Ideas FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Ideas.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Ideas Overview.
Setup
Do I need to configure anything before employees can start using Ideas?
No. Once Ideas is enabled, the app seeds five default lifecycle stages (New, Reviewing, Planned, Implemented, Deferred) and sets the “All Admins” group as the default reviewer panel. Employees can submit, vote, and comment immediately. You can customize stages, reviewer panels, and other settings later from Settings without interrupting anything already in progress.
Who can submit ideas and who can vote?
By default every employee can submit ideas, vote, and comment. You can restrict submission to a specific group in Settings > Who can submit ideas. Campaign creation has its own audience gate in Settings > Who can create campaigns. Voting and commenting are always open to all employees. Admins and reviewers are not exempt from the audience gate — if you restrict submission to a group, an admin outside that group cannot submit either.
How do I set up a reviewer panel?
Go to Settings and pick a group under Default reviewer group. Every idea routes to this panel unless a campaign overrides it with its own group. If no group is chosen, the “All Admins” group is used as a fallback. A reviewer is anyone who belongs to the assigned panel — there is no separate “reviewer” role, and admins do not get review access automatically.
Permissions and access
Why can’t someone see the My Review Queue tab?
The tab only appears for users who belong to at least one reviewer panel — either the workspace default panel or a campaign’s dedicated panel. Being an admin is not enough; panel membership is the only grant. Add the user to the relevant group and the tab appears on their next page load.
Who can access Analytics and Settings?
App Admins, Admins, and Super Admins. These sections are hidden from the sidebar and route-guarded for everyone else.
Day-to-day
How does RICE scoring work?
Reviewers score ideas using the RICE model: Reach x Impact x Confidence / Effort. Reach is a whole number, Impact and Effort accept up to two decimal places, and Confidence is a 0–1 factor (0.5 means 50%, 0.8 means 80%). A blank Confidence counts as 1.0. The minimum Effort used in the calculation is 0.25, so the formula never divides by zero. All three of Reach, Impact, and Effort must be filled in for a RICE score to compute — leaving any of them blank saves the inputs but produces no score. The score pill on each idea shows green (700+), amber (300–699), or grey (below 300). RICE scoring can be turned off entirely in Settings > Enable idea scoring (RICE).
Can I customize the lifecycle stages an idea moves through?
Yes. Go to Settings and scroll to the lifecycle editor. You can rename, reorder, and recolor stages, and assign each one a category: Entry, Active, Implemented, or Declined. There must always be exactly one Entry stage (it receives new submissions), and you must keep at least 2 stages. The maximum is 10. Renaming a stage does not break existing reporting — metrics key off the category, not the label. A stage that still has ideas assigned to it cannot be deleted; move those ideas to another stage first.
How do idea campaigns work?
A campaign is an optional, time-boxed drive that groups ideas around a theme. It has a title, a brief, optional start and close dates, and an optional dedicated reviewer panel. Its phase is derived from those dates: a future start date means Scheduled, a past close date means Closed, and everything else is Open. Employees can only submit ideas to an open campaign. Campaigns whose close date has passed are automatically closed by a background sweep. An admin or the campaign’s creator can also close or reopen a campaign manually. Deleting a campaign keeps its ideas — they are detached, not removed. Campaigns as a feature can be turned off entirely in Settings > Enable idea campaigns.
What notifications does Ideas send, and can I turn them off?
Ideas sends notifications for four events: stage change (to the author), panel routed (to reviewers when a new idea arrives), reply (to the author), and @mention (to the mentioned user). Each event delivers both an email and an in-app notification (the bell). When an idea lands on a stage with the Implemented category, the author gets a special “Your idea was implemented!” notification. Each event has its own toggle in Settings — turning one off suppresses both the email and the in-app notification for that event.
How do I import ideas from a spreadsheet?
Go to Settings > Import ideas. Upload a CSV, XLSX, or XLS file (10 MB maximum, 2,000 rows maximum). A downloadable template is available on the same page. Only Title and Description are required; optional columns include author email, stage, campaign, submission date, voting close date, and RICE scores. Rows whose title already exists in the workspace are skipped, so an accidental re-import does not duplicate. Only one import can run at a time per workspace. Imported ideas start with zero votes and send no notifications.
Can I export ideas or analytics to a CSV?
Yes, both. On the Ideas feed, admins see an Export CSV option that exports the current filtered and sorted list — whatever filters and sort you have applied carry into the file. On the Analytics page, Export downloads the full analytics dashboard: summary KPIs, stage funnel, time-in-stage, monthly trend, campaign performance, and top contributors.
What happens when I reset settings to defaults?
Settings > Reset to defaults restores every toggle and dropdown to its shipped default and rebuilds the five default lifecycle stages (New, Reviewing, Planned, Implemented, Deferred). All existing ideas are moved to the entry stage (New). Custom stages are removed. This is not reversible — if you have customized stage names or added stages, they are gone after a reset.
When something looks wrong
I can’t vote on this idea — why not?
Two possible causes. First, the idea may have a voting close date that has already passed — voting locks once that date arrives. Second, you may have already voted: each person gets one vote per idea, enforced at the database level. If the Allow removing an upvote setting is turned off, your vote is final once cast.
I submitted an idea but nobody has reviewed it
The most common cause is an empty reviewer panel. When no one belongs to the assigned panel, Ideas sends a fallback notification to admins saying “No one can review this idea — its panel is empty.” Check Settings > Default reviewer group and make sure the group has members. If the idea belongs to a campaign with its own panel, check that campaign’s panel too. Remember that admins do not automatically get review access — they must be in the panel to score or move ideas.
My attachment was rejected — what happened?
Attachments must be under 25 MB each and must be a supported file type: images, PDF, Word documents (.doc/.docx), Excel files (.xls/.xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt/.pptx), or plain text. The type is verified from the file’s actual contents, not the file extension. If Allow file attachments is turned off in Settings, the attachment field does not appear at all.
I posted an idea and it shows “similar ideas already exist” — what is that?
Ideas checks your title against existing ideas when you submit. If it finds matches (based on shared keywords), it shows up to 3 similar ideas and asks whether you want to vote on an existing one instead or post yours anyway. This is a nudge, not a block — you can always post.
Licensing and limits
Does Ideas require a licence?
Yes. Ideas is a licensed add-on, disabled by default. An admin enables it from the Apps Marketplace. There is no automatic rollout to any workspace.
What are the limits I should know about?
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Idea title | 200 characters |
| Campaign title | 120 characters |
| Stage label | 60 characters |
| Lifecycle stages per workspace | 2 to 10 |
| Attachment size | 25 MB per file |
| Import file size | 10 MB |
| Import rows per file | 2,000 |
| Votes per person per idea | 1 |
| Discussion depth | One level of replies |
| Duplicate-detection matches shown | 3 |
| Analytics reporting range | All-time |
| Submission trend window | Last 6 months |
| Top contributors shown | 15 |
More help
- Ideas Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Ideas questions from these articles.