Ideation is designed around the singular principle of soliciting and gathering ideas and feedback from your users.
Benefits
- Admins can keep users in the loop about their submissions via default and/or custom status labels
- Users can vote and comment on submissions to help crowd-source the best ideas
Common use-case
- User groups that solicit product feature ideas - Ideation gives these organizations a central place to gather and nurture feedback to better align their product road map with user-requested ideas and features.
Enable the Ideation addon
📝 NOTE: The Ideation addon is only available at the Essential and higher tier plans.
To enable Ideation:
- Access the Dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings > Addons > Addons.
- Click to slide the Ideation toggle to the right.
📝 NOTE: If the Ideation addon isn't available, contact Vanilla Support to enable it.
Idea Categories
⚠️ IMPORTANT: Idea Categories are only applicable if your community is configured to use Legacy Create Post Layouts (see image below).
- If your community uses legacy layouts, follow the steps in this section to configure your desired Categories as Idea Categories. Note that Idea Categories can only support Idea posts; other post types, like discussions and questions, can only be made in non-Idea Categories.
- If your community uses custom layouts, you have more flexibility: When the Custom Create Post Layouts option is enabled, custom Post Types become available, and your Categories can now support any combination of Post Types you want (discussion, question, idea, poll, and any custom types). See Custom Post Types to learn more.
If Ideation is enabled and you're using legacy Create Post layouts, follow the steps below to create idea-based Categories.
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Posts > Categories.
3. Click the Add Category button.
4. Check the Idea Category box.
5. Optionally, if you'd like users to be able to downvote ideas, check the Use Down Votes box (by default, users can only upvote ideas).
6. Configure the other Category options as desired (make sure to set the Display As option to Discussions so that users can post ideas in this Category.
7. When finished, click Save to create the Idea Category.
Notes
- Existing non-ideation Categories cannot be changed to Idea Categories.
- Once a Category is created as an Idea Category, it cannot be changed to a regular category
- By default, all ideas can be upvoted. When a user clicks to upvote an idea, +1 is added to its Ideation score.
Idea statuses
A status can be assigned to each idea to inform users of the "state" of the idea.
- Open - indicates that the Idea can be voted on.
- Closed - indicates that the Idea cannot be voted on.
Ideation includes the following out-of-the-box statuses:
- Active
- Already Offered
- Declined
- Completed
- In Progress
- In Review
You're free to rename and repurpose these statuses, and even create your own, to meet your Vanilla community's needs.
Access idea statuses
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings > Discussions > Idea Statuses.
On this page, you can:
- edit and delete existing statuses
- create additional statuses
📝 NOTE: You must have the Garden > Settings > Manage permission to manage statuses.
Create a status
1. Click Add Status.
2. In the dialog, give the status a name that properly indicates its purpose.
3. Select Open or Closed to set whether ideas in this status can be voted on.
4. Optionally check the Default Status box to make this the default status for all new ideas.
5. Click Save to create the status.
Edit and delete statuses
- Click the pencil icon to edit a status. You can update its name, open or close voting on ideas belonging to the status, and set a status as the default when creating ideas.
- Click the trashcan icon to delete a status, followed by Okay in the confirmation popup.
📝 NOTE: You cannot delete the status set as the default (notice the missing trashcan icon for the Active status below).
📝 NOTE: By default, Active is the default status for new ideas (you're free to choose any status as the default). Make sure a default is always selected, as not doing so may result in unexpected behavior.
Change an idea’s status
📝 NOTE: You need the Garden.Moderation.Manage permission in order to change an idea's status.
1. Navigate to an idea page.
2. Click the (...) menu and select Edit Idea Status.
3. In the resulting dialog, select a new status from the menu, and optionally provide an explanation for the change (e.g., if changing from In Progress to Complete, let users know when they can expect the new feature to be available).
📝 NOTE: Changing an idea’s status will trigger notifications to the idea author and any idea voters, if these notifications are enabled for their accounts.
Flat vs. Nested comments
Your community's configured layout determines how comments display in a post.
- If using Legacy Post Layouts, comments display in a flat structure.
- If using Custom Post Layouts, comments can display either in a flat or nested structure by configuring the Comment Thread widget. A nested structure is shown in the image below.
Check out this article to learn more about these layouts.
Sort & filter ideas
When viewing an Idea Category, you can sort and filter the listed ideas to make it easier to find what you're looking for.
✔️ TIP: You can use both a Sort and Filter option to refine the list even further.
Sort ideas
Choose a Sort option to list its associated ideas at the top of the list.
- Hot - Ideas with the most comments and the most points
- Top - Ideas with the most upvotes
- New - Latest ideas posted
Filter ideas
Choose a Filter option to refine the list by a specific status or to only ideas with voting open/closed.
Ideation + gamification
- Users submitting ideas will receive +1 point for each upvote their idea receives.
- Ideation uses upvotes, which are associated with the "Up Votes" set of Badges. Users can also upvote Reactions, though, so if you'd like these badges to only be earned by users who upvote ideas, we recommend turning OFF upvotes for Reactions.
Additional resources
Click the link below to access a video expanding on what you learned in this article.
