Not included in your plan? Want to learn more about the benefits? Leave us a message! If you're viewing this on our Help Center, click the Support bubble in the lower-right of this page.
This guide will walk you through how to set up your UserVoice Discovery web portal and forums. Your web portal is a customer-facing site where your users can submit ideas and vote on existing suggestions. A forum is a part of your web portal that serves as a distinct area for ideas about a certain topic or product.
Site Setup
Forum Setup
Next Steps
Site Setup
To get started, we’ll explain how to configure the basic settings for your web portal. This will include your site’s appearance, site text, and sign-in options. You can view your web portal at https://yoursubdomain.uservoice.com (replace “yoursubdomain” with the domain you chose when you created your instance).
Access your web portal settings
- Sign in to your UserVoice admin console (the URL for your admin console will be “https://yoursubdomain.uservoice.com/admin”)
- Click the cog/gear settings icon in the lower left-hand corner
- Select Web Portal in the settings menu
Configure your web portal’s appearance
Click edit next to Appearance and Features and you’ll see a few options for your site design. Here, you can add your company logo and change your site colors to match your branding. For more details on the options available in this section, check out this article.
Set your site text
Under the Web Portal tab of your Settings, click Site Text and you’ll have the option to add a Site Title and Welcome Message. The Welcome Message is a good way to inform your users of the purpose of your site, let them know how to use it, and set expectations. (You can also add a separate welcome message for your individual forums, we’ll cover that later.)
- Example Welcome Message: Welcome to the feedback portal for (ProductName). Have suggestions for how we can improve (ProductName)? Share them in the relevant forum below, or vote for the ideas you like best. We want to hear your feedback!
Choose your sign-in options
Under the General tab of your Settings, locate User Authentication and click Edit. Here you can choose how your users will sign into your UserVoice site.
You can use standard UserVoice authentication (users sign in by entering an email address), users can sign in with Google or Facebook, you can configure your own Single Sign-On provider, or you can select a combination of all of the above. You also have the option to configure multiple SSO providers. To learn more about these sign-in options and why you should use them, check out this article.
Optional advanced setup
- Custom Domain Alias (premium plan): You can add a custom domain alias for your web portal which will allow you to use your own URL such as “feedback.yourcompany.com”. Check out this article for more info.
- Make your site private: You can make your entire web portal private so that only your users can gain access. You can grant access to users via Single Sign-On or by IP address. This article will walk you through how to set this up.
- Custom Design: You can further alter the appearance of your portal with our custom design feature. You can add your own HTML and CSS, or use one of our templates. You will need a technical resource on your end to do this. Find more info here.
Forum Setup
Your forums will serve as distinct areas for ideas on different topics or products. To get started, we’ll walk you through how to configure your first forum. You can create additional forums later.Access your forum settings
- Click the gear/cog settings icon in the lower left-hand corner of your admin console
- Choose General
- Click Ideas
- Click Forums - from here you can add new forums and edit existing ones
Choose your forum options
If you are working with a new UserVoice account, you will have a default forum called General. Click edit next to this forum to access the settings for this forum.Prompt and Welcome Message: It’s important to add a Prompt and a Welcome Message that inform your users of the purpose of this forum. Be sure to make it clear if the forum is intended for a specific product or topic.
-
Example Prompts: “How can we improve (ProductName)?”
“What problems does (ProductName) need to help you solve?” - Example Welcome Message: “Welcome to the user feedback forum for (ProductName). Please share your ideas for how we can make (ProductName) better. We are listening and we use this feedback to prioritize our roadmap!”
For more details on your forum options, take a look at this article.
Set up your feedback structure
It’s important to organize your forums so users can easily tell where to enter their suggestions. It’s also critical that you and your team can review your ideas and easily find what’s important to you. This guide will walk you through how to structure your forums efficiently using Categories, Labels, and Saved Views.Optional advanced setup
- Import Ideas: If you have existing ideas from another system or from your own records, you can import Ideas from a CSV file. This article will walk you through how to do this.
- Import Voters and Feedback: Once you have imported Suggestions, you can also bring in the users who asked for them by importing Supporters and Requests. Check out this article to learn how.