Templates & Zones

What are Templates?

Templates define zones (labeled regions) on a board's canvas. When you create a board with a template, objects are automatically organized into the zone they're placed in. This is useful for frameworks like Business Model Canvas, SWOT Analysis, and custom layouts.

A template can also include scaffold objects — titles, helper text, example sticky notes, frames, divider lines and arrows — that are copied onto every new board made from it (see Scaffold Objects below).

Built-in Templates

Yando includes six built-in templates. Their zones are sized in sticky notes, so a new board opens at a readable zoom rather than as a huge, mostly empty canvas; zoom out as it fills.

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

Nine zones covering: Key Partners, Key Activities, Key Resources, Value Propositions, Customer Relationships, Channels, Customer Segments, Cost Structure, and Revenue Streams. Each column holds three notes across.

Lean Canvas

The startup version of the BMC: Problem, Solution, Unique Value Proposition, Unfair Advantage, Customer Segments, Key Metrics, Channels, Cost Structure and Revenue Streams.

SWOT Analysis

Four quadrants of twelve notes each: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Impact/Effort Matrix

Four quadrants — Quick Wins, Big Bets, Fill-ins and Money Pits — for deciding what to work on.

RICE Scoring

Four columns — Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort — for scoring features.

Matrix 2x2

A four-quadrant grid with axes for any two-axis comparison. Each note's position is exported as coordinates from −10 to +10 on both axes.

Browsing Templates

Navigate to Templates from the top navigation. You'll see:

• Built-in templates - Pre-configured, available to everyone
• Your templates - Custom templates you've created
• Shared by Others - Templates other people on this Yando have shared (see Sharing Templates below)

Click any template card to see its detail page with a full-size canvas preview.

Creating Custom Templates

1. Go to Templates and click New Template
2. Fill in the form:
3. Name (required)
4. Description (optional)
5. Canvas Width/Height - Dimensions in pixels
6. Share with everyone on this Yando - Lists the template under Shared by Others for everyone (see Sharing Templates)
7. Use the Visual Zone Editor to add zones

Visual Zone Editor

The zone editor is a WYSIWYG canvas where you drag and resize zones — zones look exactly as they will on a board, with their colour, icon, title and prompt:

• Click Add Zone to create a new zone
• Drag zones to reposition them
• Drag zone edges to resize
• Set zone properties in the sidebar:
• Name - Label shown on the canvas
• Shape - Rectangle, circle, pie slice, or rectangular sector
• Description - The zone's prompt, shown on boards — write it as the question the zone answers
• Category - What the zone holds (Finance, Customer & people, …); sets its colour and icon and is included in exports. Hover a category to see what it's for
• Icon - Optional Lucide icon name to replace the category's icon
• Other Colour - Pick a colour instead of a category; the zone becomes Neutral, so its colour carries no meaning in exports

Zone Shapes

• Rectangle - Standard rectangular zones (most common)
• Circle - Circular zones, useful for hub-and-spoke layouts
• Pie Slice - Subdivide a circle into 2-6 wedge segments with precise angular boundaries
• Rectangular Sector - Angular wedges that fill a whole rectangle right to its edges (no empty corners), so every point belongs to exactly one zone. Ideal for stakeholder maps, priority wheels and compass-style diagrams — and for triangles: a square split by lines from its centre to its corners (like the Value Proposition Canvas's Value Map) is made of rectangular sectors

Where new sticky notes go. Notes added to a zone without a position (by an AI assistant, the API, or grid auto-positioning) fill rectangles in reading order, below the zone's header. In circles, pie slices and rectangular sectors they start in the open middle of the region and spread outward, staying clear of the dividing lines and of the zone's header.

How Zones Look on a Board

Each zone is a soft, solid field with rounded corners, and pie slices and rectangular sectors are separated by clean gaps. Every zone has a header:

• Icon badge — a small icon in the zone's colour
• Title — the zone's name
• Prompt — the zone's description, shown as a guiding question under the title. Write descriptions as the question the zone answers (e.g. "How will this make money?")

When you zoom out, prompts hide once they'd be too small to read and titles grow so the board still works as a map. Zone colours follow the light or dark theme automatically.

Zone Categories: Colour Means Something

Every zone has a category saying what kind of information belongs there. The category sets the zone's colour and icon, so "green = money" reads at a glance, and it's written into JSON and Markdown exports with its meaning — so when you hand an export to an AI, it knows which zones hold the financial picture, the risks, the next steps and so on, whatever the template.

Category	Colour	Holds
Finance	Green	Costs, revenue, pricing, budget
Customer & people	Blue	Segments, users, stakeholders, channels to them
Problem & risk	Rose	Problems, pains, weaknesses, threats, risks
Idea & opportunity	Amber	Ideas, opportunities, gains
Solution & product	Teal	Features, solutions, advantages
Value & goals	Violet	Value propositions, goals, outcomes
Action & next steps	Orange	Actions, owners, decisions to make
Metrics & evidence	Slate	Metrics, KPIs, evidence, data
Team & roles	Pink	Team, roles, partners, responsibilities
Timeline	Sand	Phases, milestones, deadlines, sequence
Neutral	Grey	Notes, parking lot, assessment

Existing zones were given a category from their names (e.g. Revenue Streams → Finance, Pains → Problem & risk); zones whose names didn't clearly match are Neutral and keep their colour. Templates built by an AI assistant through the MCP server get categories and prompts automatically; in the zone editor, pick a zone's category in its properties panel.

Sticky Note Colours

Sticky notes come in five colours, each with a meaning: yellow = idea, green = decision, red = concern, blue = action, purple = question. Hover a swatch in the colour picker to see its meaning. Notes coloured with older palette colours keep their meaning (an old yellow note is still an idea) and switch to the new shades automatically; notes in other colours (such as teal) keep their colour but carry no meaning.

Rectangles can be split into horizontal strips, vertical strips, or radial sectors: pick the direction and count, then click Apply.

Other Colours

If a zone doesn't hold one kind of information, you can give it one of 10 Other Colours instead of a category (pastels in light mode, deeper shades in dark mode, switching automatically with the theme). Such zones count as Neutral in exports.

Canvas Resize Tools

• Fit to Zones - One-click resize to fit all zones with padding
• Edge Drag Handles - 8 handles for direct canvas edge manipulation
• Content Bounds Indicator - Amber dashed rectangle showing zone bounding box

Scaffold Objects

Scaffold objects are the fixed content a template puts on every new board: a title, section headers, instructions, an example sticky note, framing shapes, or lines and arrows connecting zones. They're copied onto the board when it's created — changing a template's scaffold later doesn't alter boards that already exist.

Scaffold can include:

• Text — titles and helper text, in bold or regular, aligned left, centre or right. Text set to the automatic colour stays readable in both light and dark mode
• Sticky notes — worked examples showing people what to add
• Shapes — rectangles, circles and triangles for frames and markers
• Lines — straight or multi-segment, in any direction, solid or dashed, with optional arrowheads. Use them for diagonal dividers, connectors and flows between zones

Objects can be rotated and made semi-transparent, and scaffold is often locked so it stays in place — people can still unlock it on their own board if they need to (see Locked Objects in Real-Time Collaboration).

Scaffold objects are currently added by AI assistants through the MCP server or via the API — see below.

Building Templates with AI

Connected through the MCP Server, an AI assistant such as Claude can build a complete template from a plain-language description or a reference image: it lays out the zones, previews the result as an image to check it, creates the template, adds titles, lines and other scaffold, and can create a board from it for you to open. See Building Templates with Claude on the MCP Server page for example prompts and tips.

Customizing Templates ("Use as Starting Point")

You can clone any accessible template to create your own version:

1. On a template's card or detail page, click Customize
2. The form is pre-populated with "Copy of [name]", description, and all zones
3. Modify the name, zones, or canvas dimensions as needed
4. Click Save

The cloned template is always owned by you and set to private.

Sharing Templates

To share a template you made, open it, click Edit, and tick Share with everyone on this Yando. It gets a Shared badge and appears for everyone else under Shared by Others on the Templates page, where they can view it and see its preview. You can also ask an AI assistant connected through the MCP server to share or unshare it.

When someone clicks Use Template on a shared template, Yando gives them their own copy — named like "Value Proposition Canvas (from Alice)" — and opens board creation with the copy selected. Using it again reuses the same copy. Because everyone works from their own copy:

• Your later edits to the original never change anyone else's boards
• You can stop sharing or delete the original at any time without breaking boards made from it
• People can freely adapt their copy (Edit / Customize) without affecting yours

A template with layout errors (for example a zone that runs off the canvas) can't be shared until they're fixed.

Editing a Template That's in Use

A template's zones and canvas size are the layout of every board built from it, so changing them changes all of those boards. The zone editor lists the boards and asks you to tick Also change these boards before it saves such a change (renaming the template or editing its description never needs it); an AI assistant is refused until you've agreed. Open boards redraw straight away.

Renaming, moving, resizing or recolouring a zone keeps that zone's identity, so sticky notes on those boards stay in the zone. Deleting a zone moves the notes that were in it to unzoned — nothing is deleted, but they'll no longer be grouped under that zone in exports.

Changing One Board's Zones

To change the zones of just one board, open the board and click Edit this board's zones (the layout button in the board's header; also on the board's edit page, under Board Template). It's the template editor, showing the board's notes faded: move, resize, add or delete zones, then Save Layout. You can also ask your AI assistant — "add a Risks zone to this board".

The first such change gives the board its own copy of the layout: the template and your other boards are untouched. The board's notes follow their zones: move a zone and its notes move with it; resize it and they stay where they are, pulled back inside if they'd end up outside. Notes in a zone you delete stay where they are, outside any zone. Owners and editors of the board can do this, on every plan.

A board with its own layout says so on its edit page (Edit board, under Board Template): This board has its own layout, based on …. Later changes to the original template don't reach it. These copies don't appear in your template list; to reuse one, click Save as template there — it becomes an ordinary template you can build new boards from.

Template Switching on Existing Boards

When editing a board, you can change its template:

1. Open the board edit form
2. Select a new template from the dropdown
3. Confirm the change

Objects are remapped using:

1. Zone name matching (case-insensitive) - Objects stay in zones with the same name
2. Position-based fallback - Remaining objects are assigned by their canvas position

A success message shows remapping statistics (e.g., "5 by name, 3 by position, 2 scaled").