We're now coming to the end of 2021 and the end of our Early Access phase. Thank you to all you early adopters who subscribed this year to support the development of Metro Retro, and welcome to everyone who started an Early Access trial!

This release has a range of updates across the tool, not least the Christmas decorations. We're not sure if we're more excited for Christmas or the official launch of Metro Retro v2 early next year! Until then, here's the updates in full:

Christmas Mode!

Christmas decorations have been applied to everyone's boards. This can be turned off from the Settings - enable 'Scrooge Mode' to hide them. There is also a three-part Christmas retrospective template for you to use with your team:

New templates

We've been adding new templates to the tool in the last month, and plan to add many more soon. Use the comment box to let us know what templates you would like to see in Metro Retro!

Picture templates:

• Big Christmas Retro
• The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
• Three Little Pigs
• Ishikawa (Fishbone) diagram

Other retro formats:

• Wishes, Risks, Appreciation, Puzzles
• Keep, Problems, Try
• I Like, I Wish, What If

Other collaboration templates:

• Crazy 8's sketching
• Collaborative Drawing icebreakers
• MoSCoW prioritization
• Monthly Calendar

Tutorials And Guides

There are 4 new tutorial boards to learn from - from the basics through to advanced facilitation. Find these in the Help Menu or in Templates.

Invite team members by email

You can now invite team members to your Organization Account by email, from inside a workspace or in the Admin area.

Admin Approvals

If there is an invite made to new people whose email address doesn't match your security settings, an Admin will need to approve the invite request. They will be notified by email.

Usability updates to the Dashboard

1. Recent Boards now shows when you last visited a board, and the workspace it is in.
2. Workspace lists are collapsible.
3. When cloning a board, you can now move it to another workspace in one action.

Object manipulation updates

A few updates to make editing the board layout easier:

1. Hold shift when rotating a shape for easier alignment.
2. Hold shift when moving a shape to move it along its horizontal or vertical axis only.
3. Hold the Alt key and drag from an object to create a clone.
4. Press the 1 or 2 number keys when you have multiple items selected to arrange them vertically or horizontally.
5. Shapes and images can now be set to ‘contain’ other items, or not. This setting means they can either contain either objects or be a flat shape.
6. Resizing shapes no longer affects the objects inside them

Embed Videos in boards

Embed videos into boards by pasting the link directly into the board. This works for YouTube videos and videos hosted elsewhere. You can see examples of embedded videos in the Tutorial boards.

Emoticons in shapes

Shapes can now have emoticons in them - this is the same mechanism as tokens. Double click a shape and type one of the 50 custom emoticons. Try typing <:-) in a shape.

Adjust thickness of marker pen with number keys

Using number keys 1-8 will adjust the marker pen thickness when it is equipped.