This article discusses proxy votes or ideas portal custom domains. You need to be an Ideas Advanced customer to access these integrations. Please contact us if you would like a live demo or would like to try using it in your account. If your Aha! account was created before October 20, 2020, you may have access to these integrations, but you will need to upgrade to Ideas Advanced for any future enhancements. |
Aha! Ideas | Idea management notifications
One of the wonderful aspects of ideas portals in Aha! Ideas is that Aha! Ideas will notify idea creators and subscribers for you. As you change the status of an idea or comment on it, anyone invested in the idea will see each update, so you do not need to remember who to contact.
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Adjust notification defaults
By default, users who create or subscribe to an idea will receive notifications about that idea. However, you can change this default, unsubscribe single users, or unsubscribe all users in your ideas portal.
To adjust these defaults, open your ideas portal settings by navigating to either Settings ⚙️ Account Ideas portals or Ideas Overview.
From your account settings, click the name of the ideas portal whose settings you wish to edit.
From Ideas Overview, click the pencil icon by the name of the ideas portal whose settings you wish to edit.
You will need to be an administrator with customization permissions to do this.
Once in your portal settings, navigate to Emails General.
Scroll down to the Notifications setting. Check the box to change whether ideas portal users should be subscribed to ideas notifications by default.
Note: Individual ideas portal users can always opt back in to idea notifications.
Next, navigate to Users General.
To unsubscribe individual users, hover over a user's name, click the More options menu, then click click Unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe all users in your ideas portal, click the More options menu at the top of the users list, then select Unsubscribe all portal users.
Note: Individual ideas portal users can always opt back in to idea notifications.
Notifications by user type
There are several types of users in ideas portals:
Public creators: This user registered or was added as a public user for a public portal and created an idea. Any idea they create is public by default.
Private creators: This user self-registered or was added as a user to a private portal and created an idea. Any idea they create is visible to other users in that portal, by default.
Internal users: This user self-registered or was added as an Internal user and created an idea. This means any ideas they create are private, visible only to other Internal users. This type of user is useful for users who do not have access to your entire Aha! Ideas account, but who submit ideas that you do not want visible to your entire portal — like a beta test group, for example, or an invitation-only group of power users.
Aha! user: This user is also an Aha! Ideas user, meaning they have access to log into your Aha! Ideas account and will automatically be logged into the ideas portal. If they create an idea from within Aha! Ideas, it is automatically set to private. If they create an idea on a public or private portal (like any other user), it will default to Internal user settings and only be visible to others who are Internal users.
When a user creates, votes on, adds a proxy vote to, or comments on an idea, they become subscribers to that idea. Subscribers are notified of important status changes to an idea. The sender of the emailed notification will be the portal's name.
When a portal user creates an idea, they will receive an email acknowledgment thanking them for their submission. Then, on a public or a private idea portal, the user will be notified as the idea progresses through your idea statuses. Similarly, if a portal user votes or comments on an existing idea, they will become subscribers and also be notified of changes to the idea. Ideas portal users can one-click unsubscribe to portal email notifications if they do not want to receive notifications.
To submit an idea on behalf of a customer, portal users can create the idea, then owners and contributors can change the idea's creator to the customer. This is useful for reporting purposes but also ensures that customer or user is subscribed to that idea.
Finally, for Ideas Advanced users, portal users in private ideas portals can add proxy votes to ideas on behalf of organizations and contacts at those organization. Proxy voting adds the portal user as a subscriber, not the organization.
Notifications by idea status
Not all status changes trigger notifications. Notifications will only be sent to portal users when the status changes to any status which has Show in ideas portal checked in your idea workflow. You can customize the idea workflow by going to Settings ⚙️ Account Statuses and workflows.
Note: Bulk editing the status of ideas will not trigger subscriber notifications.
Notifications by portal type and user origin
In addition to notifications sent based on status, other notifications are triggered based on the portal type and user type.
You may choose to have a public, private, or submit-only portal.
Public portals allow anyone to register, but you can also add email domains to allow a subset of portal users to be classified as Internal users. This means that a public portal can have both types of users.
Private portals, on the other hand, ensure that no one can access that portal unless they have an email address that matches the email domains you've entered into the configuration. For example, companyemail.com would allow [email protected] to self-register. If you are an Ideas Advanced user, you can also enable proxy voting in private portals, so users those portals can vote on behalf of customers and organizations.
Submission only portals do not allow users to view their ideas once submitted. Notifications will only be sent when the idea is created.
Notifications table: public or private portal
X = users who receive an email if subscribing, watching, or participating
Action | Creator/Subscriber | Internal user Creator/Subscriber | Aha! Ideas user |
An Aha! Ideas user publicly comments* on an idea | X | X | X |
An admin response is posted | X | X | X |
An idea's status changes** | X | X | X |
You create an idea | X | X | - |
A private portal, non-Aha! Ideas user comments* on an idea | X | X | X |
An Aha! Ideas user privately comments* on an idea | - | - | X |
A public portal, non-Aha! Ideas user comments* on an idea | - | - | X |
You vote on an idea | - | - | - |
Someone else votes on an idea | - | - | - |
*Comment notification emails include the 10 most recent comments on an idea.
**Notifications will only be sent to portal users when the status changes to any status which has Show in ideas portal checked in your idea workflow.
Notifications table: submit-only portal
A submit-only portal allows anyone to submit an idea, but no one can see those ideas published.
Note: Unlike public and private ideas portals, submit-only portal users do not have access to a user profile. If a submit-only ideas portal user wishes to unsubscribe from notifications, they will need to contact an Aha! Ideas administrator to make this change for them.
X = users who receive an email if subscribing, watching, or participating
Action | Portal user | Aha! Ideas user |
You create an idea | X | - |
Admin response is posted | - | X |
Aha! Ideas user privately comments* | - | X |
Idea submitter comments* via email | - | X |
Idea status changes** | - | X |
*Comment notification emails include the 10 most recent comments on an idea.
**Notifications will only be sent to Aha! Ideas users when the status changes to any status which has Show in ideas portal checked in your idea workflow.
Improve email reception from Aha! Ideas
If you or your portal users report that your emailed idea notifications are getting caught by your company's spam filters, you may need to allow list Aha! Ideas email domains and IP addresses.