Free Version

H E L P

Table Of Contents

Free Help Home .................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Installation ............................................................................................................................................................................ 4

Free Version Change Log ...................................................................................................................................................... 5

Quick Start Guide .................................................................................................................................................................. 6

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)................................................................................................................................... 11

User Guide .......................................................................................................................................................................... 18

User Guide > Viewing An Idea ......................................................................................................................................... 19

User Guide > Creating An Idea ........................................................................................................................................ 22

User Guide > Editing An Idea .......................................................................................................................................... 26

User Guide > Editing An Idea > By Author ................................................................................................................... 27

User Guide > Editing An Idea > By Administrator ........................................................................................................ 30

User Guide > Ideas To Be Implemented .......................................................................................................................... 35

User Guide > Browsing Ideas .......................................................................................................................................... 36

Plugin Guide........................................................................................................................................................................ 42

Plugin Guide > Dashboard............................................................................................................................................... 43

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > All Ideas ......................................................................................................................... 44

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Add New ........................................................................................................................ 47

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Categories .............................................................................................................. 48

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Tags ........................................................................................................................ 49

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Shortcodes ..................................................................................................................... 50

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Upgrade ......................................................................................................................... 51

Plugin Guide > Widgets ................................................................................................................................................... 52

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Browse Ideas ...................................................................................................................... 53

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Create An Idea.................................................................................................................... 56

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Recent Ideas ....................................................................................................................... 59

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Tag Cloud ........................................................................................................................... 62

Free Help Home

Installation

The easiest way to install the free version plugin is as follows:

• From your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to the Plugins section and click the Add

New button.

• Type ”your idea counts” to search for the plugin in the WordPress® plugin repository.

When you find it, click the Install Now button.

• Wait for the installation to complete (i.e. do not navigate somewhere else on the same

page or tab).

• When completed, click the Activate button displayed to activate the plugin.

• The plugin will now appear in your Plugins section as being active.

• From the sidebar select the Your Idea Counts! menu item to manage the plugin.

Should you prefer to manually install the plugin (a more technical way):

• Download the plugin .zip file.

• Navigate to the Plugins section and click the Add New button.

• Click the Upload Plugin button.

• Click the Choose File button to browse and then select the file downloaded.

• Click the Install Now button.

• Wait for the installation to complete (i.e. do not navigate somewhere else on the same

page or tab).

• When completed, click the Activate button displayed to activate the plugin.

• The plugin will now appear in your Plugins section as being active.

• From the sidebar select the Your Idea Counts! menu item to manage the plugin.

Free Version Change Log

Our Free Version Change Log will identify either new upgrade or update releases.

An upgrade usually represents substantial enhancements or changes and will have a

description of everything you need to know about them. An update usually represents bug fixes

and minor enhancements or enhancements we feel are import or warranted as well as a list of

any known major issues (for which we will have already planned for the next update or upgrade

release).

• 30-Oct-2018: Initial launch!

Quick Start Guide

Follow these step-by-step instructions. For ease of reference and to not lose your place looking at

them, all links inside of each step will open in a new tab.

Step 1: Add categories

Categories are typically a way to group and are typically controlled by your business, meaning

users can't or should not be able to create categories. This is because categories a business

uses could drive or influence the way the business responds to ideas as well as get a different

view of reporting. See tags in the next step as a way to let users identify or group ideas in

meaningful ways.

Enter a few meaningful idea categories. You don't have to think too hard about this because

categories can always be changed and any ideas that have the categories changed will also have

those changes. For the moment, just think high level such as product family, major services or

high-level groupings.

See Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Categories to add categories.

We supply Uncategorized as a category and set that as the category when a new idea is

created. Keep it that way for the moment because you want to be able to easily see a nd then

change the category to one or more of the meaningful categories you just defined when a new

idea is created. If you feel this needs to be something different right at the start, by all means

go ahead and change it. The default for when a new idea is created will be the changed name

and any ideas previously created will also have the changed category name.

Step 2: Add tags

Tags are typically a way to also group like categories, but they differ in that users can typically

create or edit tags on ideas they created. This is something you want to encourage your users

to do in a sensible fashion. Note that at present, it is not possible for a user to add or change tag s

created by another user. The user who created an idea (the Author) and Administrators are the only

users who can add, change or remove tags in an idea created. Also, in our premium version you can

add Moderators who can also add, change or remove tags in an idea created.

Enter a few meaningful idea tags. You don't have to think too hard abo ut this because tags can

always be changed and any ideas that have the tags changed will also have those changes. For

the moment, just think about a few common words or phrases that would be helpful to your

business or your customers to quickly find an ide a(s).

See Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Tags to add tags.

Step 3: Add Create An Idea page

At a bare bones minimum, you need to let your users create an idea and see ideas. So here, we

need to create a Create An Idea page. Please note that a fair amount of space is needed for Create

An Idea to look good since it has an editor for the user to express their idea .

In a widget:

If you have a page building plugin such as SiteOrigin Page Builder, Elementor or Beaver (to

name a few), or, if you have page building capabilities in a theme such as what is found in Divi

and Avada, then you can simply use these tools to insert the Ideas: Create An Idea widget in

the desired place on the page. To see all the options of this widget, see Plugin Guide > Widgets

> Create An Idea.

Using shortcodes in a page:

From your WordPress Dashboard, go to Pages > Add New and enter the short

code [create_idea] . If your page is not named "Create An Idea", you can add a title to this page

by adding a title in the above short code: [create_idea title="Add Your Great Idea!"] . To see

all possible options for the shortcodes (which mirror the options in a widget), from your

WordPress Dashboard, go to Ideas > Shortcodes .

If your theme has the ability to display this page as a full page (most do, but not all), we

recommend you do so. Otherwise your side bar, likely with blog reference sections such as

Recent Blogs, Archive Blogs, etc. will appear on the right and the mix of ideas and blogs could

confuse your users. To see if your theme can display a "full width", on the right of c reating or

editing a page, there will be a widget called Page Attributes and in that widget there will be

a Template option with a pull-down of the possible templates.

If your theme does not have an entry for full width or described as something else that will

result in a full width, there are WordPress plugins that can add this capability to your theme

(just search "page templates" and you will see quite a few).

Note: When you do not specify a title in the short code or widget, we leave the title intention ally

blank because in this case of creating an idea, it is likely the name of the page will be the same or

something that comes close thus a title is likely to be redundant.

Step 4: Add Browse Ideas page

At a bare bones minimum, you need to let your users create an idea and see ideas. So here, we

need to create a Browse Idea page. Please note that a fair amount of space is needed for Browse

Ideas to look good as it is packed with a lot of information.

In a widget:

If you have a page building plugin such as SiteOrigin Page Builder, Elementor or Beaver (to

name a few), or, if you have page building capabilities in a theme such as what is found in Divi

and Avada, then you can simply use these tools to insert the Ideas: Browse Ideas widget in the

desired place on the page. To see all the options of this widget, see Plugin Guide > Widgets >

Browse Ideas.

Using shortcodes in a page:

From your WordPress Dashboard, go to Pages > Add New and enter the short

code [browse_ideas] . If your page is not named "Browse Ideas", you can add a title to this page

by adding a title in the above short code: [browse_ideas title="Your Great Ideas!"] . To see all

possible options for the shortcodes (which mirror the options in a widget), from your

WordPress Dashboard, go to Ideas > Shortcodes .

If your theme has the ability to display this page as a full page (most do, but not all), we

recommend you do so. Otherwise your side bar, likely with blog reference sections such as

Recent Blogs, Archive Blogs, etc. will appear on the right and the mix of ideas and blogs could

confuse your users. To see if your theme can display a "full width", on the right of creating or

editing a page, there will be a widget called Page Attributes and in that widget there will be

a Template option with a pull-down of the possible templates.

If your theme does not have an entry for full width or described as som ething else that will

result in a full width, there are WordPress plugins that can add this capability to your theme

(just search "page templates" and you will see quite a few).

Note: When you do not specify a title in the short code or widget, we leave th e title intentionally

blank because in this case of browsing ideas, it is likely the name of the page will be the same or

something that comes close thus a title is likely to be redundant.

Step 5: Optionally, add Recent Ideas and/or Tag Cloud in a new or existing page(s)

Since just a little more information about the ideas on your site can make a difference, we

suggest that you optionally consider taking a few more moments to add the Recent Ideas and

Tag Cloud. It's not essential and you can always do i t later, but the time to do so is minimal and

the result will greatly enhance your users experience.

We won't repeat here all the considerations that we discussed in having a page with Create An

Idea and Browse Ideas, but rather just give you details and suggestions for using them.

Recent Ideas

• The widget is Ideas: Recent Ideas . See Plugin Guide > Widgets > Recent Ideas for

widget options.

• The shortcode is [recent_ideas] . To see all possible opt ions for the shortcodes (which

mirror the options in a widget), from your WordPress Dashboard, go to Ideas

> Shortcodes.

• Can be used as a sidebar or occupy a large amount of space. In either case, we limited

the text it shows to 30 words followed by Read More. This yields showing more recent

ideas whether in a small sidebar or in a larger central area before the user has to Load

More to see the next batch.

• It's a very nice complement to Browse Ideas where Browse Ideas occupies 70 -75% of the

templates central area and Recent Ideas occupies 25-30% in a sidebar either on the left

or the right.

Tag Cloud

• The widget is Ideas: Tag Cloud . See Plugin Guide > Widgets > Tag Cloud for widget

options.

• The shortcode is [idea_tag_cloud] . To see all possible options for the shortcodes (which

mirror the options in a widget), from your WordPress Dashboard, go to Ideas

> Shortcodes.

• Is most often used as a sidebar. That's not to say a bigger area is not nice, especially if

your site has (or will have) tons of ideas with tons of associated tags!

• It's a very nice complement to Browse Ideas where Browse Ideas occupies 70 -75% of the

templates central area and Recent Ideas occupies 25-30% in a sidebar either on the left

or the right.

Skip this step if this is too much and too soon. You can always come back here to refresh

what to do at a later time.

Step 6: Add navigation links

Add the links to the pages you created in this Quick Start Guide to your menu.

This can be done in many ways depending on your theme and site needs, but generally menu

items are created from your WordPress Dashboard in the Appearance > Menus section. If you

are using secondary menus or sidebar menus, these are typically added via the theme's

customization or a plugin that serves the purpose.

Additional strategy and tactics

Yes, there are a few things you can do that will absolutely make a difference to transform your

idea exchange in to the mainstream of your business! Here are some strategies and tactics to

consider:

• Read or re-read the Your Idea Counts! blog series with a focus on how to deploy the

plugin in a way that makes sense for your business. To do this in a meaningful

way, follow the Actions for you in each segment!

• Call out: Seed the plugin with ideas from other sources whether that is from emails sent

to you, an internal tracking system, blogs or anywhere e lse where customers and/or

users have expressed the need for something in your product or services. These will have

to be manually entered in the free version ( the premium version has an import function to

make this easier!), but you don't need that many to just get started. In WordPress you can

change some of the meta data for each idea created, from your WordPress

Dashboard, Ideas > All Ideas such as Author (user must exist, of course) or Published

Date so that what you create best resembles the source of the feedback.

Note that in our Premium version, you can import ideas which greatly helps and expedites

seeding as everything can be added and reviewed in a CSV file before importing it all at once

instead of manually entering each idea.

• Call out: Decide or get agreement from company staff as to who will be active in the

community to ask questions, give responses and help to drive the ideas generated to a

final disposition. We call this "skin in the game" and when that element is present, it

nurtures and promotes active user participation (i.e. someone is really listening, not just

hearing!).

That's it, you now have an idea exchange to begin your journey with your users that will

ultimately yield customer benefits, business benefits, development benefits and achieve

astounding results!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

What themes work well with the plugin

Some themes are simply better than others for a whole suit of reasons. We want to start a

library of themes that have demonstrated working well with Your Idea Counts! and encourage

you to let us know any you use or have discovered to work well too.

Theme Author Comments

Astrid (free) aThemes Works especially great with some CSS

changes.

Assumption is that Astrid Pro works equally

as well.

Avada ThemeFusion Limited testing, but came out super nice!

All Site Origin

themes

Site Origin Testing did not reveal anything unwanted or

unwarranted.

SimpleBlogily (free) Superb Themes Limited testing. Simple and pretty good.

Don't know about Pro.

Which idea statuses can be voted on and not voted on?

Here is the table of idea statuses and whether they can be voted on or not.

Idea Status Voting?

Active Yes

Already Available No

Committed No

Duplicate No

For Future Consideration Yes

Fully Delivered! No

In Progress No

In Review No

Need More Information Yes

Not Considering No

Not Enough Interest Yes

Partially Delivered! No

Note that the Premium version provides you greater flexibility to suit your specific business needs.

Each idea status can be renamed to anything, define the color and activate or deactivate voting.

How can I change the widget headers background color?

In this section, we outline how to change the CSS for all widget headers background color

except Create An Idea and Browse Ideas which use your theme's <H3> tag (and thus you can

change the <H3> and/or area formatting per your theme's documentation or them e

customization).

While our widgets are intentionally designed to be neutral to best blend with any theme, we

recognize that you may want to change a few things above and beyond what can be changed in

the widget to either better match your theme or just to make it different.

Need:

You want to change the header background to a light green look.

CSS specification use:

.yic-widget-row .yic-panel-default > .yic-panel-heading

The actual CSS to make the needed change to a light green look:

/* Change background color for all widget headers */

.yic-widget-row .yic-panel-default > .yic-panel-heading {

background-color: #f0fff0;

}

What it now looks like for each widget:

How can I change the widget detail background color?

In this section, we outline how to change the CSS for all widget detail background color except

Create An Idea and Browse Ideas which have predetermined formatting don e as neutral as

possible.

While our widgets are intentionally designed to be neutral to best blend with any theme, we

recognize that you may want to change a few things above and beyond what can be changed in

the widget to either better match your theme or just to make it different.

Need:

You want to change the detail background to a light yel low look.

Note that we have maintained the custom CSS for the header backgrounds in all the examples here .

CSS specification use for the Recent Ideas widget:

.yic_idea_details

The actual CSS to make the needed change to a light yellow look:

/* Change the background detail color for Recent Ideas */

.yic_idea_details {

background-color: #ffffe0;

}

What it now looks like for this widget:

CSS specification use for the Tag Cloud widget:

.yic-tag-cloud-container

The actual CSS to make the needed change to a light yellow look:

/* Change background color for Tag Cloud */

.yic-tag-cloud-container {

background-color: #ffffe0;

}

What it now looks like for this widget:

How can I use shortcodes in tables?

Sometimes a theme you are using is very restrictive or does not have flexible options. While

there are many page building plugins, there may be reasons those are not feasible such as the

learning curve, site restrictions, etc.

Here is a technique you can use to implement our shortcodes (and anyone else's for that

matter) to look like a widget inside of a table on a page. Deep knowledge of HTML and CSS is

not necessary, but could be helpful to make adjustments to our example as you see fit.

This technique mimics having separate widgets.

Steps

1. On a new or existing page, create a table. In our example we only use 1 row and 3

columns, one column for each shortcode.

2. If your theme has standards for tables, the spacing between the columns may be

satisfactory. If it is not, you may need to specify spacing between the rows and columns

using the table options cell spacing (space between cells) and cell padding (space

between the cell wall and the cell content) or us ing CSS to suit your needs. Then you may

have to experiment with the settings, trying out different combinations until it looks the

way you want it to.

3. Insert the desired shortcode for the widget you want to use in each column cell.

4. In the example below, we used this table statement, and along the way used most of the

default shortcode settings:

<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; border: 0px !important;">

<tbody>

<tr>

<td style="width: 33.3333%; border-style: none; vertical-align: top;">[top_ideators

show_items="10" title="Our Top Ideators" ]</td>

<td style="width: 33.3333%; border-style: none; vertical-align: top;">[top_thinkers

show_items="10" title="Our Top Thinkers" ]</td>

<td style="width: 33.3333%; border-style: none; vertical-align: top;">[idea_tag_cloud]</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

Note that in our example we had to use a "!important" option to turn off the table border due to

the theme we are using.

Example of above HTML

Are there any uninstall considerations?

No, there are not, other than knowing that removing the plugin will not remove anything. All

ideas, idea categories and idea tags will be preserved.

Note: If you are uninstalling in order to install the Premium version, nothing will be lost.

Taking screen shots, of course, can always help from a point of view of how you present on your

pages.

Proceeding to remove the plugin means:

1. Deactivate it (can't be deleted if it is not deactivated)

2. Delete it:

User Guide

User Guide > Viewing An Idea

To see an ideas full detail and associated information about it such as status, tags, comments

made and so on, click the link to the idea wherever you see it such as in Browse Ideas or Recent

Ideas.

1 Place your vote

Each user is allowed one, and only one, vote per idea. The voting score, which is the number

displayed, will indicate how the next vote will affect the score.

In this example, the voting score is 1 which represents 2 votes for and 1 vote against.

Users are allowed to change their mind as frequen tly as they want. This al lowance is made

because as an idea evolves, the comments or replies by other users can sway the thinking of

users who might want to change their vote accordingly.

Note: At present, a vote can't be removed (neutralized). Once a vote as been made, it can only be

changed and not removed.

2 Status

The idea status is managed by the Administrator. When voting is not allowed, instead of the

arrows letting you vote, they will be grayed-out to prevent voting.

See the FAQ concerning the statuses available and whether or not they can be voted on.

3 Follow / Unfollow

When the link shows Follow, click it to follow the idea. When the link shows Unfollow, click it to

discontinue following the idea.

4 Voting

The voting widget shows who voted and how they voted. The arrow going up in the green circle

is a vote for and the arrow going down in the red circle is a vote against .

5 Idea detail

The idea description, details and any supporting documentation such as images or links.

6 Tags

The idea tags associated with the idea.

7 Categories

The idea categories associated with the idea.

8 Comments

Comments previously made.

9 Replies to comments

Replies previously made.

Replies to comments can be made by clicking the Reply button. The box you enter the reply in

will look the same as a new comment, Leave Your Thoughts, but after it is posted it will appear

indented under the comment where the reply was made.

In the example, User1 has replied to User2's comment and is indented under it.

Note: There is no limitation to how far replies can be n ested, but visually, depending on the device

used, it could become difficult to read or follow.

10 Leave Your Thoughts...Post A Comment

If commenting is allowed, at the bottom of the idea you can leave your thoughts and post a

comment.

User Guide > Creating An Idea

Creating an idea should be simple, yet have good flexibility and options to enhance the

experience.

Note that in sections 2 (Use Template) and 3 (View Template), we show you how to disable the links if

you do not want these available to users. In our free version it is not possible to change the

template, but in our Premium version you can change it to be anything you want.

1 Idea Title *

The title of the idea is required as denoted by the asterisk (*) of the prompt to enter the Idea

Title*. Ideas without titles can't be created.

2 Use Template

The Use Template link will insert the existing template in to the body of the idea. See 3 View

Template below to see what it looks like.

Note that the Use Template function faithfully copies the template format and content, i.e. bold,

italics, images, tables, etc.

Since it will overwrite anything that is currently in the body of the idea, it will first ask if you are

sure you want to do this:

Note that the default of No is to not proceed.

Should the user want just a part of the template or wants to add the template to existing

content, the View Template link will show the template in a new browser tab so that the user

can copy and paste it wherever it is needed in the body of the idea.

Note: If you do not want users to have access to the Use Te mplate link, add the following CSS

code to disable it:

/* Disable "Use Template" */

.yic_front label.yic-use-template {

display: none;

}

3 View Template

The View Template link (which shows the template in a new browser tab) is provided for a few

reasons, but the primary reason is to remind the user what it looks like and what is being

requested or noted.

Note that since PDF is an output format, when the user copies and then pastes anything from it, all

formatting and non-text objects such as images and tables are lost.

Since View Template is a PDF file, the user can also download it for future reference:

Note: If you do not want users to have access to the View Template link, add the following CSS

code to disable it:

/* Disable "View Template" */

.yic_front label.yic-view-template {

display: none;

}

4 Describe The Idea

The body of the idea is where the idea is described. Please see the above description for using

the Use Template and View Template links.

5 Tags

Tags can only be added, changed or removed by the Author or Administrator.

In the box provided for tags, begin typing letters. If tags exist with the letters entered, they will

be displayed so that they can be chosen:

If no tag exists, complete the spelling and then press the Return (or Enter) key to add the tag:

The result of doing this will show the tag has been added. Here "budget" has been added as a

tag:

6 Publish or Cancel

Click the Publish button to create the idea or the Cancel button to not create the idea and leave

the screen.

If an attempt to Publish is made and there is no detail in the body of the idea, an error will

occur:

Blank ideas can't be created. If an idea is being created as a bookmark of sorts because you are

uncertain what to describe in whole or in part, either waiting to get complete information or

adding a sentence that might represent a summary until it can be more completely written

would be recommended.

User Guide > Editing An Idea

Authors can edit the idea description and change tags on their ideas.

Administrators can edit anyone's idea description, change tags, change categories, change the

status of an idea and allow/not allow comments.

Administrators can also edit ideas from the Dashboard (back -end). This is especially useful to

change multiple statuses but can also be more convenient from other points of view.

User Guide > Editing An Idea > By Author

Authors are allowed to edit the details of their idea as well as manage tags in their idea. This

serves a very useful purpose for a few reasons. When an idea is initially creat ed, it may not be

complete or comprehensive and yet still necessary to create. As the discussion for or against

the idea evolves, the idea could change in minor or major ways. In both cases, the same is true

for tags.

To edit an idea, go to the idea detail and click Edit.

Now the idea can be changed.

1 Voting details

The top line of the idea detail has the following:

• Vote : This is the voting score, not the number of votes and can't be changed by anyone

other than the users who change the score by their voting. Each vote upwards or

downwards counts as 1. In this example, the vote is 1 which represents 2 votes for and 1

vote against. You can see who voted for and against to the right in the Voting widget.

• Status: This is the idea status. Only Administrators can change the status. See the FAQ

concerning the statuses available and whether or not they can be voted on.

• Follow or Unfollow : Click Follow to begin following the idea and c lick Unfollow to

discontinue following the idea.

2 View Template

In the event something is needed from the template, the View Template link is provided as a

convenience to copy and paste whatever is necessary from it.

Since View Template is a PDF file, the user can also download it for future reference:

3 Author Options

The Author can change the tags (as can the Administrator) to any and all existing tags or a new

tag can be added with Change Tags option.

4 Idea detail

The Author can change the description or details of his/her idea.

User Guide > Editing An Idea > By Administrator

The ability to manage an idea is really important, so only Administrators can modify the

managing elements and behaviors of ideas with the exception that an Author of an idea can

edit their idea description and idea tags as noted in the documentation section User Guide >

Editing An Idea > By Author .

To edit an idea, go to the idea detail and click Edit.

Now the idea can be changed.

1 Voting details

The top line of the idea detail has the following:

• Vote : This is the voting score, not the number of votes and can't be changed by anyone

other than the users who change the score by their voting. Each vote upwards or

downwards counts as 1. In this example, the vote is 1 which represents 2 votes for and 1

vote against. You can see who voted for and against to the right in the Voting widget.

• Status: This is the idea status. See the FAQ concerning the statuses available and

whether or not they can be voted on. Only Administr ators can change the status. Note

that Administrators change the status by going to the WordPress Dashboard, Ideas > All

Ideas . See Plugins Guide > Dashboard > All Ideas .

• Follow or Unfollow : Click Follow to begin following the idea and click Unfollow to

discontinue following the idea.

Note: In our Premium version, you can add Moderators who can also change status. It could be very

useful to assign product managers, developers or technical support as a Moderator.

2 View Template

In the event something is needed from the template, the View Templat e link is provided as a

convenience to copy and paste whatever is necessary from it.

Since View Template is a PDF file, the user can also download it for future reference:

3 Moderator Options

Administrators can use the Moderator Options to manage idea categories, idea tags and allow

or not allow comments.

Important note: The ability to assign Moderat ors is only available in Premium, but using the

Moderator Options is intended for both Moderators and Administrators to make changes. This

will be changed to just "Options" where the options allowed are based on role (Author,

Moderator, Administrator) in a future release.

Idea categories can be changed to any and all existing categories with Change

Categories option. Note that to add a new category, the Administrator has to add these from the

WordPress Dashboard, selecting Ideas > Idea Categories .

Idea tags can be changed to any and all existing tags or a new tag can be added with Change

Tagsoption.

Comments in ideas are allowed or not allowed with the Comments option.

When an idea is created, the default is to allow comments. In this example, they h ave been

turned off but clicking Allow will turn them back on. When turning comments off by

clicking Not Allow, comments may not be entered. This does not affect existing comments and

those will continue to be displayed to users when they look at the detai ls of any idea. When

comments are not allowed, at the bottom under the last comment made the user will see the

message Comments are closed..

Depending on the business and what it is selling or servicing, turning off the ability to create a

new comment can be warranted when a product or service is Fully Delivered, Already Available

or if it is a Duplicate of another idea being pursued as good examples. Sometimes it may be

tempting to turn off comments in statuses such as Not Enough Interest or Not Considerin g, but

that may not be ideal because it could be inadvertently suppressing the ability for a user to

think about a new twist or thought that could transform the idea in to something the business

would actually like.

If your site is having temporary spam issues and spammers or phishers are able to make

comments and replies without your approval as users of your community, briefly turning

comments off to fix the spam issue would probably be warranted and then when fixed the

comments can go back on again.

4 Idea detail

The Administrator can change the description or details of any idea.

5 Important Note concerning editing comments or replies

In order to edit a comment or reply (which WordPress treats as a comment), the Administrator

will need to go to the Dashboard > Comments to edit the comment or reply:

Then he/she would make the necessary changes that would result in this change when looking

at the comment/reply in the idea details, using this example:

While it will always be tempting to just de lete something that violates your Rules Of Conduct, as

community professionals ourselves, we don't believe in that kind of censorship and even when

deleting is perfectly justifiable it can backfire and turn viral unnecessarily. Simply "starring"

abusive words or phrases and then sending the user a "strike 1" message has proven to resolve

this behavior in the majority of cases.

Note: We will consider something better for editing comments/replies in the future but can make no

promises now.

User Guide > Ideas To Be Implemented

There is no industry standard for a set way to determine if an idea gets implemented or not.

While this could lead to confusion, it is probably better to let this be determined by guidelines,

logic and sensibility as it relates to your products or services.

• Comments. With an assumption that comments have more than "+1" or "me too" in them

(and it's inevitable these will exist) to either affirm or challenge the merits of the idea

presented, having many comments shows general interest. Since implementing an idea

probably takes thought and discussion both among customers as we ll as by the business,

reading all comments to get a complete view is usually warranted to make a decision as

to whether or not the idea should be or can be implemented.

• Don't judge a book by its cover. This applies as much to consideration of an idea as i t

does for not considering an idea. Regardless of how many views, comments or votes an

idea has, carefully read everything in the details and comments of an idea to trul y

understand it. It also helps, before implementing it, to confirm your understanding w ith

the author and those who have commented by adding a reply to ask if your

understanding is truly the same as the intent and discussion around it. Speaking of

voting.....

• Don't let voting be a final determining factor. Many company's make the mistake of

implementing and communicating that when ideas are suggested they will review the

voting to determine if it goes in or not. In our experience, this transforms voting fro m a

sentiment (which is how we see it, kind of like "liking" something) to a popularity contest

and that is likely to be a big mistake. There are also some sub-plots to this:

o Voting without reading the idea and all of its comments is too easy and can be

done mindlessly. It is for this reason that we did not include the ability to vote in

Browse Ideas, forcing users to at least go to the idea detail page before they can vote.

o Once it is known that you will or will not implement an idea based on voting, some

customers will spend more time garnering votes for what they want instead of

more constructively spending time on generating ideas or digging in to why a

particular idea is good or bad.

o Ideas that could be great, could become obscured because they rest at the bottom

of the voting pile.

• Constantly maintain status. It may look odd to see this in this section, but maintaining

current status on all ideas is paramount to tracking what you will or will not be

implementing. While it is up to you as to how you use the statuses, the default statuses

are pretty common in most idea exchanges and have been proven over time. Assuming

you are monitoring what ideas are in what status (and if you are not, you should be!), if

all ideas have the correct current status then your periodic picture of where you are will

always reflect what is happening in your idea exchange. Otherwise you risk gaps that

could be hard to explain.

Note: In our Premium version, there are several tools at your disposal to help collect and monitor

data whether that is to be able to print the Browse Ideas (known as Browse Reports), export ideas to

a CSV file for further analysis or basic reporting where you can see a summary of ideas created,

ideas commented and by status (which can each be exported to a CSV file as well).

User Guide > Browsing Ideas

The best way to see ideas in various ways is to Browse Ideas (and note that the site

administrator may decide to call it something else). This function offers users, administrators

and moderators many ways to see the ideas using filters to refine or narrow the focus as well

as to search using keywords. The initial display will show all ideas in descending chronological

order (newest first).

Here, we will explain all the user options and how it works.

1 Status filter

The status filter lets you select all (the default), none or selected statuses as desired:

When you have set the filter, click OK to update the filter or Cancel to leave the filter as it was

before making a new selection(s).

Note that clicking away from OK/Cancel has the same effect as Cancel.

2 Author(s) filter

The author(s) filter lets you select all (the default), none or selected authors as desired:

When you have set the filter, click OK to update the filter or Cancel to leave t he filter as it was

before making a new selection(s).

Note that clicking away from OK/Cancel has the same effect as Cancel.

3 Category(s) filter

The category(s) filter lets you select all (the default), none or selected categories as desired:

When you have set the filter, click OK to update the filter or Cancel to leave the fi lter as it was

before making a new selection(s).

Note that clicking away from OK/Cancel has the same effect as Cancel.

4 Tag(s) filter

The tag(s) filter lets you select all ( the default), none or selected tags as desired:

When you have set the filter , click OK to update the filter or Cancel to leave the filter as it was

before making a new selection(s).

Note that clicking away from OK/Cancel has the same effect as Cancel.

5 Find with keyword(s)

Enter a key word(s) to find ideas based on that more narrow focus, then click Search to display

based on that. Search looks for the keywords in both the title and text of an idea for a match.

For example, if you are looking for the term EFT (a banking term for electronic funds transfer),

you would enter "EFT" and then click Search to see ideas that have the word "EFT" in the title or

text of the idea:

6 Search button

Clicking Search will begin a new search of ideas based on th e current filter settings.

7 Clear Filter button

Clicking the Clear Filter button will result in clearing all filters that Browse Ideas is using. The

net effect of Clear Filter and then Search will result in all ideas being displayed (which is the

same as the default when first coming to Browse Ideas).

8 Column titles and 9 Detail for each idea

The explanation for each column is as follows:

Title: This column shows you the title (with link that will go to the details of the idea). Under

this, the idea categories and idea tags are also displayed. If there are no idea categories and/or

no idea tags, you will see None.

Status : This column shows you the idea status of the idea.

(Votes) : This column shows you the voting score (not the actual number of votes). For

instance if 9 users have voted where 5 users voted for (up) the idea and 4 users voted against

(down) the idea, the number here would be 1. To see how the users voted, you have to click the

link of the idea where this is shown.

Last Activity : This column shows you the date of the last activity.

Who: This column shows you who was responsible for the last activity.

What : This column shows you what was the action taken in the last activity. For instance

Created, Voted Up, Commented and so on.

(Views): This column shows you how many views the idea has had.

(Comments) : This column shows you how many comments and replies have been made.

(Following) : This column shows you whether you are following (checked) or not following

(unchecked). Note: A feature with this column is that you can check or uncheck an idea for ease of

following.

10 Page navigation

Depending on how many ideas there are per page and what page you are on, there will be links

to go to previous page, numbered pages and next page.

Plugin Guide

Plugin Guide > Dashboard

Dashboard components of the plugin is where you manage ideas, idea categories and idea

tags. From your WordPress Dashboard select Ideas and then select the desired function.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > All Ideas

From your WordPress Dashboard, select Ideas > All Ideas to see all ideas created by the plugin

with idea-specific data.

The Title and Date should be obvious. A few things to call out specific to idea details are below.

1 Idea Categories

The idea categories assigned to the idea.

2 Idea Tags

The idea tags assigned to the idea.

3 Comments

The number of comments posted to the idea.

4 Idea Status

We added this feature so that you have the ability to change the Idea Status , which is the last

column in the list of ideas. Although the status can be changed in the front end by editing the

idea, this was added in the back-end as well for those times when several idea statuses need to

be changed as it could be cumbersome to do many in the front end .

Note that we are also looking at the ability to do batch idea status updates in th e future.

To change a status here:

Then select a new status from the drop-down list of statuses:

Finally, accept or cancel the change:

See the FAQ concerning the statuses available and whether or not they can be voted on.

5 Quick Edit

With the exception of Idea Status above, you can quickly make changes to general (title, author,

date, etc) and idea-specific details (idea categories, idea tags and allow or not allow comments)

by using quick edit.

Note: While Quick Edit is quick, it is also not comprehensive and you may need to do normal (and

full) editing to make a change to an idea. A good example is if you are using a social channel plugin

to share an idea published where the controls (turn it on in an idea or turn it off in an idea) are only

available in the normal editing of the idea.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Add New

From your WordPress Dashboard, select Ideas > Add New to add a new idea using the

administration back-end.

This is only provided as a convenience to the administrator and not something that should be

regularly done. Additionally, the idea will be created with a status of Active as it can't be

specified here.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Categories

From your WordPress Dashboard, select Ideas > Idea Categories to manage idea categorization.

This works the exact same as WordPress categories except that they only apply to ideas

created. They can only be added, changed or removed by Authors on the front -end and by

Administrators on the front-end or back-end. If the text of a category is changed, all ideas

created that use that category will also be updated. Upon installation, the plugin creates the

category Uncategorized and sets that as the default.

Categories are usually employed at a higher level than tags so that both users and hosting

company get another dimension of attributes on their ideas. Typically a category would

represent a product, service, division of a company, division of labor, and so on. However, there

are no limitations on what you can do with them and their importance to the way the business,

product or service works is what should really drive how they are defined and used.

Note: The default idea category can't be changed , although it can be renamed. In the premium

version this can be changed to any existing category.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Idea Tags

From your WordPress Dashboard, select Ideas > Idea Tags to manage idea categorization. This

works the exact same as WordPress tags except that they only apply to ideas created.

This works the exact same as WordPress tags except that they only apply to ideas created. They

can only be added, changed or removed by Authors on the front -end and by Administrators on

the front-end or back-end. If the text of a tag is changed, all ideas created that use that tag will

also be updated.

Note: When initially installed, no tags are created.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Shortcodes

All of our widgets have shortcodes:

• Create An Idea

• Browse Ideas

• Recent Activity

• Tag Cloud

To see the options of the shortcodes for each of these widgets, from your WordPress

Dashboard, select Ideas > Shortcodes. An example below the options is also shown for each

one.

Plugin Guide > Dashboard > Upgrade

Our Premium version is anticipated to be released later in the year and will be packed with

features, support and other great benefits. To ge t more information about Premium, please

visit Free versus Premium and Pricing .

To learn more about why our idea exchange can be of great benefit to your business, please

visit Ideas result in profitability and Learn More .

Don't suggest it - Ideate it !!!

Plugin Guide > Widgets

Here is the complete guide to widgets. All widgets have shortcodes. To see them, go to your

WordPress Dashboard Ideas > Shortcodes for details and an example.

There is a little trick you can use to implement the shortcode to look like a widget inside of a

table instead of on a page. See How can I use shortcodes in tables to see how it is done!

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Browse Ideas

The Ideas: Browse Ideas widget is a responsive widget, but because there is so much

information it will likely look better in a larger size area of the screen than in a sidebar.

It has the following setup:

1 Title

Enter a title or leave blank.

Default: No title. We did this because it is likely you will have an entire page to show it and would

possibly use a name for that page that would not need another title to describe the function of the

widget.

2 Number of ideas shown at a time

Enter the number of ideas to show at a time. If there are more ideas than the number specified,

arrows on the bottom of the display will a llow the user to go to next and previous pages.

Default: 25.

3 Show Border?

Check the box to show a border (enable) around this widget; uncheck the box to not show a

border (disable) around this widget.

Default: Unchecked (disabled).

4 Border Color

If Show Border is enabled, enter the hex value of the color desired. A great source for color

codes can be found at HTML Color Codes .

Default: bdbdbd (light grey).

5 Border Size

If Show Border is enabled, enter the size of the border in pixels.

Default: 1.

6 Padding Option

This section is for padding options inside the widget. Padding here is additional space applied

inside the widget on the top, right, bottom and left. Some themes or page bui lding tools will

take care of this in a satisfactory way, but others will not.

7 Padding-top

Enter padding to be applied at the top in pixels:

Default: 0.

8 Padding-right

Enter padding to be applied on the right in pixels:

Default: 0.

9 Padding-bottom

Enter padding to be applied at the bottom in pixels:

Default: 0.

10 Padding-left

Enter padding to be applied on the left in pixels:

Default: 0.

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Create An Idea

The Ideas: Create An Idea widget is a responsive widget, but because you will want your

authors of ideas to not be encumbered when writing about what is on their mind to improve

your product or service it is highly recommended that the widget be placed in a wide area of

the screen for easy entry.

It has the following setup:

1 Title

Enter a title or leave blank.

Default: No title. We did this because it is likely you will have an entire page to show it and would

possibly use a name for that page that would not need another title to describe the function of th e

widget.

2 Show Border?

Check the box to show a border (enable) around this widget; uncheck the box to not show a

border (disable) around this widget.

Default: Unchecked (disabled).

3 Border Color

If Show Border is enabled, enter the hex value o f the color desired. A great source for color

codes can be found at HTML Color Codes .

Default: bdbdbd (light grey).

4 Border Size

If Show Border is enabled, enter the size of the border in pixels.

Default: 1.

5 Padding Option

This section is for padding options inside the widget. Padding here is additional space applied

inside the widget on the top, right, bottom and left. Some themes or page building tools will

take care of this in a satisfactory way, but others will not.

6 Padding-top

Enter padding to be applied at the top in pixels:

Default: 0.

7 Padding-right

Enter padding to be applied on the right in pixels:

Default: 0.

8 Padding-bottom

Enter padding to be applied at the bottom in pixels:

Default: 0.

9 Padding-left

Enter padding to be applied on the left in pixels:

Default: 0.

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Recent Ideas

The Ideas: Recent Ideas widget is a responsive widget, but is best utilized in a sidebar to

complement a page with other activity. This widget will only show ideas created and the text

associated with it is truncated to the first 30 words so that it does not take up too much space.

It has the following setup:

1 Title

Enter a title.

Feature: Replacing any title present with one blank space will result in not having any header and

just the data from this widget. Depending on how you present data to users, this may be

desirable. Note that if the title is completely deleted without any space as noted in this feature or

characters, the Default will be added to the title.

Default: "Recent Ideas".

2 Number of ideas shown at a time

Enter the number of ideas shown at a time.

Note: If there are more ideas to show than the number indicated, a Load More link will allow the

user to see the next number of ideas equal to this same number. For instance if the number of ideas

to show at a time is 5 and there are 12 ideas, the first 5 ideas will display. When the user clicks the

Load More link, another 5 ideas will display now showing 10. When the user clicks the Load More link

one more time, the remaining 2 ideas will display.

Default: 5.

3 Show Border?

Check the box to show a border (enable) around this widget; uncheck the box to not show a

border (disable) around this widget.

Default: Checked (enabled).

4 Border Color

If Show Border is enabled, enter the hex value of the color desired. A great source for color

codes can be found at HTML Color Codes .

Default: bdbdbd (light grey).

5 Border Size

If Show Border is enabled, enter the size of the border in pixels.

Default: 1.

6 Padding Option

This section is for padding options inside the widget. Padding here is additional space applied

inside the widget on the top, right, bottom and left. Some themes or page building tools will

take care of this in a satisfactory way, but others will not.

7 Padding-top

Enter padding to be applied at the top in pixels:

Default: 0.

8 Padding-right

Enter padding to be applied on the right in pixels:

Default: 0.

9 Padding-bottom

Enter padding to be applied at the bottom in pixels:

Default: 0.

10 Padding-left

Enter padding to be applied on the left in pixels:

Default: 0.

Plugin Guide > Widgets > Tag Cloud

The Ideas: Tag Cloud widget is a responsive widget, but is best utilized in a sidebar to

complement a page with other activity. This widget will show all tags used in ideas .

It has the following setup:

1 Title

Enter a title.

Feature: Replacing any title present with one blank space will result in not having any header and

just the data from this widget. Depending on how you present data to users, this may be

desirable. Note that if the title is completely deleted without any space as noted in this feature or

characters, the Default will be added to the title.

Default: "Tag Cloud".

2 Number of tags shown at a time

Enter the number of tags to show at a time.

Note: If there are more tags to show than the number indicated, a Load More link will allow t he user

to see the next number of tags equal to this same number. For instance if the number of tags to

show at a time is 25 and there are 55 tags, the first 25 tags will display. When the user clicks the

Load More link, another 25 tags will display now showing 50. When the user clicks the Load More

link one more time, the remaining 5 tags will display.

Default: 25.

3 Show Border?

Check the box to show a border (enable) around this widget; uncheck the box to not show a

border (disable) around this widget.

Default: Checked (enabled).

4 Border Color

If Show Border is enabled, enter the hex value of the color desired. A great source for color

codes can be found at HTML Color Codes .

Default: bdbdbd (light grey).

5 Border Size

If Show Border is enabled, enter the size of the border in pixels.

Default: 1.

6 Padding Option

This section is for padding options inside the widget. Padding here is additional space applied

inside the widget on the top, right, bottom and left. Some themes or page building tools will

take care of this in a satisfactory way, but others will not.

7 Padding-top

Enter padding to be applied at the top in pixels:

Default: 0.

8 Padding-right

Enter padding to be applied on the right in pixels:

Default: 0.

9 Padding-bottom

Enter padding to be applied at the bottom in pixels:

Default: 0.

10 Padding-left

Enter padding to be applied on the left in pixels:

Default: 0.