How to: Submit an idea

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For questions regarding the Ideas Portal, please contact idea-help@sailpoint.com.

• Overview: Submitting an idea in the Ideas Portal
• Expressing meaningful product ideas
• Using the Ideas Portal
• Registering as a new user
• Getting involved
• 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 Ideas Portal

As we interact with software products, and compare those experiences with our own, we start to form ideas and opinions around how features should exist in the product space. Some of these ideas may be smaller enhancements and extensions to existing product capabilities, while other ideas may be larger, more ambitious ideas that a novel or unique.

Sharing and expressing these product ideas in a meaningful way can go a long way towards making your ideas stand-out, be heard, and potentially even translated into actual product features and capabilities.

This guide will show how to interact with the Ideas Portal and provide information that you might want to take in consideration when making a meaningful enhancement request.

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. 

Using the Ideas Portal

Registering as a new user

The Ideas Portal is one of the websites that are available through SailPoint's single access and is accessible to all users.

For unregistered users, please visit ideas.sailpoint.com to self-register.

1. To get started, 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 or I Don’t Accept to go back to the previous page

4. Fill in the required fields and click Submit

• First name
• Last name
• Display name for forums
  • 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
  • Please use your employee email address
• Password requirements
  • Minimum password length of 8 characters
  • 5 unique characters
  • 1 special character
  • 1 number
  • 1 uppercase character
  • 1 lowercase character
• Verify password

5. Follow the prompt to verify your email address

6. 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 whitelist.

7. You are now registered and signed in

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.

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! Begin by clicking on the Add a new idea button located below the Search bar.

Select the appropriate category from the product drop-down menu.

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.

Now 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 has 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.

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.