Building the right features requires knowing what your customers actually want — not what you assume they want. Feature boards give your users a structured way to submit ideas, vote on each other’s suggestions, and see what’s being worked on. For product teams, this replaces scattered feedback from emails, Slack messages, and support tickets with a single prioritized source of truth.

Heedback’s feature boards are built into the customer portal and widget, so collecting feedback doesn’t require sending users to a separate tool.

Prerequisites

To set up feature boards, you need:

A Heedback account with a Pro plan (feature boards are a Pro feature).
Access to app.heedback.io as an admin in your organization.
A basic idea of how you want to categorize feedback. Most teams start with a single general board and split into topic-specific boards later as volume grows.

Step 1: Create Your First Board

Navigate to Boards in the left sidebar of your dashboard and click New Board.

Configure the board:

Name — choose something clear and customer-facing, like “Feature Requests,” “Ideas,” or a more specific name like “Mobile App Ideas” if you’re creating topic-specific boards.
Description — explain what kind of feedback belongs here. A good description sets expectations: “Share ideas for new features or improvements. Vote on suggestions you’d like to see built.”
User submissions — toggle this on to let customers submit new posts directly. If you prefer to curate submissions internally (e.g., from support conversations), leave it off and add posts manually.

Click Save and your board is live. It’s immediately visible on your customer portal and can be surfaced in the embeddable widget.

Step 2: Understand How Voting Works

Each post on a board has a vote count. Customers can upvote posts they care about, and each user gets one vote per post — no ballot stuffing.

Votes serve two purposes:

Prioritization signal — the most-voted posts represent the strongest customer demand. Sort by votes to see what matters most to your user base.
Customer engagement — when a user votes on a post, they’re subscribing to updates. When you change the post’s status (e.g., from “Under Review” to “Planned”), voters are notified. This closes the feedback loop and builds trust.

Anonymous users can browse but not vote. Authenticated users (via magic link or portal login) can vote and submit posts. This balance keeps the data meaningful while allowing public visibility.

Step 3: Manage Posts and Statuses

As posts come in, your team manages them from the dashboard. Each post has a status that communicates progress to customers:

Under Review — the default for new submissions. The team is evaluating the idea.
Planned — the feature has been accepted and is on the roadmap.
In Progress — active development has started.
Done — the feature has shipped. Include a note about where customers can find it.
Declined — the idea won’t be pursued. Always include a brief explanation — transparency builds more trust than silence.

To update a post, open it from the board view, change the status from the dropdown, and optionally add a comment explaining the decision. Status changes trigger notifications to everyone who voted on the post.

Respond to posts with comments to ask clarifying questions, share context, or acknowledge the feedback. Active engagement from your team encourages more (and better) submissions.

Step 4: Organize With Tags

Tags add a second layer of organization beyond boards. Use them to categorize posts by theme, product area, or priority:

Theme tags: “UX,” “Performance,” “Integrations,” “Pricing”
Area tags: “Dashboard,” “Widget,” “API,” “Mobile”
Priority tags: “Quick Win,” “Strategic,” “Nice-to-Have”

Create tags in Settings → Tags and apply them to posts from the post detail view. You can filter the board by tag to see all requests related to a specific area — useful during sprint planning or roadmap reviews.

Keep your tag list lean. Ten well-defined tags are more useful than fifty vague ones. Review and consolidate tags quarterly.

Step 5: Analyze Feedback Patterns

Beyond individual post votes, look at your boards holistically:

Volume trends — is feedback increasing over time? A growing board is a sign of an engaged user base.
Status distribution — if 90% of posts are “Under Review” for months, customers will stop submitting. Aim to move posts through statuses within a few weeks, even if the answer is “Declined.”
Top voters — identify your most engaged users. These are candidates for beta testing, interviews, or advisory groups.
Tag heatmaps — which tags have the most posts and votes? This shows where customer demand concentrates.

Use this data in product planning. When you sit down to plan the next quarter, sort your board by votes, filter by relevant tags, and let customer demand inform — not dictate — your priorities.

Tips and Best Practices

Merge duplicate posts. Customers often submit the same idea in different words. Merge duplicates to consolidate votes and keep the board clean. Voters from the merged post transfer to the surviving one.
Seed the board with known requests. Don’t launch with an empty board. Add 5–10 posts based on feedback you’ve already received through support conversations. This gives customers something to vote on immediately and sets the tone for what belongs.
Close the loop publicly. When you ship a feature that was requested on the board, update the post status to “Done” and add a comment with a link to the changelog entry or documentation. This is one of the most powerful trust-building actions you can take.
Don’t promise timelines on posts. Statuses like “Planned” and “In Progress” communicate direction without committing to deadlines. If timelines change, you won’t have to manage disappointed expectations.
Review boards in team standups. Spend two minutes scanning new posts weekly. Fresh feedback is most actionable when it’s recent.

Public Roadmap — link board posts to your roadmap so customers see the full picture from idea to delivery.
Changelog — announce shipped features that originated from board requests.
Support Inbox — when support conversations reveal feature requests, create board posts directly from the inbox.
Customer Portal — where your feature boards are publicly accessible to customers.