Digital whiteboarding dates back to 1996 during the early days of modern digital display systems. It replaces the older physical world of dry-erase boards and markers with easy digital interfaces where users can draw or see shapes, notes and other visual elements of a plan. For example, a team may use digital whiteboarding to label parts of a business process, including stakeholders, equipment, tasks, etc., and represent some of them as files or folders. Other features of whiteboarding environments may include digital "post-it" notes or "sticky notes" for adding additional comments.

Some types of video conferencing tools provide whiteboarding resources as a way to allow for different types of collaborative work. These types of data visualization help users see more about a project at a glance and plan accordingly.