---
title: "Board's Design and Play Modes – Build & Preview Capsules Interactively"
slug: "design-and-play-mode"
description: "Learn how switching between Design Mode and Play Mode lets you build, test, and interact with Capsule elements, screens and logic to validate user flows before deployment."
tags: ["Capsule", "Developer", "Design Mode", "Play Mode", "Planner", "Power User"]
updated: 2026-08-06T12:25:23Z
published: 2026-08-06T12:25:23Z
canonical: "help.board.com/design-and-play-mode"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.board.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About Design and Play Modes

<editor360-custom-block data-preprocessing="true" data-sanitizationtags="h4"><blockquote data-block-id="mr4or8uu-9wj56b-002" class="errorBox" data-background="#f9e2e4" data-border="#7e1115" style="background:rgb(249, 226, 228);border-left:4px solid rgb(126, 17, 21);overflow:auto;"><h4 data-block-id="mr4or8uv-yhryn1-003" id="💡this-article-contains-version-changesspot-the-light-bulb-icon-that-means-youll-find-helpful-details-about-whats-changed-across-versions-read-more-about-version-changes-here">💡This article contains <strong>version changes.</strong></h4><p data-block-id="mudp9m9h-5tcvv4-003" id="spot-the-light-bulb-icon-that-means-youll-find-helpful-details-about-whats-changed-across-versions-read-more-about-version-changes-here">Spot the light bulb icon? That means you’ll find helpful details about what’s changed across versions. Read more about version changes <a href="/v15/docs/before-you-begin#how-to-navigate-this-knowledge-base" target="_self" translate="no" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p></blockquote></editor360-custom-block>

The Capsules section of Board offers two operating modes: **Play Mode** and **Design Mode**.

- When [**Play Mode**](/v1/docs/design-and-play-mode#capsules-in-play-mode) is active, you can only view and navigate through existing Capsules.
- When [**Design Mode**](/v1/docs/design-and-play-mode#capsules-in-design-mode) is active, you can create new Capsules or perform specific actions on existing Capsules.

## Switch between Design and Play Modes

You can easily switch between [Play Mode](/v15/docs/capsules-in-play-mode) and [Design Mode](/v15/docs/capsules-in-design-mode) by pressing the F4 key. Additionally, you can switch between these modes by clicking on the Play icon ( ![contents/assets/images/play.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-mvqz0kdr.png) ) located in the Top Menu of the Capsule workspace while in Design Mode and by clicking on the Design icon ![contents/assets/images/layout.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-kin6jnl3.png) located in the sliding menu while in Play Mode.

![contents/assets/images/sliding menu design mode.png](https://cdn.document360.io/8d6f1ae8-0cac-4d0d-a208-6245b83df94a/Images/Documentation/designnbspand-play-mode-image-6r3tufki.png)

> [!WARNING]
> Please note that Design and Play Mode in a Capsule are analogous to, but different from, [Edit and Play Mode in a Presentation](/v15/docs/edit-and-play-mode).

### 💡 Design Mode change tracking

In versions prior 15.0x and earlier, Design Mode change tracking is not available. This was introduced in 15.1.

Your changes are recognized when you switch to Design Mode from a Play Mode Screen that has applied changes. This prevents Power Users and Developers from saving unwanted Screen changes by mistake.

#### If changes are made before switching to Design Mode

A **warning toast appears** the first time you enter Design Mode if changes were made in Play Mode prompting you to save or discard changes.

The **"SAVE" and "DISCARD ALL"** buttons appear in the top bar immediately **after the switch** from Play to Design Mode if changes were made so you can review the changes before saving.

#### When “SAVE” and “DISCARD ALL” buttons appear

The "SAVE" and "DISCARD ALL" buttons also appear when **the Screen state (Design/Play Mode) changes** through:

- Go to Screen **actions** that keep the source selection.
- Drill-to-Screen **actions** on the target Screen.
- **Apply Selection to Screen** and Block Procedure **actions**.
- **Go To Previous Screen actions** that **restore** a previous Screen state.
- Loading the Screen from the browser history.

A Board Capsule is a free, unstructured environment for ad-hoc analysis. It is essentially a container of Screens and Procedures where users build, view and export business reports, charts, data tables, and navigation flows that dynamically query the underlying Data Models.

In practice, a Capsule is the closest thing to what other software platforms might call an application or workspace.

This makes Capsules both a packaging unit for Board applications and the day-to-day environment through which Planners can interact with analysis, planning, and forecasting.

The Capsules are designed and configured in *Design Mode* by users with a Developer license, and operated with execution-time selections and filters in *Play Mode* by users with a Planner license.

"Go to Screen" is a drill/navigation mode that opens a target Screen (in the same or a new browser tab) when a user double-clicks a Member or clicks the drill icon on a Block, rather than drilling down within the same object or switching hierarchy levels. It does not inherit the original Data View’s selection; the target Screen opens fresh (though Screen Select rules still apply).

A Drill-to-Screen is a configured drill action that opens a different Screen within the same Capsule, applying a Selection filter based on the drilled Entity member or the cell context (row and column intersection) to the target Screen.

The target Screen can be opened in the same tab or a new tab, and existing Screen Selections can be inherited or overwritten.

A Procedure is a configurable sequence of Actions (or Steps), structured into logical groups, used to perform tasks such as calculations, data import, exports, navigation, or model updates.

The Actions are categorized into Action Groups relating to Board constructs (e.g. Data Reader, Calculation, Selection, Screen) and optionally include conditional flows (Go to group, Call Procedure) to structure complex process logics.

Procedures can be saved either at the Capsule level or the Data Model level. Capsule Procedures can act across multiple Data Models but only be invoked from that Capsule, whereas Data Model Procedures act only on that Data Model but can be scheduled or invoked by multiple Capsules.