How To Configure The Visibility of Ideas

Hey @Yoeri  - 
I’d like to make the Ideas section visible to everyone (open to unregistered users) But to ‘create’ or ‘vote’ I want them to be logged in. 
Is this possible? 

Hi Dorothy, 

This is not possible unfortunately. The ‘Access to ideation’ checks regulate both visibility and voting permissions.

Hi @Yoeri !

I’m wondering if anyone knows why the viewed number shows on some posts and not others? For example, on this post, at the top, you can see “120 views”, but other posts you cannot see views…

Thanks for any help!
KS

Hi Kalli,

This is specifically the case for ideas. Ideas were developed as a separate content type so we could add unique characteristics (status, product area) and build dedicated reporting for it. Views for ideas have not been added to the idea, but as an admin you can view the numbers of views for ideas in the admin backend (Control).

Hi Yoeri!

Hope you are good Are there plans to facilitate this?

Actually would like even less than Kali, just to show the section exist but for non logged in users they will get error “no permission” similar to the behavior we see in grups module type “Private Group” 

Thanks!

Hi Maayan, 

We will hide the ‘ideas’ section from the main navigation by default if a user doesn’t have access to it. If you would add a call-to-action / link to ideation on the homepage (e.g. in the form a quick-link) and the user clicks it he would be taken to ideation. If a user doesn't have access we’ll show a ‘access denied’ message by default (which you can customise). I like the Sprout Social community where they show a clear ‘You need to be logged in to view this content’ message with a clear call to action to sign in:

thanks that's perfect!

this is our error message :)

Hi @Yoeri I wanted to follow up on this as I see it’s been a year since last discussed. Is there a way to remove the ‘Idea’ as a content type in the new topic form but still keep “ideation’ permissions on?

We currently used the ‘Ideation’ section to showcase our Roadmap and keep that behind a login so only customers and partners can view. They have the ability to comment on Roadmap items through the Productboard integration but we are not quite yet ready for customers to submit ideas. Some customers use the ‘Idea’ content for questions that aren’t really ideas also.

Hoping to hear if anyone has any other thoughts as well?

Hey Ryanne,

You have two options:

1. Hide the ‘idea’ topic type button in the create topic page using custom CSS. This way users can never select ‘idea’ when they go to the create topic page. Your roadmap integration with Productboard will remain intact on the page that you currently have it.
2. Add a custom page (e.g. ‘roadmap’) using our newest custom pages functionality. Embed the productboard roadmap there and configure the page visibility for this page so that only customers and partners can view it. You can then revoke the ideation permissions from all users in the community, this way users are never able to submit an idea again.

My recommendation would be to go for the second approach as you do not want to make use of the build in ideation module at this time. It’s better to disable this module until you may want to use it. 

Thank you, @Yoeri!

1. Do you have code available to share to accomplish this?
2. Is there a way to re-direct the url? While I understand this is easier, we now have many customers who have the current url saved and we are trying to avoid a delayed/negative customer experience here.

You’re welcome! 

1. Unfortunately I’m not a coder myself, so I won’t be able to provide you the right code.  I recommend you to reach out to someone who has the right coding experience (either within your team or from technical support). 
2. it’s not possible to set a redirect URL for the /ideas landing page if you deactivate the ideas module

Hey @ryanne.perry, I’m not a coder as well but maybe I can help you with this one. Are you looking to hide the idea option when creating a topic? Something like this?
 

• How to hide Idea option with CSS in the Create New Topic workflow

Thanks much @leo-inspired! That does look like the right path.

Hi @Yoeri 

is it possible to set it so a certain custom role can see the ideas page but not be able to submit an idea?
We have this ability on other category pages but I can only see “access to ideation” which blocks the entire ideation page from them.

Hey @elyhienrich 

is it possible to set it so a certain custom role can see the ideas page but not be able to submit an idea?

Unfortunately this is not possible, for ideation you control the visibility, ability to submit and reply all in a single permission switch. What is your usecase for allowing users to see ideas but not allowing them to submit them, I assume that users who can see ideas can also vote for them. 

Hi @Yoeri 

Our use case is that we don’t want employees posting ideas, however we do want employees to be aware of ideas that are coming in especially if they are a CSM and have a customer that they have encouraged to post & of course our product team. So we need the functionality to turn off the allowance of a certain custom role from being able to post in this space.

Another option could be the ability for community moderators to audit ideas before they are posted(?) 

Thanks! 

@elyhienrich My two cents here is that I’d probably go for a non-technical solution in the scenario you describe.  I’d simply make it a policy / guideline for employees to not post ideas.  If that occasionally were to go wrong, a very quick and painless moderation action, followed by a polite note to the employee that apparently missed the memo, would fix it.  Do you think that could work in your situation?  I’m guessing that this would likely be a very rare occurrence.

Thanks Kenneth, this is what I would have recommended as well :)

Safe to assume from this that there’s no current way to allow users to vote for an idea but to hide the vote count, correct?

Hi @erin.brisson - yes that’s right, there’s no out-of-the-box way to hide the vote count.  I am curious - why would you not want your members to see the vote count?  

We used CSS to hide it. We want members to vote but not see the count because the count is not the only determination of whether or not the feature will be worked on. We’ve had ideas with many votes still not get picked up by our product team and it made members keep asking about the status. This way, we can see the count on the back end but our members only know if they voted for it or not.