Just Launched! — More Intelligent Voting on Ideas
February 2, 2017

Just Launched! — More Intelligent Voting on Ideas

by Jessica Groff

More, more, more. It seems like everywhere you look, people want more. And this is particularly true when it comes to customers and feature requests. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. When customers have feedback, it is a good sign they are passionate about your product. So, listen to the voice of your users.

Now, typically we would argue against limiting people’s ability to provide feedback. But when it comes to prioritizing customer ideas, deciding how many votes each person gets can be the way to go.

Vote allocation encourages people to think deeply about what matters most to them. This enhancement clearly mattered to many of you — it was one of the most popular ideas in our own ideas portal.

That is why today we introduced the ability to customize voting options in ideas portals. You can now set the number of votes that each user is allocated and even determine the number of votes that can be applied to a single idea.

Some users may choose to apply more than one of their votes to an idea that they think is critical and others may distribute them more evenly. Either way, setting that quota forces tough trade-offs and thoughtful decisions — compared to when users have an endless supply of votes. And when an idea that a user voted on is shipped, they get their vote back to advocate for another idea.

Here is how it works:

Capture ideas from customers, employees, and partners Capture ideas by creating a branded ideas portal with your own custom domain. Allow your users — customers, employees, or partners — to submit and vote on features. Their input will help you prioritize the best ideas on your product roadmap.

Create a custom-branded ideas portal with your own styles, colors, and logo.

Set vote limits per user Setting vote allocations forces customers to communicate which ideas are most important to them. With a limited number of votes, you will encourage more focused voting and fewer people voting on every idea in the portal. But you determine how many votes you allocate to users when you enable vote limits in Aha!

Control the number of votes allocated to each user.

Allow multiple votes per idea Give customers a bigger voice on the ideas they consider to be most valuable. You can do this by selecting the option to allow a single idea to be voted on by a user multiple times. If you choose to configure this option, an idea can receive between one and 10 votes from a single person.

Get a sense of how passionate customers are about an idea by enabling vote weighting.

Promote ideas to your roadmap Now that you know which ideas your customers and partners care about, you can easily prioritize new ideas and promote the best features to your roadmap. And since Aha! is a tightly integrated idea and product management system, this happens with a single action.

Ensure the best ideas make it onto your product roadmap.

Easy configuration Administrators can configure ideas portals to set limits per user and per idea. However, if you are just starting out in Aha! or have limited users, ideas, or activity, it is unlikely that adding limits will be useful. But if you have a very active portal and you ship new functionality regularly, creating a framework that encourages customers to cast their votes wisely is beneficial.

If you do have a portal already, it is also possible to apply vote limits. However, you should note that in this case some users may have already voted above the limit you set. So be careful. These users would be blocked from voting until they remove their votes or until other ideas they voted on have shipped.

Indicate the total number of votes per person and maximum votes per idea.

Override vote limits We all have VIP customers who deserve special consideration. For these customers, you can override vote limits for even more flexibility. You probably will not need to use this feature often, but it is there in case you need to give some customers or partners more votes than others. To adjust vote allocation per user, navigate to Settings Account Configure idea portals Portal users Select the user.

Easily override the max number of votes per person.

Aha! provides a fully branded idea management solution to give organizations a place to bring customers, employees, and other partners to the innovation table. Great ideas come from everywhere. Make sure you are capturing them.

And now you have even more control over your idea portals and how your users provide input. This means it is easier to prioritize great ideas on your roadmap and keep everyone (including your product team) happy.

Sign up for a free Aha! trial — be happy Idea portals intelligent voting is available to all Aha! customers. If you are not already an Aha! customer, you may want to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Aha! now to see why over 50,000 users trust Aha! to set product strategy, create visual roadmaps, and prioritize releases and features.

Jessica Groff

Jessica Groff

Jessica was a product marketing manager at Aha! — the world’s #1 product development software.

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