We’ve received great interest in the private beta of IdeaScale.
I wanted to post an update on IdeaScale and some information on how to get access. If you need more information, you can always contact me, but please read this entire post before emailing me.
Couple of quick housecleaning items:
- IdeaScale FAQ: (We’ll be updating the FAQ as we get more questions)https://www.ideascale.com/application/ideascale/faq
- New Account Signup (If you already do not have a QuestionPro/MicroPoll/ContactPro account)https://www.ideascale.com/application/ideascale/signup.html
- Suggestions/Comments/Feedback:https://questionpro.ideascale.com (Post topics under the IdeaScale category) — yes we are using IdeaScale for IdeaScale (if that makes any sense)
Now, over the last week we’ve been receiving great interest on IdeaScale — from a “frown” to “wow you guys nailed it” to one editor arguing “how are your customers going to make money here?” — I’ve talked to a few of you and I am open to talking more. Based on the limited feedback, we noticed we had to polish up a few things even before we could go into public beta:
Here are some of the enhancements/upgrades that have been made over the last week:
- RSS Feeds
We are personally big fans of RSS feeds so we jazzed up the RSS Feed model. We now have 2 global RSS feeds for each IdeaScale portal and individual RSS feeds for each Idea.Detailed Help Item : https://www.ideascale.com/help/communities/496.html - Enhanced Security SettingsOne of the consistent feedback we got from our enterprise customers was enabling this for an “Employee Only” or a “Partner Only” scenario. We did not think about this initially, but after talking to a few customers, we were convinced that we should have different security models depending upon the context. If you want to run an idea-portal where you want your employees and partners (selected) to participate, then a public facing Idea Portal does NOT make sense here. We have included options for enabling a “Login/Authenticated Only” option:Detailed Help : https://www.ideascale.com/help/497.html
- Support for “Tagging” and “Related Ideas”The other feedback we got was to find a way to somehow “collate” similar ideas and create an IdeaCloud — basically concepts that are similar. We’ve implemented a simple “tagging” system and co-relate ideas based on tags.Detailed Help : https://www.ideascale.com/help/498.html
Now, the BIG question that I got repeatedly is — What about Single-Signon/SSO/SAML support? Well, here’s a post related to that (below.) We are working on it, but we don’t think it’s an uber-priority right now. Moreover SSO/SAML integration needs work on _both_ sides and is not a “point/drop/click/integrate” solution (is integration ever a point/click/drop solution?)
The next big question everyone had surrounded around pricing and cost. Well the good news is that it’s obviously FREE when we are in beta. I know — if you are a company that really does not help you — No one wants to spend a ton of time on a tool that may be cost-prohibitive to run in the long term. Unfortunately I do not have a concrete plan setup yet — but I can assure you that pricing will be based on the following factors:
- There _will_ be a FREE personal/blogger/small biz edition.
- There will be a Monthly billed Corp/Enterprise edition — for users who need stuff like:
- Subdomain (ideas.mycompany.com) mapping
- Single Signon
- SSL, Closed IdeaPortals (Employee, Partner Portals etc.)
Pricing will most likely be similar to our QuestionPro tool.
Finally — the last question I got asked was when do we plan to get out of Beta? — the current plan is run the beta program through the end of May and launch out of Beta June 1st.
Lastly — If you have feedback for IdeaScale, please post your feedback here:
https://questionpro.ideascale.com (Under the IdeaScale category)
You can also contact me directly if you have specific questions that are not answered in the FAQ or on the site (I can then add them to the site or FAQ.)
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