The Feedback Workflow

This article provides guidance on implementing a process for using Pendo Feedback, including specific instructions for each phase in our Feedback Workflow. It covers key roles and responsibilities, and recommended actions. 

You can either incorporate Pendo Feedback into your existing workflow or plan a new process. To implement the Pendo Feedback Workflow:

1. Identify your Feedback tasks, and team roles and responsibilities. See Before you get started, below.
2. Read through the workflow, noting any changes you might need to make to your current process. See The Pendo Feedback Workflow, below.
3. Outline each step of your process in a Team Guidelines Document and set up training. If you have a big library of unreviewed requests in Feedback, you can make triaging these part of your manager training.

Before you get started

This section outlines some resources and processes we recommend implementing before embarking on the day-to-day work involved in your Feedback Workflow. These resources and processes help your teams collect and manage requests consistently and efficiently. 

Governance plan

To help you review incoming requests, we recommend that you first determine and document how you plan on managing and triaging requests (Phase 1 of the Feedback Workflow).

Each App or Product Area can have a team of managers, but there should be one person responsible for keeping things updated or for keeping the teams accountable. This is typically the Feedback manager or process owner: the person in your company that "owns" Pendo Feedback and is responsible for its success. 

The process owner determines and formalizes how your company manages products and Product Areas, triages requests, and reports on feedback. You can then use Apps, Product Areas, and Request Assignee filters in the UI to assign ownership to new requests. 

You could have a dedicated process owner who assigns requests to Product Managers as needed. Alternatively, each Product Manager might own the triage and review of requests relating to their own Product or Product Area. Create specific guidelines for triage managers to follow.

Auto-tag visitors and accounts

Automate visitor and account tagging with the Pendo install script (commonly referred to as the "snippet") or using Feedback's API. Auto-tags automatically add tags to visitors and accounts in Pendo Feedback so that you can pull reports and view requests from specific users and accounts. 

For information on auto-tagging, see Tagging in Feedback. For information on how to set up auto-tagging through the snippet, see the Developer’s guide to installing Pendo and the Developer’s guide to installing Feedback.

Product Settings adapted to your Feedback Workflow

Configure your Product Settings to help you implement the Feedback Workflow with consistency and efficiency:

• Use custom status names and status responses that reflect your Feedback Workflow. For example, Awaiting Feedback might be renamed to "Open for Voting". For more information, see Customize status names.
• Use saved views in the Browse page to help you find the data you need quickly and easily. For example, you can create a view for each PM based on the App or Product Area they triage or manage. For detailed instructions on creating saved views, see Manage requests in the Browse page.

For an overview of Product Settings, see Settings for Pendo Feedback.

The Pendo Feedback Workflow

If you collect a lot of data, following the Feedback Workflow allows you to take the pressure off of your Product team, who can then focus on the big picture instead of reacting to every new idea that customers and stakeholders have.

Once you've started collecting feedback, there are four main tasks that need to be completed by different teams and people in your organization as part of the workflow, depending on their roles. These are:

1. Review and triage
2. Discover and research
3. Evaluate and plan
4. Update and communicate

Phase 1: Review and triage

Review and triage is typically owned by one or more of your product team members or the process owner. Use Apps, Product Areas, and (optionally) Request Assignee to assign ownership to new requests. Provide specific guidelines so that whoever owns this process can be as efficient as possible.

Streamlining this phase as much as possible allows you to focus on planning and building. You don’t have to carefully consider and individually respond to each request. Instead, let requests come in and review them periodically to tag and prune the feedback you receive. You can then focus on what you're working on rather than what each individual user is asking for.

We recommend the following process for reviewing and triaging requests, with a focus on gathering and categorizing requests so that you can use them in discovery and research rather than responding to each one:

1. Create a saved “triage” view in the Browse page by applying the Not Reviewed status filter and any App or Product filters that apply to you.
2. Conduct a quick review of new requests.
   • Remove sensitive information. You can set sensitive but valuable requests to private.
   • Add or correct the App and Product Area, as appropriate for your Feedback Workflow.
3. Bulk-select the requests you’ve reviewed and move the status to Awaiting Feedback, including a link to your Product Feedback Policy. This helps you to be less reactive in your decisions, and to take your time during the evaluate and plan phase.
4. If you recognize a request as a duplicate, merge it with the matching request. For instructions, see Deal with similar requests.
5. Add any predefined tags that help you categorize your data. For more information, see Tagging in Feedback.
6. Decline requests that you know you’re not going to build. Decline and re-route bug reports through Support channels instead.

Phase 2: Discover and research

Use Pendo Feedback to gather information for specific projects and to enhance what you’re already working on. This task is typically carried out by people in the Product team, but anyone who needs this information can use Pendo Feedback to get it. 

You can use the filters and search bar on the Browse page to help you find relevant data. 

• Use App and Product Area filters to search for requests relating to an area you’re working in.
• Use tag filters to find predefined categories of data. 
• Use the keyword search to find groups of requests around the same topic.

You can save your results to find them again quickly in the future. Results are dynamic and show the most recent requests. For detailed instructions on creating saved views, see Manage requests in the Browse page.

You can also work with your Feedback reviewers to help identify requests relating to your area. For example, if you’re working on a “machine learning” project, ask your internal Feedback reviewers to tag relevant requests with “machine learning” when they come across them.

We recommend the following process for discovery and research:

1. Use filters and keyword search in the Browse page to find requests that are relevant to your research area or project. For instructions, see Manage requests in the Browse page.
2. If you haven’t already tagged your requests, or would like to add more that are relevant to your research area, use the keyword search bar and bulk add tags to the requests in your results.
3. When you’ve found requests relating to your area, save your filters and search results in the Browse page so that you can find them again later.
4. When you’ve gathered relevant requests, you can choose to reach out to customers for more information. You might ask for updated use cases from those who've voted on requests relating to the project you're researching, or start a conversation with a new group of users.

If there are no existing requests around the topic you’re interested in, create a new request explaining what you hope to achieve, share it, and ask for feedback. You might also ask your visitors or co-workers to add votes to requests to help you build a waitlist of users you can reach out to as you start developing a feature.

Phase 3: Evaluate and plan

This task involves using Pendo Feedback’s reporting features to identify what’s most important to your users and prospects. This part of the workflow is typically owned by your product teams as part of a product strategy, but anyone in your organization might want to use reporting to build use cases.

Create and use a product strategy to identify what your goals are and what reports you want to look at. For example, if your quarterly goal is to close more enterprise deals, you can look at your predefined report for high-value customers and what your high-value prospects are asking for. For more information on how to obtain the data you need, see Discovery with Feedback Reports.

If you're a CSM, you might only be interested in an account's specific priorities before your next call. You can view these by navigating to the Accounts page and opening the details of the account you're interested in. Here, you can view which priorities have been released and which haven't. 

We recommend the following process for evaluating and planning what to build next:

1. Depending on your strategy and goals, start at the top of one of your SmartList reports to discuss and decide what requests have the most value.
2. Reach out to particular user groups (segments) that you’re trying to help. Build use cases, understand the pain points, and gather additional feedback.
3. Make decisions based on impact, such as how many customers particular ideas will benefit or whether more problems can be solved with one straightforward solution.

You can also start discovering quick wins to work on and to add to your roadmap. We offer a roadmapping tool to help with this. For information about this offering, see Pendo Roadmap.

Phase 4: Update and communicate

This task involves updating Feedback, communicating with your users, engaging them in your plans, and encouraging more feedback. This task is typically carried out by your process owner.

Every time a project moves to the next stage in the development cycle, you should update the relevant request in Feedback. For information on updating requests in Feedback, see Request status updates.

Assign ownership of requests for updating using Apps, Product Areas, and Request Assignee. For more information on how to do this, see Product Areas in Feedback.

We recommend the following process for updating and communicating with users:

1. Add anything you're working on, from quick wins to big strategic projects, to Pendo Feedback if they aren't already.
2. Once requests are in Feedback, update the status of requests according to the progress you're making.
3. Keep Feedback Managers informed by inviting them to product and roadmapping meetings and sharing your roadmap or internal (product team) planning document.

Product Feedback Policy

We strongly recommend that you create a Product Feedback Policy (PFP) and link it in your Awaiting Feedback status message to set expectations. This helps your customers understand how often feedback is reviewed and what happens to their requests. It also aligns your internal teams around a common goal, encouraging everyone to provide more feedback. 

For more information on creating a Product Feedback Policy, see the Product Feedback Policy article.

Team guidelines

We also recommend providing detailed guidelines for your internal teams, helping them to understand what you're trying to achieve with Pendo Feedback and your overall process to get them on board and to start using Feedback to its full potential.

Your team guidelines should include information on:

• What Pendo Feedback is.
• What your company's goals are for Feedback.
• How to use Feedback.
• How to manage email settings.
• Additional resources.