Engage users through an ideas portal

An ideas portal encourages in-app engagement with your visitors as part of a two-way exchange of ideas for continuous product discovery and development, structured around your business vision and strategy.

Create and share one or more ideas portals to:

• Share and validate product ideas by encouraging users to vote and comment on the ideas presented in your ideas portal.
• Gather additional feedback to analyze alongside other feedback sources in Listen.

Benefits

Externally, providing a portal that your visitors can interact with in-app promotes transparency. Communicate openly with your users by sharing your ideas and encouraging them to interact with the content by voting, commenting, and submitting feedback. Exposing the ideas you're considering and inviting further feedback builds trust and satisfaction.

Internally, gathering evidence through ideas presented in your portal gives Product teams confidence in their next steps, using structured, qualitative data to inform their product decisions. Use the portal's customizable features to present ideas that are aligned with your company's vision and strategy. For more information, see Customize your ideas portal.

Permissions

To create, edit, and share an ideas portal, you must have Listen Manager permissions.

• To share an ideas portal through a guide, you must additionally have Guide Publisher permissions.
• To share an ideas portal by adding it as a module to a Resource Center and then publishing that Resource Center, you must additionally have Resource Center Author and Resource Center Publisher permissions.

An admin user has all of the above permissions by default. A Pendo admin user can also update a user's permissions in Settings > Users to grant them the necessary permissions to share portals. For more information, see Roles and permissions.

Setup process

You can have multiple portals, which you can share from one or more locations, including Resource Centers, guides, and your own application. For this reason, sharing a portal with your visitors is a two-step process:

1. Create an ideas portal. 
2. Provide access to the portal. 

You can allow your visitors access to one or more portals through:

• A module in your Resource Center. This is the most flexible way of sharing multiple portals with multiple segments of visitors.
• A guide. Sharing a portal through a web-based guide involves embedding the portal into your guide. Sharing a portal through a mobile guide involves adding a button to your guide.
• A link or button in your application. Your visitors can access a full-screen view of an ideas portal through a link or button that you add to your application.

Sharing a portal through a Resource Center or a guide allows you to share the portal with a specific segment of visitors that you define.

Create an ideas portal

When creating a portal, you choose between two portal types: a Custom portal or a Status-driven portal. Both types let you add swimlanes to organize ideas, but differ in how tabs are created and how ideas are placed.

Custom portal: You create and name your own tabs and swimlanes, and manually drag and drop ideas into place. Any updates to the portal require you to manually reposition ideas.

Status-driven portal: Tabs are generated automatically based on the idea statuses you select. When you add ideas to the portal or update an idea’s status, it moves automatically to the corresponding tab. This significantly reduces the ongoing effort needed to keep your portal up to date. Note that if an idea is updated to a status not included on the portal, it is removed from the portal.

To create an ideas portal in Pendo:

1. Go to Listen > Portals. This page lists any existing portals that have already been created.
2. Select Create portal in the top-right corner. This opens a modal where you choose your portal type.
3. Give your portal a meaningful name. This isn't the name that your visitors see.
   
   
4. Select a portal type: Custom portal or Status-driven portal. If using a status-driven portal, select the statuses you want on the portal in the dropdown menu. Then select Create to open the portal editor.
5. Customize your portal.
6. Preview your portal using the toggle at the top of the page to see what your portal will look like to your visitors.
7. Select the down arrow next to Save and then Save and exit.

Your portal is now in the Portals page in Listen, alongside any other portals that might have been created. The next step is to share your portal.

Share through a module in your Resource Center

You can allow your visitors to access a portal that you created through a module in your Resource Center.

You can only have one Resource Center for each application. You can provide access to portals relevant to specific applications by creating separate portals and adding them as modules to various Resource Centers.

At its simplest level, you can allow your visitors to access one portal in one Resource Center, but you can also add one portal to multiple Resource Centers or multiple portals to one Resource Center, each targeted at its own segment of visitors.

You can control who can access a portal using segmentation when you add the portal module. If you have more than one portal module in the same Resource Center, you can ensure that your visitors only see one portal based on their segment.

You can add the portal to a Resource Center from the portal's settings or from the Resource Center where you want to publish it. You must have at least one portal and one Resource Center already created. For information on creating Resource Center, see Overview of the Resource Center.

Publish from the Portal's settings

To add your portal to a Resource Center from the details of the portal in Listen:

1. Go to Listen > Portals.
2. Hover over the portal and select Edit portal or select Settings at the bottom of the card.
3. Select Share in the top-right corner of the page. This opens a window with the Resource Center tab open by default.
4. Choose your Resource Center from the dropdown menu.
5. Select + Add module. This opens the details of the portal module in the Resource Center you added it to. 
6. Edit the Segment as required. For information about segments, see Segments.
7. Select Edit in my app to preview the portal from the Resource Center. You can also edit the size of the module from here, or follow the instructions outlined in Resize the ideas portal module in this article.
8. Select Save and then Exit.
9. Select Back to Resource Center to manage the publication status of the Resource Center.

Your changes then appear as part of the Resource Center Draft. You must publish these changes so that visitors can view them in the Resource Center. For more information, see Overview of the Resource Center.

Publish from the Resource Center

To add your portal to a Resource Center from the Resource Center itself:

1. Go to Guides > Resource Center.
2. Find and open the Resource Center that you'd like to add a portal to. This takes you to the default Settings tab for the Resource Center.
3. Hover over the first card in the preview and then select + Add module.
4. Hover over Listen visitor portal and then select Select Module.
5. Select Add modules. This takes you back to the default Settings tab for the Resource Center.
6. Find and hover over the Listen Visitor Portal card in the preview, and then select View Module Details.
7. Choose a portal from the dropdown menu.
8. Edit the Segment as required. For information about segments, see Segments.
9. Select Save.
10. Select Edit in my app to preview the portal from the Resource Center. You can also edit the size of the module from here, or follow the instructions outlined in Resize the ideas portal module in this article.
11. Select Save and then Exit.
12. Select Back to Resource Center to manage the publication status of the Resource Center.

Your changes then appear as part of the Resource Center Draft. You must publish these changes so that visitors can view them in the Resource Center. For more information, see Overview of the Resource Center.

Resize the ideas portal module

The module for the ideas portal in the Resource Center is designed to fill the screen responsively. If you resize your screen, the size of the ideas portal module changes accordingly

If you don't want the ideas portal to take up as much space on the screen, or if you want the ideas portal to take up a fixed amount of space on the screen, you can specify the size of the ideas portal module.

1. Go to Guides > Resource Center.
2. Find and open the Resource Center with your ideas portal in it.
3. Select Edit in my app, enter your application URL, and then select Launch Designer.
4. Open the Listen Visitor Portal module.
5. Under Dimensions > Height, select Fixed and enter a height.
6. Under Dimensions > Width, select Fixed and enter a width.
7. Select Save and then exit.
8. Select Preview and check that the ideas portal module appears as you expect it to.
9. Publish the Resource Center to view the changes to the ideas portal. For more information, see Overview of the Resource Center.

Share through a guide

You can grant access to your ideas portal through a guide, which you can target to different segments of visitors. You can also create multiple guides, one for each portal you create. You can control access to different idea portals using segmentation in each of your guides.

You can add the same portal to multiple guides, but if you want to share multiple portals, you must create multiple guides, one for each portal.

Embed in a web-based guide

You can embed your ideas portal to a web-based guide, which you can target to different segments of visitors. When a visitor opens an ideas portal through a web-based guide, the portal opens inside the guide.

To embed your portal inside a web-based guide, you must first copy the embed code to use in a guide.

1. Go to Listen > Portals.
2. Hover over the portal and select Edit portal or select Settings at the bottom of the card.
3. Select Share in the top-right corner of the page.
4. Open the Guide tab.
5. Select Copy code.

Then, while creating or editing a web-based guide:

1. Add a code block.
2. Paste the code into the HTML tab.
3. Optionally, edit the height of the guide. The default height is 70% of the screen, which you can change by editing height: 70vh important;. For example, if you wanted the guide to take up 100% of the screen, you could update the code to height: 100vh important;. You might then also want to edit the width, which you can do as standard from the Edit Container > Styling tab in the Visual Design Studio.
4. Select Done.

You then need to edit the guide's details as required and publish the guide. You can control access to different idea portals using segmentation in each of your web-based guides. For more information, see Define guide settings.

Link from a mobile guide

You can grant access to your ideas portal through a button in a mobile guide, which you can target to different segments of visitors. When a visitor opens an ideas portal through a mobile guide, the portal opens in a web browser on the mobile device.

To link to a portal from your mobile guide: 

1. While creating or editing a mobile guide, add a button and name it.
2. Select Launch Listen Portal from the Actions dropdown menu.
3. In the Select portal submenu that appears, choose the portal that you'd like to connect to the button.

You then need to edit the guide's details as required and publish the guide. You can control access to different idea portals using segmentation in each of your mobile guides. For more information, see Segment and schedule a guide in Create a guide for mobile.

Share through your application

If you've implemented Pendo using the install script, you can embed the portal into your application using a unique code block that you add to your application code. To get the code block:

1. Go to Listen > Portals.
2. Hover over the portal and select Edit portal or select Settings at the bottom of the card.
3. Select Share in the top-right corner of the page.
4. Open the Embed in app tab.
5. Select Copy code.

View who has access to your portals

If you choose to share your portal through a mobile guide or Resource Center, you can see who has access  to them from the portal's settings. To see what portals are being shared through which Resource Centers and mobile guides:

1. Go to Listen > Portals.
2. Hover over the portal and select Edit portal or select Settings at the bottom of the card.
3. Check the Sharing section at the bottom of page, which shows a table of the following information:
   • Name. The title of the portal.
   • Type. Where the portal is added (Resource Center or guide).
   • App. The application that the portal is added to.
   • Status. Whether the portal is public.

The Public status only reflects the status of the portal if it's inside a published mobile guide or Resource Center module. You don't see this status for portals that are shared through a custom code block in a guide or embedded in your application.

Link to your ideas and feedback form in the portal

Both Pendo users and visitors can copy links to specific ideas and the feedback form within a portal, known as deep linking.

Note: To use deep linking in portals, make sure you're running version 2.313.0 or later of the Pendo web SDK (previously called the Pendo agent). If you don't see the link icon on ideas, that means you're using an older version of the Pendo web SDK. For instructions on verifying and updating your Pendo web SDK version, see Pendo Web SDK settings.

To link to an idea:

1. Select or hover over the idea you want to link to.
2. Select the link icon (Copy link to clipboard).
3. Share the copied link. This opens directly to that idea in the portal.

If your portal includes a feedback form, you can also link to it:

1. Select the feedback form to open it.
2. Select the link icon (Copy link to feedback form). 
3. Share the copied link. This opens directly to the feedback form in the portal.

If your application requires authentication, copied links may not open directly to the correct idea or feedback form. Authentication or redirect flows can remove the URL query string parameters that identify the linked content. We recommend that you work with your development team to ensure your authentication flow preserves the full URL, including query string parameters.

Edit your portal

To edit your portal, go to Listen > Portals, hover over the portal, and select Edit portal. For guidance, see Customize your ideas portal. Any changes you make and save automatically update the portal wherever you've chosen to share it.

If your portal is in a Resource Center, you can also edit the portal from the Resource Center itself:

1. Go to Guides > Resource Center.
2. Find and hover over the portal module in your Resource Center.
3. Select View Module Details.
4. Select Manage portal.
5. Select Edit portal.