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Explore Boards + Sub-Boards

How to create a board, add assets, board views, and more!

Brian Nana-Sinkam avatar
Written by Brian Nana-Sinkam
Updated over a week ago

Who can view boards on Air?

πŸ‘¨β€πŸ‘©β€πŸ‘§β€πŸ‘¦ Supported on any Air plan

✏️ Anyone that has view access to a workspace, library, or board

πŸ—ΊοΈ Any visitor to a public URL for a board

Boards

Boards are a great way to start collecting your assets. Assets and files can live in multiple boards (unlike Google Drive and Dropbox which require you to duplicate assets and waste storage space). If you're eager to streamline your content organization and asset management, setting up a board is a great starting point. Boards serve as a versatile platform for collecting and organizing your assets with efficiency and ease. With the ability to create and host assets across multiple boards without duplicating them, Air elevates your organizational workflow. Let's dive into the process of creating boards.

Boards provide you and your team with the ability to organize content visually. You can create organizational structure with a board for each of your teams or group content thematically with product-specific boards.

Sub-boards

Sub-boards act as multi-level pockets for easy and customizable asset organization. Again, unlike a traditional folder structure, your images and videos can live in multiple boards without the need to duplicate assets, take up more storage, or mess with permissions.

For example, if you have an image of a product photoshoot, you may want that image in the board you created to house the photoshoot content and a board specific to the product, and also a board for seasonal advertisements you're running this month. Instead of having three copies of the same image, simply add the image to all three of those boards!

πŸ”Ž Search

The search field from any board is automatically filtered to search only within the board in view. If you backspace to delete the board filter, this field is also capable of searching the entire workspace.

πŸŽ›οΈ Filter

Filtering within a board applies more context to the search of any board based on your applied content metadata. When you add a filter, the browser URL will update to include the relevant information contained in the filter. Build out a filtered board view that works for you and bookmark the browser so that you can re-reference the same set of content with ease!

ℹ️ Title

The board title displays on the top left of the board view directly under the search field. Users with permissions can also modify the board name directly from the title field.

πŸ–ΌοΈ Description

Board descriptions are a totally underrated plain text field for making your board even more accessible. When you need to add more instruction and guidance for your team, this field is an awesome tool to make this happen. URLs included in the description are also instantly clickable allowing you to link to relevant spots on the web, in and outside of Air.

⭐️ Favorite

The star icon next to the board title is useful for personalizing your Air experience. Favorite any board or sub-board and it will then show on your workspace sidebar for easy access whenever you log in. No searching or clicking through an endless nest of boards needed.

🎨 Custom fields

Located next to the favorite icon (⭐️), applying custom fields to boards yields an added layer of context to your boards on Air. Utilize this metadata field in conjunction with board view settings to give a richer experience to your board visitors. Custom fields can be used to further inform the board viewer about the content within, usage rights, ownership ... anything you want!

✏️ Edit menu (three dots)

You'll find the edit menu in a few places, including the three dots icon that shows next to custom fields (two stacked rectangles). The table below gives a brief look into the options available to you within any board depending on your access level.

Icon

Action

Description

⬇️

Download

Download the entire board and sub-boards to your device as a zip file

βŽ…

Open in Finder

Access the same board from a Finder window on your mac

⎘

Move to...

Move the board in view and all contained items, to another location in your workspace

+

Add Sub-board

Place a new empty sub-board within the board in view

✏️

Edit details

Rename board, edit description, and connect board to Slack

❒

Duplicate

Make a copy of the board structure in view (content does not duplicate)

Connect to Slack

Connect board to Slack to receive notifications of board activity

πŸ—‘οΈ

Delete from workspace

Delete board structure from workspace (option to also delete content within)

πŸ‘―β€β™€οΈ Follow / Following

In the top right corner of any board view, you'll see the option to follow a board or indication that you are following it. Any board that your user creates is automatically followed. A followed board is eligible to receive notifications based on your specific account settings.

πŸ—ΊοΈ Share

The 'Share' button to the right of 'Follow'/'Following' contains the option to generate a public URL for a board using 'Share a link' and the ability to add guests to your board (Pro + Enterprise only).

βž• Add

You're able to add to your board in a few ways on Air. This button visible on the far right from any board view will include the various ways to get content added to the board in view by default.

Icon

Action

Description

⍐

File Upload

Add file(s) from your local storage as assets/files to the board in view

πŸ—‚οΈ

Folder Upload

Add folder(s) as sub-boards to the board in view

πŸ“„

Content Collection

Generate a public URL for use to upload assets/files to the board in view

Import From...

Add file(s)/folder(s) from Google Drive, Dropbox or Box to the board in view

+

Add Sub-board

Place a new empty sub-board within the board in view

πŸ”§ Sort

Toward the bottom right of any board header will show the default, selected or saved sort. Air wants to help you collaborate with your team and keep up with the latest so you'll find the default sort for any board view set to 'Date Modified' (Descending). You'll have many options to pick from.

Sort order can be toggled between ascending and descending. Each view has a default sort by date modified descending and each view has its own set of sort options available:

Gallery View

Table View

Kanban View

Name

Name

Name

File size

File size

File size

Date created

Date created

Date created

Date modified

Date modified

Date modified

Resolution

Resolution

Resolution

Comment count

Comment count

Comment count

Extension

Type (Asset or File)

Board count

Tag count

βš™οΈ Settings

Appearing next to the sort selection in the board header, βš™οΈ allows you to further finesse your board's view. Customize the details shown with a click!

From board views with thumbnails

Thumbnails for assets and files in a board view can include the following details:

  • Title / File name

  • File extension

  • File size

  • File resolution (assets only)

  • Custom fields (if enabled)

Asset thumbnails default to not showing asset details on the view thumbnails.

From table view

Table view can include the following details:

  • Title / File name

  • File size

  • Date created

  • Date modified

  • File resolution

  • File extension

  • Type

  • Board count

  • Tag count

  • Comment count

  • Custom fields (if enabled)

πŸͺŸ Board Views

How you view your content can be just as important as the content itself. Use the view toggle button to switch between Gallery, Table, and Kanban view. Gallery view is perfect for presenting content to teammates and partners, conducting brainstorms, or simply sparking spontaneous creativity. Table view allows you and your team to see important metadata like file extension, size, and resolution in a quick scroll format. Kanban view displays details like edit status, usage rights, expiration dates, and project assignee for quick and easy handoffs.

Gallery View: highly visual grid display– feels like scrolling through social media or looking at a mood board instead of digging through a file cabinet.

Table View: easily scrollable, detailed list of content with metadata front and center– distinguish between assets at a glance and view information side-by-side.

Kanban View: visually manage workflows in columns based on custom fields for your actionable information and stack the workspace to become a creative project management tool

πŸ“‡ Board summary

Included with any board view, you'll find a quick glance of the board contents. This will show a total sub-board count, total asset count, total file count, and total storage included*.

* Since files added to your workspace can appear in many boards (or no boards at all) storage included in a board summary is not always indicative of storage in use across the workspace. Head to your workspace settings to see your total current storage in use.

🩻 Expand / Collapse nested items (Gallery + Table view)

Sub-boards within a board can contain many other sub-boards and those sub-boards can contain even more sub-boards. While we can respect the work of organizing, sometimes you just need to see the big picture. From the bottom right of your board view, expand your nested items to remove all sub-board context from your board view and lay all your boards and assets out flat.

Collapse nested items to bring all your sub-boards back into view and return the board hierarchy just the way you found it.

⬇️ Download board

To the right of the option to collapse / expand nested items at the bottom of your board view, one more fast way to get your entire board (and any sub-boards and content included) downloaded to your local drive. The content comes to your storage as a compressed zip file that you can then open and view right from your device.


Need some ideas for what to do with your boards?

  • Send final designs to your social media manager for next week's posts

  • Share RAW photoshoot content with your freelance editor

  • Present a visual review of work with clients for feedback

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