Traditionally, organizations use discussions to prompt member engagement. However, this is not ideal for managing user ideas (e.g., suggestions) because, over time, discussion threads about ideas (coupled with the associated comments and feedback) can become difficult to manage, especially if similar ideas (each with its own comments and feedback) get spread across dozens of discussion threads.

Ultimately, this mingling of discussions and idea suggestions makes cultivating and managing those ideas time consuming and difficult.

Higher Logic Thrive Community (Thrive Community) offers the Ideation module to help you combat this issue. Ideation is designed on a single, but multi-purpose, principle:

• to solicit and gather ideas and suggestions from your members;
• to allow users to view those ideas and suggestions;
• to simplify the process of providing feedback (comment and vote) on those ideas and suggestions;
• to have the ideas and suggestions in a central location that where they can be easily managed.

The Ideation home page (shown below) is the central location in your community for the exchange and discussion of your users' ideas and suggestions.

On this page, your Admins and your users can engage with your community's Ideation.

• Users can:
  • submit ideas via the Create button right on the page,
  • organize their idea submissions in Categories,
  • associate their idea submissions to a Community, and
  • vote on and comment on other users' idea submissions.
• Admins can:
  • edit and delete submitted ideas, and
  • update a submitted idea's status.

There's more information about this page in the section, Ideation home page, below.

Watch the video

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Common use cases

If you're wondering whether you can benefit from the Ideation module, consider the following use cases.

• User groups solicit product-feature ideas - Ideation gives organizations a central place to gather and nurture feedback to better align their product road map with user-requested ideas and features.
• Associations request event-session ideas for conferences - Ideation gives these associations an opportunity to deliver the sessions and content that their members want.

Ideation features & benefits

The Ideation module benefits the entire community by offering:

• a centralized location, the Ideation home page, where all ideas-related conversations take place.
• a feedback mechanism by which all community users can express their opinions of and thoughts on an idea.

Admin benefits

• Admins can control who can view and submit ideas
• Admins can create custom Categories to organize ideas
• Admins can create custom Status labels to communicate what's happening with an idea
• Admins can customize the module's name to suit their organization (e.g., Product Feedback instead of Ideation)

User benefits

• When a user searches for ideas, the system displays existing, submitted ideas as the user types characters into the search field. The search function:
  • queries the titles and descriptions of existing ideas,
  • makes it easier to find existing ideas,
  • reduces the likelihood of duplicate idea submissions, and
  • has a link that users can click to post their idea, if they don't find an existing matching idea.
• Users can vote and comment on submissions
• Users can submit their ideas anonymously (if enabled)
• Users can include file attachments with their ideas

Ideation home page

The Ideation home page displays up to 12 of the most recent ideas. Submitted ideas display as "cards" with a title and summary which simplifies understanding the submission.

Above the cards are search and filter options that make it easier to find a specific idea or several ideas that have something in common.

Search

• Type at least three characters into the search field to initiate the search functionality.
• Matching ideas display in a dropdown list and can be clicked.

Filter

Use the filter dropdowns to refine the ideas that display. You can filter by:

• Community
• Category
• Status
• Most Recently Added which is the top-most of several miscellaneous filtering options; click the dropdown to see the full list.

Click Apply to refresh the idea cards that display.

Click Clear to remove the filtering and restore the original listing of cards.

Idea cards

Information about each idea displays on its card, such as:

• its Status,
• its title and description,
• who submitted it and when,
• its associated Categories and Community, and
• the numbers of votes and comments.

Users can vote right on an idea card by clicking the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon.

Idea navigation

Click the page buttons at the bottom to access additional pages (if there are any) of idea submissions.

Ideation management

Users with Ideation-management permissions will see an ellipsis icon (...) at the top of the Ideation card and can use the options to edit, delete, pin, and change the status of an idea. Learn more about Ideation Settings.

NOTE: Higher Logic gives Admins the ability to "reindex" much of your community content, including Ideas. Reindexing is simply "refreshing" the content, similar to reloading a page in a web browser.

To learn about reindexing content in your community (e.g., who can reindex site content; which content can be reindexed), see Reindex Content Items.

Click the name of an idea to view its details page, where you can:

• edit your ideas,
• edit other people's ideas,
• view any associated comments,
• add comments, and
• mark a comment as the "Official Response."

Mark as Official Response

As users read through idea submissions, they can comment on them for numerous reasons, such as to request more information and to add their support.

Users who have Ideation-management permissions (via the Who can edit ideas? setting; see Ideation Settings) can also mark a comment as the "official response."

NOTE: Only one comment per idea can be marked as "official."

To mark a comment as "Official Response":

1. Navigate to the idea that you want to edit.
2. Click the pencil icon of the comment that you want to mark as the "official" response.
3. On the edit dialog, check the Mark as 'Official Comment' from an Administrator box.

NOTE: This permission is no longer exclusive to Admin users. The ability to do this is controlled by Security Group membership.

4. Click Save.

The comment moves to the top of the Comments list for that idea and displays the Official Response pill.

Notes

The Official Response checkbox option remains available for the other comments for that idea.

If a different comment is subsequently marked as "official":

• that comment moves to the top of the Comments list,
• it assumes the Official Response pill, and
• the supplanted comment loses the "official" designation and returns to its original position in the Comments list.

Ideation and Moderation

Ideas are user-created content and, as such, are subject to your site's or an individual community's Moderation settings.

Make sure that these two valuable tools are properly configured in your community site to work together to maximize the benefits of each and to enhance your community users' experience.

• Moderation Notifications & Settings details site Moderation settings and how to configure them in your site.
• Manage Your Site's Moderation Queue provides information on how moderation works and managing moderated content.

Integration write-backs

If your Higher Logic site is integrated with a third-party database, some of the community activities can be written to that database during the standard activity-sync process.

• Navigate to Settings > External Content > Activity Sync in the Admin interface in order to manage writeback activities on the Subscriptions tab.

To learn about the activity-sync process, see Member Activity Sync.

Related articles

• Ideation Settings details how Admin users can configure Ideation.
• Ideation Statuses provides information on how to set up and manage statuses for idea submissions.
• Ideation Reports