Slate is powered by the creativity and innovation of the Slate Community, which is why we encourage you to provide us with your feedback via the Slate Feedback Forum. Your ideas and suggestions are invaluable to the development process – be they your likes, dislikes, new feature requests, changes to existing functionality (and more!). The Feedback Forum provides you with the opportunity to engage with our Product Management Team as well as the Slate Community at large. By creating, commenting on and voting for ideas within the forum, you are actively helping to guide future development within Slate.

Submitting Ideas

A well-written idea can help to expedite the development process by providing the Slate Community, as well as the Product Management Team, with a better understanding of the desired functionality and/or outcome. Community members can then weigh in on the idea with their own opinions and use cases – choosing to support the idea with a vote, if desired.

Here are some key items to keep in mind when submitting new ideas to the Feedback Forum:

• Start with a search. Before creating a new idea, be sure to search for any pre-existing ideas that require the same (or similar) functionality. If a similar idea already exists, be sure to comment on that idea with your specific use case and lend your support to the idea by voting.

• Give your idea a clear title. Titles are displayed publicly in the Feedback Forum. Your titles should be clear, concise and as specific as possible in order to convey the intent of the idea. It’s important to remember that members of the community will be searching within the forum to find potential matching ideas. Using keywords in your title – such as the names of the related Slate tools – can assist members of the community in locating your idea.
  Note: If you were previously searching for an idea in the forum before determining that a new idea was needed, remember to clear your search terms and formulate a proper title following the guidelines above.

• Give context. When drafting the idea description, focus on the what and the why of the desired functionality. It’s important to include the reasoning behind your idea. If you are requesting new functionality, include details as to why that particular enhancement would be beneficial to your business process and how it can benefit others. If you are requesting an enhancement to existing functionality, explain why the current functionality does not meet your needs and provide clear information on what needs to change in order for them to be satisfied. If you’ve encountered a bug or unexpected behavior, clearly describe what you are experiencing and how that behavior differs from the expected or desired outcome.

• Provide examples. Providing screenshots, step-by-step examples, and including your specific use case(s) allows the Product Management Team to gain a better understanding of what you are asking. If you are reporting a bug or unexpected behavior, it is important to include a detailed list of reproduction steps so that our team can replicate the behavior in order to investigate further.
  IMPORTANT: Make sure to remove any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) prior to submitting your idea.

• Spread the word. If your suggestion is one that you know others can benefit from, share the link to your post within the Community Forum and/or social media platforms. Invite others to join in the discussion and lend their support as a vote!

Voting & Commenting on Ideas

Voting on an idea indicates support for that idea, while comments left on an idea can help to provide further context regarding the desired functionality. 

Why comment or vote?

• Impact. Sharing similar (or different) experiences helps the Product Management Team to gauge the impact that a particular idea may have on the community. The more comments and/or votes that an idea has, the more visible it becomes to the Product Management Team. Commenting on ideas can also help to open dialog with not only Technolutions staff but with other peers and colleagues too, thereby helping to refine the initial suggestion.

• Reach. When evaluating an idea for future development, the Product Management Team takes a variety of factors into account such as business importance, reach, performance impact, and quality of life impact. The more feedback that we receive from the Slate Community on a particular idea, the better able we are to evaluate that idea for acceptance onto the development roadmap. Be sure to comment on ideas even if you have an opposing view – contradictory viewpoints are also important! 

• Stay in the know. By voting for an idea, you will be subscribed to receive email notifications once updates are made to the status by the Product Management Team.

The Lifecycle of a Feedback Idea

A Feedback idea may go through a variety of stages on its road to being considered for future development. The various statuses that it may enter along the way are as follows:

No Status
The idea has not yet been considered or has not been deemed a priority for future development.

Tell Us More
This idea has potential, but the Product Management Team is looking to gather additional feedback from the Community to either understand its reach and impact better, or to gather input on the various ways in which it could be accomplished. Be sure to chime in with your thoughts! 

Stay Tuned
A preliminary review has been completed for this idea and it has been accepted for development, however, a specific timeline for release has not been set.

Planned
This idea has been accepted for development and work has been scheduled for an upcoming Sprint.

In Progress
This idea is currently in development.

Published to Test
This idea has been published to Test Environments ahead of being released to Production.

Published to Production
This idea has been published to Production Environments.

Completed
This idea has been published to Production Environments for a period of time with no additional comments being made by the Community. Once marked as “Completed,” comments are no longer accepted.

Deferred
This idea is something that Technolutions does not have full control over and therefore the ability to make changes is limited. This status is often used when the idea relates to a third-party vendor or solution.

Try This
This idea is already possible within Slate. We will often point to additional resources or provide more detailed information on how the functionality can be accomplished within our status update.

Not Planned
This idea has not been deemed a priority and is therefore not planned for future development. Once marked as “Not Planned,” comments are no longer accepted.