Mural is the go-to resource for online collaboration, and our platform is designed to maximize creativity. To help you get the most out of Mural, here are some best practices to set your team up for success.

As with any web app, there are a few things that can impact your Mural experience. From the web browser you’re using to your internet connection speed, here are a few best practices that will help you streamline your time using Mural.

Some browsers work better for Mural than others. You can find a full list of supported browsers in our technical requirements article. There, you’ll also find details on using our native apps, which can be downloaded on iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.

Your internet connection speed can play a role in Mural’s performance. Your experience in collaboration sessions will be different with an internet connection speed of 100Mbps vs. 5Mbps. This is especially important if your murals have a large number of objects (images, embedded documents, sticky notes, shapes, etc.) or images with large file sizes.

If you are accessing Mural using a corporate network or VPN, your IT department may need to have Mural allowlisted to prevent firewalls from blocking your access. With any VPN, your internet connection is most likely passing through a series of security measures, which can sometimes impact your experience when using Mural.

If you’ve adhered to the above best practices and are still experiencing issues, here are some collaboration best practices that can help you if you have a slower connection or an older computer/browser.

Mural can handle hundreds of concurrent collaborators, up to the threshold of 1,000. This limit is necessary to maintain performance and smooth collaboration for your collaborators.

It's important to note that Mural shifts to a simplified experience at 500 concurrent collaborators. This is called crowd optimization. Mural's crowd optimization is a built-in, automatic feature that adjusts certain settings to ensure sessions run smoothly.

Also, be mindful that some collaborators may have less powerful computers than others, or may even join from their mobile device. Keeping your mural lightweight will help all participants have the best experience.

Generally, actions taken at the same time by collaborators can impact performance for any application that offers real-time collaboration. For example, if 200 people are trying to add a sticky note at the same time, you’re more likely to see a slow-down in performance than if 20 collaborators are trying to add a sticky note. As you plan a meeting or workshop, you may want to consider ways to split up concurrent actions into smaller groups.

Another contributing factor to Mural lag time is multiple people using the drawing feature at the same time. When 20+ participants are drawing at once, there is a higher chance of a delay. We recommend using the drawing feature with groups smaller than 20 for best results, or using the drawing feature inside sticky notes instead of drawing straight on the mural.

Adding multiple objects at once can also affect performance, as can duplicating lots of objects at once. Instead, we recommend adding and duplicating objects one at a time while collaborating with larger groups.

If you're planning to lock most of your content in a mural while running a session with a lot of people, here’s a quick tip: Add the content you plan to lock to a different mural. Then, export that mural as a PNG. Once the image of the mural is ready, upload it to your original mural as a background. This will keep the content in place while you run your session, all while helping Mural perform as intended for large groups.

If you are running a session with over 20 participants, we recommend that collaborators refrain from using large GIF files.

As always, if you run into any performance issues in Mural, please reach out to our Customer Support team.