2FA

2-factor authentication can be enabled under 'Two Factor Authentication'. It is encouraged to enable this for your account. Once enabled, you can copy your recovery codes or disable 2FA for your account.

## Delete your account

Before you can delete your account, make sure your subscription is canceled in the billing portal. If you have no active subscription, but are still unable to delete your account, please email us to resolve the issue: <support@publicboards.com>.

## Billing

When you click 'billing' in the same menu, you'll be redirected to the Stripe billing portal. Publicboards works together with Stripe to handle everything related to billing.


# Board views

When setting up a board, you can choose between different views. Depending on the situation, you put a different view in front of your linear project, creating a personalized customer experience.

{% hint style="info" %}
If you need an experience that isn't mentioned here, feel free to [send in a feature request](/support/support).
{% endhint %}

## Available (Beta)

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-cover data-type="image">Cover image</th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Kanban view</strong></td><td>The ideal project dashboard for your stakeholders. They can track progress, get project updates and comment on tasks.</td><td></td><td><a href="/files/QfVAJRG8NqsXa2C1x292">/files/QfVAJRG8NqsXa2C1x292</a></td><td><a href="/pages/osAnhxaJ9LfeQSMNMj7k">/pages/osAnhxaJ9LfeQSMNMj7k</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

## Coming soon

These boards are being worked on.

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Support ticket system</strong></td><td>Streamline your support with the ticket system view. Clients can create helpdesk tickets, you get all new requests as issues in triage.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Product roadmap</strong></td><td>Share your product direction with your users and accept feature requests or bug reports.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Changelog</strong></td><td>Keep your customers engaged with every release. Updating the changelog is as easy as creating an issue in Linear.</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

***

## Use cases

Every customer and every project is different. Depending on the type of project, you can create a different experience for your customer.

### Add clients to Linear projects

Disadvantages of adding clients directly to your Linear workspace:

* If you're working for multiple clients, you might want to add them to your Linear project without giving them access to all your projects.&#x20;
* Adding all your clients, often multiple people per client, can get very expensive, very fast.
* Clients don't always want to work with tools like Linear or Jira, they want something easy.

These can all be solved by Publicboards.com

### Read-only public Linear views

You cannot share Linear views publicly. With Publicboards.com, now you can.

### Ongoing maintenance & development

If you have projects that are in maintenance mode, you can share them with your clients as a kanban board. They will be able to make requests, while you manage everything from within Linear, with a triage queue to protect your workflow and stay in control.

### Developers want more focus, fewer tools, and less context-switching

There are tools for everything these days, more pop up every day, increasing mental load and context switching. Developers want fewer tools, preferably limited to these 3: an IDE, a CLI, and a single tool for work management like Linear. By empowering Linear with extra public views for external stakeholders, we can achieve that!

### Customer support

Dedicated support software is often used to increase the user experience for your clients, or just to dummy-proof the process for them. Those tools often cost a lot, and while they integrate with tools like Linear, they need to be managed separately.&#x20;

### Product feedback

### SaaS clients


# Kanban board

The ideal project dashboard for your stakeholders. They can track progress, get project updates, comment on issues and send in new requests.

## Introduction

A kanban board is the closest experience to a Linear interface there is. It's perfect for sharing a project's progress with your clients and for collaborating with them without giving up full access.

<figure><img src="/files/TrJN84lfzUjpjxkO6aSX" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Beta**

The Kanban experience is currently in beta, some features might not yet be available and you might encounter some rough edges. Take a look at the [known limitations](/boards/kanban-board/known-limitations) to learn more.
{% endhint %}


# Overview

The ideal project dashboard for your stakeholders. They can track progress, get project updates, comment on issues and send in new requests.

<figure><img src="/files/QfVAJRG8NqsXa2C1x292" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

This is what a kanban board looks like. All data is fetched from linear:

* The Linear project title&#x20;
* The project status. On hover, the status description will pop up.
* A progress bar showing the project's progress. This is a value calculated by Linear based on the number of issues and the total estimate of all issues in the project.
* The project description
* External project links added in Linear. Documents are not shown.

The kanban board has columns for every status type (backlog, unstarted, started, completed, canceled). The custom status is shown as a label inside every issue, it shows the color in a small dot and the status description on hover.

The issue cards show the following information:

* Identifier
* Title
* Status
* Due date
* Estimate
* Priority: shows an "urgent" label when an issue has the highest priority. The label is red as long as the issue is open. Once completed or canceled, the "urgent" label will turn gray.
* Assignee

<figure><img src="/files/TtbkO5pUDK1KnTC6Sbir" alt=""><figcaption><p>Project overview</p></figcaption></figure>

## Issue detail

When you click a card, the details of this issue are shown. Next to all the details already shown on the card, you can also see:

* The issue description
* Comments

### Comment on issues

Everyone who has access to the board can comment on issues. They need to provide a name and email address and can choose to be remembered or not.&#x20;

{% hint style="info" %}
Markdown is supported, except for images. Image support and a cleaner WYSIWYG editor are on [our roadmap](/product/roadmap).
{% endhint %}

<figure><img src="/files/62jTi6wR437kR1A9PfQp" alt=""><figcaption><p>Issue detail view</p></figcaption></figure>

## New request

You'll find a big + button on the top right corner of the board, which opens the "new request" window. Everyone with access to the board can make new requests.

Users can enter the title and description of the new issue. Markdown for the description is supported, you can preview the layout before submitting the request.

New requests will be created in the project linked to the board. If triage is enabled, the request will end up there and isn't visible on the board until it is accepted in Linear, otherwise, the first status in the backlog status type is selected and the issue is visible on the board immediately.

<figure><img src="/files/g09BbaIXGzIpaN1nKMBd" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Authentication

Users can log in to avoid manually entering their name and email, while also gaining access to [notifications](/boards/kanban-board/notifications).

<figure><img src="/files/aSFt7YVRjizBmdmGrySb" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>


# Layout

Hide or show anything you want, from project details to entire issue columns.

<figure><img src="/files/PvXuRuOFA6gTUvr8Kr7H" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Project details

Choose which project details you would like to share on your board:

### Project status

The project status as displayed in Linear. When hovered, the status description will be shown.

<figure><img src="/files/wAgTagH8wk6VCyxZfFtH" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Project progress

The project progress as defined by Linear. You can find more information on how Linear calculates this metric in [their project graph documentation](https://linear.app/docs/project-graph).

<figure><img src="/files/mc5op9EaKSgLOqw4ckTO" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Project description

This is the project description from within Linear. Publicboards will only show the short description immediately below the project title. The [detailed project description](https://linear.app/docs/project-overview#detailed-description) will never be shown.

<figure><img src="/files/niRmKspbCNvcXnsip9ri" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Project links

These are all external links added to your Linear project. For more information, check their [project overview documentation](https://linear.app/docs/project-overview#external-links).

<figure><img src="/files/g01MlM3u5KxSO5kf3YSM" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Kanban columns

Choose which columns you want to show your board visitors. You might want to hide empty colomns that are unused, or hide the backlog column from your board to show your stakeholders only work in progress.

* Backlog
* Unstarted
* Started
* Completed
* Canceled

## Task details

You can hide the following issue details:

* Description
* Priority
* Due date
* Estimate
* Assignee


# Notifications

With email notifications, anyone can subscribe to stay up to date on new comments

## Manual subscription

Anyone with access to your board can subscribe to issues and receive notifications when a comment is made from within Linear. Users must be logged in to ensure their email address is correct.

<figure><img src="/files/OOy9MRSYBl3y4Ex0rlrZ" alt=""><figcaption><p>Subscribe to an issue</p></figcaption></figure>

## Automatic subscription

When a logged in user comments on an issue, they will be automatically subscribed to updates. This helps to minimize the risk of unnoticed comments from within Linear. Users can always unsubscribe by clicking the bell icon on the issue card.

## Email notifications

Notifications are sent via email, immediately after a comment is placed. The email notifications contain your entire comment and a link to the project board.

## Notification triggers

For now, notifications are triggered when someone from within Linear comments on an issue that a user is subscribed to.

More notification types will be added in the future.

## Manage notifications

You can view who subscribed to your board or issues on your board by going to your dashboard > [Boards](https://publicboards.com/app/boards) > "Edit board" > "Notifications".

<figure><img src="/files/BTkXl0mwBzaDTeRslWFY" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Unsubscribe a user

Click the unsubscribe button to remove all subscriptions for this user on this board.

### Unsubscribe everyone

When you unsubscribe everyone, all users will have both issue-specific and board notifications removed. If a user is subscribed to issues on the same project through another board, they will still receive those notifications.


# Security settings

Manage who can access your boards and what they can do. Restrict access by domain and define permissions for viewing, creating, and commenting.

{% hint style="info" %}
Available in the **Premium** plan or higher
{% endhint %}

## Restrict access to a board

By default, a board is public, and anyone with the link can access it. You can change this behavior through the security settings.

<figure><img src="/files/OcxpcQM3XfO9zZ3Oy9aw" alt=""><figcaption><p>Security settings for a public kanban board</p></figcaption></figure>

In certain situations, you may need to restrict access to the board. In these cases, you can limit access by allowing only specific domains, ensuring the board remains private.

### Allowed domains

Instead of adding all stakeholders from your client as individual users, you can simply add "client.com" as allowed domain. This way, anyone with an email ending in "@client.com" will automatically gain access.

If your stakeholder uses subdomains, like "<name@ext.client.com>" for external contractors, they won't automatically gain access until you add the "ext.client.com" as an allowed domain.

<figure><img src="/files/RIWg7ZdRuNQH1pPkRh6V" alt=""><figcaption><p>Security settings for a restricted kanban board</p></figcaption></figure>

### Accessing a restricted board

You can still share a restricted board through the same URL. When accessed by an anonymous visitor, a login prompt will be shown.

<figure><img src="/files/5kOnnIKYwFAc8Cqw2fHw" alt=""><figcaption><p>Login screen for a restricted kanban board</p></figcaption></figure>

Stakeholders will be able to log in through a magic link, only if their domain is added to the allowed domains list. Upon their first visit, an account will be created for them automatically.

If the stakeholder is a Publicboards user, such as yourself, they will be redirected to the default login screen of Publicboards.

## Permissions

You can choose the permissions a visitor has. Everyone who has access to the board has the same permissions.

<figure><img src="/files/j2rAYnqrjpprGkoLjMnv" alt=""><figcaption><p>Permission settings for a public kanban board</p></figcaption></figure>

### Issues

This defines what permissions a board visitor has towards issues that are being loaded on the board:

<table><thead><tr><th width="296">Setting</th><th data-type="checkbox">View board</th><th data-type="checkbox">Open issue details</th><th data-type="checkbox">Create new issues</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><ol><li>View and create new issues</li></ol></td><td>true</td><td>true</td><td>true</td></tr><tr><td><ol start="2"><li>Detailed view</li></ol></td><td>true</td><td>true</td><td>false</td></tr><tr><td><ol start="3"><li>Overview only</li></ol></td><td>true</td><td>false</td><td>false</td></tr></tbody></table>

### Comments

This defines what permissions a board visitor has towards comments on the issues:

<table><thead><tr><th width="294">Setting</th><th data-type="checkbox">Read comments</th><th data-type="checkbox">Add comments</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><ol><li>Read &#x26; comment</li></ol></td><td>true</td><td>true</td></tr><tr><td><ol start="2"><li>Read-only</li></ol></td><td>true</td><td>false</td></tr><tr><td><ol start="3"><li>Hidden</li></ol></td><td>false</td><td>false</td></tr></tbody></table>


# Sharing

Different ways to share boards with your stakeholders.

## Link sharing

You can share the unique public link to your board with your stakeholders:

* Go to your [board overview](https://publicboards.com/app/boards).
* Click 'view' on the board you want to share.
* You're redirected to the unique public URL of your board.

## Embedding in an iframe

If you want to include the board in your own website or in a client portal, you can embed it in an iframe:

```html
<iframe src="{your-public-board-url}"></iframe>
```

{% hint style="warning" %}
Form requests are blocked in iframes for security reasons, commenting and adding new issues is therefore not possible.
{% endhint %}


# Known limitations

Please read this page carefully before you start using Publicboards.

## **Known limitations**

The following limitations are known:

* **Issues are limited to 50 comments**, if an issue has more, they will not be loaded.

{% hint style="warning" %}
If any of the known limitations are troubling for your use case, please let us know.
{% endhint %}

## Production use

**Publicboards is currently in beta**, so you might encounter some rough edges, bugs, and ([minimal](https://status.publicboards.com/)) downtime.&#x20;

While we do not recommend using Publicboards intensively in production environments yet, we're dedicated to fixing any issues as soon as possible. Please report any problems you might encounter through the in-app chat or by emailing <timmy@publicboards.com>, and we'll take care of them as soon as possible.

If you plan on using Publicboards in production, please start with a few boards and increase slowly. Keep us informed on your plans, and we'll see what we can do to accommodate you.&#x20;


# Support ticket system

Streamline your support with the ticket system view. Clients can create helpdesk tickets, you get all new requests as issues in triage.

{% hint style="danger" %}
The support ticket system is still in development and not yet available.
{% endhint %}


# Product Roadmap

Share your product direction with your users and accept feature requests or bug reports.

{% hint style="danger" %}
The product roadmap is still in development and not yet available.
{% endhint %}


# Changelog

Keep your customers engaged with every release. Updating the changelog is as easy as creating an issue in Linear.

{% hint style="danger" %}
The changelog is still in development and not yet available.
{% endhint %}


# Roadmap

Here's an overview what we're working on and what's up next.

{% hint style="info" %}
One day, this roadmap will be replaced by a [Product Roadmap](/boards/product-roadmap) of our own, but that's - uh, still on our roadmap. 😅
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="warning" %}
**This roadmap is subject to change**

Please be careful with decisions based on this information.
{% endhint %}

## Currently working on

These functionalities are currently in the making.

<details>

<summary><span data-gb-custom-inline data-tag="emoji" data-code="1f513">🔓</span> <del>Magic link login</del> ✅</summary>

In most cases, you'll trust your stakeholders, but when you need to be sure or when you have a sensitive project, you'll want to protect your board. We're working on a login functionality so you can secure your board and be sure the commenters are who they say they are.

</details>

<details>

<summary><span data-gb-custom-inline data-tag="emoji" data-code="1f514">🔔</span> <del>Email Notifications</del> ✅</summary>

When your customer has no idea you asked something, the communication can become quite one-sided. After being logged in, clients will be able to subscribe to issues. If anyone comments on it, we'll send them a notification by mail.

</details>

<details>

<summary><span data-gb-custom-inline data-tag="emoji" data-code="1f513">🔓</span> <del>Security settings</del> ✅</summary>

You can now limit the access to your boards by adding allowed domains in [security settings.](/boards/kanban-board/security-settings)

</details>

<details>

<summary>🗃️ Kanban board improvements</summary>

We're currently working on finetuning our Kanban experience: hiding old issues, showing more details like labels and links, tweaking the layout of issue descriptions, implementing a better editor, etc.

Next to these tweaks, we're also working to resolve all [known limitations](/boards/kanban-board/known-limitations).

</details>

<details>

<summary><span data-gb-custom-inline data-tag="emoji" data-code="1f514">🔔</span> Project updates</summary>

* Fetch project updates from Linear and show them in the Kanban view
* Send updates via email to stakeholders who subscribe to project updates.

</details>

## Short term considerations

Functionality that's being considered for the short-term future.

<details>

<summary>🎛️ Boards based on custom Linear views</summary>

</details>

<details>

<summary>🛟 Support ticket system</summary>

</details>

<details>

<summary><mark style="color:red;">♦️</mark> Product roadmap</summary>

</details>

<details>

<summary>🏷️ Changelog</summary>

</details>

## Long term considerations

These functionalities will probably need some more time but are considered for the medium/long term.

<details>

<summary>📝 Custom forms &#x26; request types</summary>

For now, all new requests are completely composed by your stakeholders. Sometimes that goes wonderful, but often you'll go back and forth to gather additional information regarding their bug or feature request.

With custom forms, you'll be able to create different types of requests (feature requests, bug reports, etc.). For each request, you'll be able to ask specific questions and make those fields required.

</details>


# Changelog

On this page, you can see an overview of what's been added, updated and fixed on Publicboards.com.

{% hint style="info" %}
At the moment we're still in beta and are pushing out updates and new features at a high pace. We'll keep a changelog after launching our public beta.
{% endhint %}


# Support

Do you need help, have a question or feedback? We're here for you!

If you're part of our private beta team, the fastest way to contact us is through the chat bubble in the bottom right corner of the application.

<figure><img src="/files/xbcvYlUU5GamBM0AOdWg" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

{% hint style="info" %}
One day, we'll use our own [support experience](/boards/support-ticket-system), but that's still on [our roadmap](/product/roadmap).

For now, you can send an email with any questions you might have:

* [Support request](mailto:support@publicboards.com)
* [Bug report](mailto:timmy@publicboards.com?subject=Bug-Report)
* [General questions](mailto:timmy@publicboards.com)
  {% endhint %}