Use online presence

Presence shows who is with you right now

Online presence helps live collaboration feel less blind. It can show who is currently in the canvas or shared work, where they are looking, and whether someone is active outside your current view. During a review, that tells you whether people are actually looking at the same section before you start discussing it.

Presence is a current-state signal. It is not an audit log and should not be used to prove who accessed something in the past. For historical changes, use Activity where available.

Presence is most useful when paired with other collaboration tools. Use it to see who is in the work, use follow behavior to stay oriented, use chat or a call to coordinate live, and use comments when the outcome must remain attached to the work.

Availability and permissions

Where presence appears

Presence usually appears inside collaborative work, especially canvases. Look for collaborator avatars, cursor labels, page indicators, offscreen markers, or a presence list near the canvas header or collaboration controls.

Presence can also support follow behavior, live calls, chat, comments, and workshops. See Follow a teammate, Use canvas chat, Use audio/video calls, and Use live collaboration in canvas.

What presence signals mean

Use presence during live work

In a workshop, ask participants to open the canvas and wait until their avatars appear. Use page presence or cursors to confirm everyone is in the right place.

In a design review, use cursor and offscreen indicators to follow the part of the canvas someone is discussing. If they are moving through the canvas quickly, use follow behavior where available.

In a client session, use presence to confirm the client entered the shared canvas before starting the walkthrough. If the client cannot appear, troubleshoot access before assuming the call is the problem.

In a large canvas, presence tells you where people are, but it does not explain the structure of the work. Use page names, section labels, direct links, and comments so people can follow the discussion without relying only on cursors.

Privacy and visibility notes

Presence is visible to people who are in the shared work at the same time and have permission to open it. It does not make private work visible to people without access.

Guests and external collaborators may appear with the name or identity available from their entry flow. If you need a durable record of decisions, use comments, snapshots, activity, or meeting notes instead of relying on presence.

Presence can be reduced or delayed by network conditions, device performance, browser throttling, app backgrounding, or a lost live connection. It is a guide for collaboration, not a compliance record.

On lower-performance devices or during heavy pan and zoom gestures, cursor and off-screen details may be simplified so the canvas remains usable. If presence feels delayed, use a page link, object link, comment link, chat message, or call instruction to keep the session moving.

Common mistakes

Do not treat presence as proof that someone reviewed the work. They may have opened the canvas briefly or been on another page.

Do not assume someone has access because you see their name in an old comment. Presence shows current live entry, while comment history shows past collaboration.

Do not use Team chat or a call to ask “Where are you?” when presence can answer it. Use the avatar, cursor, page signal, or follow action first.

Do not rely on presence for access audits. Use admin and activity evidence where available.

Recover when presence looks wrong

If a teammate is in the call but not appearing in the canvas, ask them to open the exact canvas link and confirm they are signed in with the right account.

If their cursor or avatar freezes, ask them to refresh the canvas. If they are in the desktop app, a normal refresh or app restart can restore live state.

If a guest does not appear, check whether they actually entered the shared work or are stuck on an access request, sign-in, or name entry screen. See Invite guests and external collaborators for the outside-access flow.

If presence works for some people but not others, compare browser, app, network, and permission state. When reporting to support, include the canvas link, affected users, time, and whether comments or editing still worked.