Validate ideas: overview of functionality

Note: Validate is being integrated into Pendo Discover to expand its capabilities and create a more seamless experience between Pendo offerings. Some of these new capabilities are in closed beta, including the ability to link ideas to customer feedback and to provide workarounds for ideas you're not currently building. If you're interested in getting early access to Discover and providing feedback, sign up to the beta waitlist.

Validate allows you to test and validate changes to your product before deciding what to build. The Validate page is accessed from the left-side navigation. If you're on a smaller screen, the page can be found by choosing More in the left-side navigation and then selecting Validate from the dropdown menu.

Create product Ideas, add votes to these ideas, and capture real responses from your target audience using Idea Tests. And idea test can include up to three ideas. Ideas can be pain points, problems to solve, feature requests, or opportunity areas. If you pass revenue as metadata to Pendo, such as ARR, you can also link account revenue to votes to prioritize and evaluate the impact of the idea. For information on how to add revenue, see Configure account revenue.

We also offer the ability to compare and prioritize ideas under the Analysis tab in the Validate page. This allows you to make decisions about your next product discovery or what to build next based on an aggregate of ideas. For more information, see Compare and prioritize ideas in Validate.

Finally, to view your return on investment (ROI) using Validate, open the ROI tab in the Validate page. For more information, see View return on investment (ROI) for Validate.

Permissions

Edit User Permission Settings by navigating to Settings > Users, selecting the user from the list, and then selecting Edit User.

Under User Permissions > Validate, you have the following roles to choose: Viewer, Contributor, and Manager. By default, new users are given the Contributor role.

Global filters

You can apply filters at the top of the Ideas tab and the Analysis tab of Validate. These are global filters, which means that changing the filters in one tab applies to the other tab as well. You can filter by the following:

• Segment
• Timescale
• Product Areas
• Idea statuses
• Idea creators
• Idea importance

To set a date range, toggle off the All Time option and choose from the options in the dropdown menu next to the toggle.

Ideas list

The Ideas tab is first tab in the Validate page, where you can view a list of existing ideas that can then be tested in the Idea Tests tab. You can test up to 3 ideas in a single idea test. For more information, see Create and test ideas in Validate. 

In the table below the filters, you can find existing ideas and the following information about these ideas depending on the columns you choose for the table.

• Title. The descriptive name given to the idea.
• Status. Where the idea is in your development process.
• Effort. The expected time, money, and other resources to fulfill an idea.
• Impact. The predicted value that the fulfilled idea will have on the business and customer base.
• Apps. The applications that the idea relates to.
• Product Area. The Product Area that the idea relates to, or “No Product Area” if none was assigned.
• Created By. The user that originally created the idea.
• Created Time. The date and time that the idea was originally created.
• Last Updated By. The user that last updated the idea.
• Last Updated Time. The date and time that the idea was last updated.
• Votes. The number of votes that an idea received.
• Account Votes. The number of Accounts that voted on an idea.
• ARR. A value that you can optionally pass to Pendo through the customer value metadata field.

To customize columns, select the Manage Columns icon in the top-right corner of the list. In the window that opens, you can add, remove, and move columns in the table.

You can also delete an idea from within the Ideas table by hovering over the Idea that you want to remove and then selecting the Delete (trash can) icon at the end of the row. You're then asked to confirm that you want to delete the idea, which also deletes all associated data. If you don't want to delete the idea, select Cancel. If you do want to delete the idea, select Delete Idea.

Idea details

To view the details of an individual idea, select the name of the idea from the Ideas table, under the Title column. The details of the idea open in a slide-out panel on the right-side of the page.

Here, you can change the status of the idea using the dropdown menu, edit the Description of the idea, choose a Product Area, and, if you're an admin user, provide Effort and Impact estimates.

Workarounds (beta)

Note: This offering is currently in closed beta, available to select Pendo customers for testing. The information that follows isn't a commitment, promise, or legal obligation. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described here are subject to change at the discretion of Pendo, which can occur without notice. If you're interested in getting early access and providing feedback, sign up to the beta waitlist.

Not every idea is built immediately. Often, suggestions and requests don’t make it onto the roadmap at all, whether because they’re in low demand, are low value, or only solve edge cases. Sometimes, the problem will be solved with a different idea already on the roadmap. 

Discover offers Workarounds for when you can provide either a temporary workaround whilst you work on a more permanent solution or an alternative route a user can take to achieve their goals.

Several feedback items in Discover can be linked to an idea, which means that when you add a workaround to an idea, you're communicating a solution to all associated Discover feedback items at the same time. 

Add a workaround

In the details of an idea, select Add workaround and enter your workaround into the text box. Select the green checkmark when you’re done. Select the text box again to re-enter it and edit the content. When you close the window, the workaround is saved. You have various formatting options available to you, including bolding, italicizing, underlining, and so on.

View a workaround

If an idea already has a workaround, you can view it by selecting View workaround in the details of the idea.

Votes

Votes are added to ideas through Idea Tests that you present to your visitors or when you add a vote on behalf of a visitor. Votes are accompanied with an importance rating: Must Have, Nice to Have, or Not Interested. This is a mutually exclusive choice. Users can't rank ideas by importance to them. For information on adding votes, see Create and test ideas in Validate.

Select the Votes tab to view the votes added to an idea and their respective importance ratings. You can view votes on an idea in a card view or a table view using the icons next to Apply Page Filters. 

Toggle on Apply Page Filters if you want to filter the votes in the idea by the filters already applied to the Validate page.