About the Ideas Module
The Ideas Module is a collaborative platform that enables portal users to share, review, and collaborate on innovative suggestions for products, services, or processes. Users can post ideas, participate in discussions through voting and commenting, and track the progress of submitted ideas through administrative review processes. Administrators can evaluate submitted ideas and provide status updates to indicate whether ideas will be considered for implementation or delivery.
Core Functionality
Idea Submission and Management
Portal users can create detailed idea posts that include titles, descriptions, and category assignments. The system supports rich text formatting within idea descriptions, allowing users to include images, formatted text, and other multimedia content to clearly communicate their suggestions. Ideas can be organized using customizable categories that administrators configure to align with organizational needs and business objectives.
Community Collaboration Features
The Ideas Module fosters community engagement through interactive voting and commenting systems. Users can vote on ideas using thumbs up or thumbs down buttons to express support or disagreement with submitted suggestions. The voting system is permanent - once a user casts a vote, they cannot modify or remove their decision. Community members can also engage through detailed comments, offering additional perspectives, suggestions for improvement, or supporting information that enhances the original idea.
Content Moderation and Reporting
The platform includes comprehensive abuse reporting capabilities that allow users to flag inappropriate ideas or comments for administrative review. When content is reported, administrators can evaluate the reported material and determine appropriate actions, including marking content as resolved if it meets community standards or archiving content that violates community guidelines.
Administrative Management
Idea Review Status System
Administrators can track and manage idea progression through a structured review status system that provides transparency about idea evaluation and implementation planning. The review status options include:
Not Reviewed: The idea post has not yet been evaluated by administrators and remains in the initial submission state.
Under Consideration: The idea post has been reviewed by administrators, but no final decision has been made regarding implementation or delivery timeline.
Not Planned: The idea post has been thoroughly reviewed and evaluated, but will not be implemented or delivered based on current organizational priorities and resources.
Planned for Delivery: The idea post has been approved for implementation and is scheduled for development or delivery according to organizational roadmaps.
Delivered: The idea post has been successfully implemented and delivered, representing completed enhancement or feature development.
Idea Categories
Idea Categories serve as organizational tags that facilitate navigation, filtering, and grouping of related ideas. Categories can be created and managed by administrators to reflect organizational structure, product lines, or functional areas relevant to the community. Ideas can be assigned to categorize during submission or updated by users with appropriate permissions. The categorization system supports efficient content discovery and helps users locate relevant ideas within specific topic areas.
Categories have specific configuration requirements including a maximum length of 80 characters for category names and system validation to prevent duplicate category creation. This ensures consistent naming conventions and avoids organizational confusion within the Ideas Module.
Module Capabilities
The Ideas Module offers comprehensive features and configuration options including:
Content Creation Tools: Rich text editing capabilities with multimedia support for detailed idea descriptions and compelling presentations.
Voting System: Community-driven voting mechanisms that provide quantitative feedback on idea popularity and support levels.
Comment System: Threaded discussion capabilities that enable detailed community feedback and collaborative idea refinement.
Category Management: Flexible organizational structure through customizable categories that align with business needs.
Review Workflow: Administrative tools for idea evaluation, status tracking, and implementation planning.
Custom Field Support: Configurable custom fields that can be added to idea posts for enhanced data collection and organization.
Abuse Reporting: Community moderation tools that maintain content quality and adherence to community standards.
Email Notifications: Configurable notification systems that keep stakeholders informed about idea activity, status changes, and community engagement.
Banner Configuration: Customizable banner sections with visual branding elements, promotional messaging, and call-to-action buttons.
Social Sharing: Integration capabilities that allow ideas to be shared across external social media platforms for broader community engagement.
Integration Features
Security and Access Control
Role-Based Permissions: Integration with Security Role permissions enables granular access control for idea creation, editing, voting, commenting, and administrative management functions.
Time-Limited Editing: Configurable edit periods that allow idea authors to modify their submissions within specified timeframes while maintaining content integrity.
Administrative Override: Administrator capabilities that extend beyond standard user permissions for comprehensive idea management and moderation.
Module Customization
Banner Customization: Administrators can configure banner sections with custom images (recommended size 1920x400 pixels), headings (40 character maximum), and messages (90 character maximum) for branded user experience.
Field Layout Configuration: Flexible layout options that allow administrators to add custom fields including checkboxes, currency fields, dates, email addresses, phone numbers, URLs, and various text field types to capture specific information relevant to organizational needs.
Email Template Integration: Configurable email notification templates for various idea-related activities including new comments, votes, and status updates.
Common Use Cases
Innovation Management
Product Development: Centralized collection of product enhancement suggestions from employees, partners, and customers with systematic evaluation processes.
Process Improvement: Community-driven identification of operational improvements and efficiency enhancements across organizational workflows.
Feature Requests: Structured collection and evaluation of software feature requests with transparent status communication.
Community Engagement
Employee Engagement: Internal innovation platforms that encourage employee participation in organizational improvement initiatives.
Customer Feedback: External feedback collection systems that enable customers to suggest product improvements and service enhancements.
Partner Collaboration: Collaborative platforms for channel partners to suggest business development opportunities and partnership improvements.
Knowledge Management
Best Practice Sharing: Collaborative identification and documentation of effective practices and innovative solutions across teams and departments.
Continuous Improvement: Systematic collection and evaluation of improvement suggestions that support organizational learning and development.
Strategic Planning: Community input collection for strategic initiatives and organizational direction setting.
Best Practices
Category Strategy: Design logical category structures that align with organizational workflows and user understanding for intuitive navigation and content organization.
Review Process: Establish clear review workflows with defined timelines and communication protocols to maintain community engagement and trust.
Community Guidelines: Develop comprehensive community standards and moderation policies that promote constructive feedback and professional discourse.
Status Communication: Provide regular status updates and transparent communication about idea evaluation processes to maintain community participation.
Integration Planning: Consider integration with existing organizational systems and workflows to maximize idea implementation effectiveness.
The Ideas Module provides essential innovation management and community engagement capabilities that support organizational improvement, customer feedback collection, and collaborative problem-solving across your entire portal ecosystem.
See more:
Ideas Checklist >>