How to: Submit an idea
For any questions about the Ideas Portal, please contact idea-help@sailpoint.com.
- Overview: Submitting an idea in the SailPoint Ideas Portal
- Expressing meaningful product ideas
- Navigating through the Ideas Portal
- Registering as a new Ideas Portal user
- Logging in to the Ideas Portal
- Getting involved
- Subscribing to an idea
- Adding a new idea
- Idea statuses
- Frequently asked questions
- Is the Ideas Portal in Compass?
- Do I need a separate login for the Ideas Portal?
- Who can submit ideas?
- What does a good idea look like?
- If I add an idea, does that mean it will get developed?
Overview: Submitting an idea in the SailPoint Ideas Portal
As we engage with various software products, we naturally start forming opinions on how features should be designed and implemented. These ideas can range from minor enhancements to significant, innovative concepts. Effectively communicating and sharing these ideas is crucial for making them stand out, ensuring they are heard, and potentially seeing them materialize into actual product features.
This guide aims to demonstrate how to interact with the SailPoint Ideas Portal and offers essential information to consider when making impactful enhancement requests.
Expressing meaningful product ideas
Follow these recommendations to help articulate your idea in the best way possible.
Product prioritization process
There are lots of ways the product team looks at potential enhancements. Here are a few questions to ask yourself while writing meaningful enhancement requests:
- What differentiates us in the market?
- What is necessary competitively?
- What is inline with our future strategic goals?
- What is most impactful?
- What is causing the most pain?
- What is relevant to be worked on at this very moment?
- What is an easy “low hanging fruit”?
Problem statement
Describe the problem faced by end users, customers, etc. who are using the product. What is the core of the problem? Focus on the problem (why), not the solution (how). Understanding the real problem is critical to understanding the solution needs. Make your problem somewhat realistic, and is feasible to solve.
- Do your diligence, and investigate the problem before submitting.
- Attach any relevant information, screenshots, etc.
- Be succinct but informative
Proposed solutions
Describe what potential solutions might look look in general terms. This shouldn’t be too explicit, unless dealing with a very specific issue. In general propose solutions, but don’t dwell on them, as the problem may be solved in a completely different or innovative way.
Use cases
Provide a short description of how a proposed feature might be used in a wider context. Imagine usage within the purview of someone actually using it - phrased with the actors in mind, and wider business use - e.g. "As an admin, I would like to do X, then Y, then Z because…"
Business impact
Describes the impact to the overall business, and is really the chance to sell the benefits - tangible or intangible - of doing a feature.
- Include positive impact(s) the enhancement process might have
- e.g. Saved $200,000 in password resets. - Include negative impact(s) not doing the enhancement might have
- e.g. The current process takes 8 hours a week of a resource's time, which is $20,000 a year. - For sales, indicate prospects with this problem, any value and if the deal was won / lost
- For post-sales, indicate customers with this problem.
- What is the customer’s operational impact?
- Is there business value lost or won with this problem?
- How pervasive is this? How many or customers / prospects are affected?
Alternatives considered
Details any workarounds or alternatives considered - whether it be a manual process, a process change, or some other work done outside the system. This is also a good section to detail why things might not work.
- Write a clear and descriptive one sentence summary of the idea.
- If you own multiple products, make sure you select the appropriate workspace for your idea.
- Share as much information as possible about the problem that you are seeing. Include important items like the area or feature you are referring to and other approaches and suggestions that did not solve the problem.
- Explain why this problem is important to you.
- Propose an idea of a possible solution.
- Join in on the conversation that your post generates. Revisit your idea often and make sure you are answering follow up questions from other customers and SailPoint employees.
- Refrain from being dismissive of the feedback that you may receive, instead use that opportunity to give more context and explain why this idea is important.
- Visit other ideas and keep any eye out for similar problems and solutions.
Navigating through the Ideas Portal
Registering as a new Ideas Portal user
1. Go to ideas.sailpoint.com to be directed to the single access page and select No account? Register now!
2. Review the SailPoint Terms of Service and select I Accept and Continue to follow through on creating a new account.
3. Fill in the required fields and click Submit.
- First name
- Last name
- Username
- Username should be between 2-21 characters, and begin and end with a number or letter
- Supported characters include ASCII alphanumeric, underscore, and dash
- Unicode characters are not supported
- Email address
- Password requirements
- No more than 2 repeated characters
- 5 unique characters
- Minimum of 8 characters
- 1 special character
- 1 number
- 1 uppercase character
- 1 lowercase character
- Verify password
4. Follow the prompt to verify your email address.
5. Enter the verification code that was sent to your email address and select Verify.
Note: If you do not see the verification email in a few minutes, please check your junk mail or spam folder. If you do not receive the email in your inbox, please contact your company's IT team and add the sailpoint.com domain to your white list.
6. You are now registered and signed in.
Logging in to the Ideas Portal
1. Head to ideas.sailpoint.com to be directed to the single access page.
2. Enter your email for your SailPoint Single Access Account and click Submit.
3. Enter your current password for your SailPoint Single Access Account and click Sign On.
Getting involved
Browse through the full list of submitted ideas or filter them by category or status. You can also sort ideas to see what was recently posted, trending, or popular.
Find an idea that you aligns with your business goals? Reply to the post and vote on it! You can see all of the ideas you voted for under My votes.
Subscribing to an idea
Subscribe to ideas to stay engaged in the ideation process. You will receive alerts when the status changes or when someone leaves a comment.
Adding a new idea
Submitting an idea is easy! Start clicking on Add a new idea located below the Ideas header.
Select the appropriate category from the product drop-down field.
While you type in the one sentence summary, the system will search for similar posts for you to view and vote on. Fill in the required fields and when you are ready, click on Add Idea to submit your idea to the portal.
Others users can now leave comments on your idea and vote!
Idea statuses
Below are a list of status definitions for the Ideas Portal.
# | Idea Status | Description |
1 |
New Idea |
Your idea has been submitted and will be looked at by someone at SailPoint. |
2 |
Idea Refinement |
A member of our team is currently looking into the idea and figuring out the business problem your team is looking to solve. |
3 |
In Discovery |
A research project is underway for your idea. Members of our team are working to gain market validation of the business problem. The information gathered in discovery is used to inform if the Idea should be added to the roadmap. |
4 |
Planned |
Your idea has been added to SailPoint's Product roadmap. |
5 |
Future Consideration |
Your idea aligns with our long-term product vision but is not currently added to our roadmap. |
6 |
Out of Scope |
This idea is not aligned with our long-term product vision. |
7 |
Shipped |
Your idea has been implemented into one of SailPoint's Products. |
8 |
Already Exists |
Your idea has been released in a previous feature release. |
Frequently asked questions
Is the Ideas Portal in Compass?
No. The Ideas Portal is a separate website.
Do I need a separate login for the Ideas Portal?
No. The Ideas Portal is one of the websites that are available through SailPoint's Single Access Account.
Who can submit ideas?
All users are allowed to submit and vote on ideas. Please visit ideas.sailpoint.com to get started.
What does a good idea look like?
View the Expressing meaningful product ideas section for more information on how to explain an idea for consideration.
If I add an idea, does that mean it will get developed?
Not all ideas will be accepted, but all ideas will receive a response and an appropriate status change. Read the Idea statuses section to learn more.