Help & Tutorials

How to add new clients to FrameShare

Before you can plan sessions with someone, add them as a client. This takes less than a minute.

Adding a client

1. Click Clients in the menu on the left.
2. Click the Add client button at the top right.
3. Type the person's first name and last name. The email address is optional.
4. Click Save. Done — the person now appears in your client list.

Adding many clients at once

Do you have a whole list of people — a class, a workshop group? You don't have to type them in one by one.

1. On the Clients page, click Import multiple clients.
2. Click Download the Excel template. A small Excel file lands on your computer — open it.
3. Fill in one row per person: first name, last name, and email (the email may stay empty). Add as many rows as you like, then save the file.
4. Back in FrameShare, click Upload your filled-in file and choose the file you just saved.
5. FrameShare first shows you what it found — for example “12 clients will be created” and which rows it will skip and why (an email address that is already in your client list is skipped automatically). Nothing happens yet.
6. If it looks right, click Import. Done — everyone appears in your client list.

Inviting a client to FrameShare

Your clients never need an account — they can always join your sessions through the links you send them. But a client with their own login gets more out of FrameShare: they can log in with their email, see all their sessions in one place, look at their own artwork, use the calendar, and receive session reminder emails with the join links — so you don't have to send every link by hand.

1. On the Clients page, click the client to open their file.
2. If they don't have a login yet, you will see a box called “Not yet a FrameShare user” right under their profile.
3. Click Send access invite. The client receives an email with a link to choose their own password.
4. That's it. From then on they log in at FrameShare with their email address. The box disappears from their file once they have logged in.

If the button is grayed out, the client has no email address yet — click Edit at the top of their file and add one first.

Good to know

• Your clients do not need an account or a password. They join your sessions through a link that you send them — more about that in “How to start and schedule sessions”. The invite above is optional extra comfort, not a requirement.
• Do you work with couples or families? First add each person as a client, then go to the Groups tab on the same page and click Create group. Give the group a name (for example “Miller family”) and tick its members. When you schedule a session you can then pick the whole group at once.

What are sessions?

A session is the digital version of working together with a client — everything in one place: the canvas with the artwork, your therapist notes, the chat messages, and any attached files.

You can start a quick session right now, or schedule one for a time in the future. On the whiteboard they are identical — same tools, same features. The difference is who they are connected to:

• Scheduled session — the participants are your FrameShare clients (see “How to add new clients”). Each client receives an invitation email with their personal join link, and the session is stored in that client's file. Use this when you want all activity and every session tracked and kept together with a particular client.
• Quick session — starts right away, and anybody you send the link to can join. No account, no client file needed. Use this for spontaneous work — but note that it is not linked to a particular client.

Rule of thumb: want everything on record with a client? Schedule it. Just want to draw together right now with anyone? Quick session.

How to start and schedule sessions

There are two ways to work with someone on the whiteboard: start right now, or plan ahead.

Start right now: the quick session

Perfect when someone is with you or you want to draw immediately.

1. Click Sessions in the menu on the left.
2. Click the Quick session button at the top right.
3. Give it a name if you like, then confirm. You now see a link — a line of text that opens the whiteboard.
4. Click Copy and send the link to your client any way you like — email, text message, WhatsApp. Anyone who opens the link joins your whiteboard. No account needed.
5. Click Open whiteboard to start drawing yourself.

Plan ahead: the scheduled session

1. On the Sessions page, click Schedule session. Tip: you can also simply click a free spot in the calendar — the date and time are then already filled in.
2. Give the session a name, for example “Weekly check-in”.
3. Pick a date and time. This is where the session appears in your calendar. Don't worry — the time is not a lock. You and your clients can open the session earlier or later; it is simply your plan.
4. Tick who takes part under Participants. If you made a group (a couple, a family), tick the group and all its members are added in one go.
5. Want FrameShare to do the inviting? Tick Send email invites — every participant with an email address automatically gets an email with the date and their personal join link. If someone has no email in their file, FrameShare tells you right there, and you simply send them their link yourself.
6. Click Create session.

One time, or every week?

For a regular appointment you don't have to create the same session again and again. In the scheduling window, under Recurrent sessions, tick “Repeat this session at this time every week” and choose how many weeks — for example 10. FrameShare then puts the session in your calendar 10 times, always on the same day at the same time. Each one is its own session, so you can delete or change a single week without touching the others. With Send email invites ticked, each participant gets one email listing all the dates with their links — not ten separate emails.

How do clients get in?

Every participant gets their own invite link. Click the session in your calendar and you will see a Copy link button next to each name. Send each person their link — when they open it, they land straight on the whiteboard. The links keep working until you close the session, so a client can also work in it later at home.

Continuing sessions, homework & open sessions

Sessions stay open

A session does not end on its own — it stays open until you close it. The join links keep working, so you and your clients can come back to the same whiteboard at any time, using the same links you find on the session page. This is useful when time ran out and you want to pick up where you stopped, or when you want a client to keep working on their own — for example as homework between meetings.

Closing a session

When a session is truly finished, open its page and click Close session. This locks the session: nobody can join anymore, all join links stop working, and FrameShare computes the final analysis of the session. A closed session stays fully visible to you — artwork, notes, chat and analytics are all kept.

Continuing in a new session

Sometimes you want to build on earlier work but keep the meetings separate. On the session page, click Continue this session. FrameShare creates a new session that starts from the existing picture — with its own scheduled time, its own analysis and its own data. The original session stays untouched. Use this when you want to continue previous work but treat every meeting as its own record — for example for billing or record keeping.

Which one do I want?

• Same work, same record: just keep using the open session and its links.
• Same work, separate records: close the session, then use Continue this session for the next meeting.

How to look at your session data

Everything that happens in a session is kept for you: the artwork, the chat, and how actively people drew. Here is how to look back at any session.

Opening a past session

There are two easy ways — both start on the Sessions page:

• From the calendar: go back to the week or month of the session and click its entry. A small window opens with a summary. Click Go to session page to see everything.
• From the list: below the calendar you find All sessions, newest first. You can search by the client's name or the session's name. Click the session to open the same summary, then Go to session page.

Tip: a session that belongs to one client is also listed in that client's file — open Clients, click the client, and you see all their sessions and notes in one timeline.

What the session page shows you

• Artwork — a picture of each canvas as it was left. You can download any of them as an image file.
• Activity — click Compute analytics and FrameShare counts it up for you: how long people actually drew, how many strokes, who was active, and charts of colors and tools used.
• Chat log — everything that was written in the session chat.
• Session notes — your own notes about the meeting. You can add to them or change them at any time.
• Participants — who was invited, with a marker showing whether they used their link.

Continuing where you left off

Want to pick up an old drawing in a new meeting? On the session page, click Continue this session. FrameShare creates a fresh session that starts with the finished picture as its background — the original stays untouched, so you can always compare then and now.

Tags & labels

Tags are small colored labels that you stick on clients, groups and sessions — for example Urgent, New Patient, First Session or Homework. They help you see at a glance what needs your attention, and you can filter your lists by them. Your tags are private: no other therapist can ever see them.

Creating your tags

1. Click Settings in the menu on the left, then Labels & Tags.
2. Click New tag.
3. Type a short name — for example “Urgent” — and click one of the color circles. The little preview shows exactly how the tag will look.
4. Click Create tag. Make as many tags as you like — you can rename, recolor or delete any of them here later. Deleting a tag removes it everywhere it was used; the clients and sessions themselves are not affected.

Putting a tag on a session

1. On the Sessions page, click the session to open its page.
2. Under the session name, click + Tags (or Edit tags if it already has some).
3. You now see all your tags: click a gray one to add it, click a colored one to take it off again. Click Done when you are finished.

Putting a tag on a client or a group

Works exactly the same way: open Clients, click the client (or the group on the Groups tab) to open their file, and click + Tags under their name.

Where you see your tags

• In the client list and group list, next to each name.
• In the session list, next to each session.
• In the calendar, on the session entries — on very short entries there may not be room, but the tag is always on the session page itself.

If something carries more than three tags, the lists show the first three and a small “+1” for the rest.

Filtering by tag

As soon as at least one item in a list carries a tag, a Filter: row with your tags appears above it — on the Sessions page (it works for the list and the calendar at the same time) and on the Clients page. Click a tag to show only the items that carry it; click it again to switch the filter off. You can select several tags at once — you then see everything that carries at least one of them. Tip: the search box finds tag names too.