PPO is not a static product and continues to evolve and improve over time. Feedback from our user base as to the features that they would like to see in the product, is invaluable to us in determining which changes to make.
This FAQ provides insight into how the process around ideas / enhancement requests works at PPO.
How do I log an idea / enhancement request?
You can log an idea on our Community forum by hovering over the support Help icon (?) and selecting "Log an Idea". You can also comment on and vote for existing ideas here.
What happens after I log an idea?
When a new idea has been logged, we will review the idea to make sure that we understand it. If we have any questions somebody will contact you to obtain further clarification and will update the idea with the information obtained.
If the idea is very specific to your organisation, we will also assist to try to make the idea more generic so that other users would better be able to see the benefit to them and can also vote for the idea.
In some cases, the idea refers to functionality that already exists in PPO but which you may not be aware of. In that case the idea will be converted to a support call and somebody will contact you to assist you. The support team will also provide you with product documentation explaining the functionality you requested.
Your idea may also be identical or very similar to an existing idea. In this case we will merge your idea with the existing idea, and ask you to go and vote for the existing idea.
At the end of this process, we do additional work to properly categorise the idea, make rough estimates as to the amount of effort that would be involved in implementing it, determine how many users would potentially benefit from it, determine potential problems should we implement it, etc. If necessary, we will then also add a public comment to the idea to share any specific concerns or issues.
How does an idea get prioritised for development?
Many factors are taken into account to determine which ideas will be developed next. These include how widely applicable the enhancement would be, the effort involved, how the enhancement aligns with our product architecture, focus and vision, how many users have voted for a particular idea, how it would impact the usability of the product, and of course what the available capacity is in our development team.
If I have logged an idea, will it eventually find its way into PPO?
Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate all enhancement requests or ideas. The idea may not align to our product vision, would not be valuable for a large enough proportion of our user base or cannot be accommodated at the moment as a result of architectural or other limitations. It may also be that although an idea checks all the boxes, it is too low a priority to make it into the development cycle as a result of higher priority items. In addition, one of the problems, especially with older, pre-SaaS applications is "feature bloat". We try very hard to avoid this by carefully considering each additional feature that we add.
How do I vote for an idea?
Users can vote for their own ideas and those of other users. For more information on voting for ideas, access the following knowledge base article.
Where do I see a list of all the completed enhancements?
All ideas raised by users that have been developed are listed under the Completed Enhancements, within the Community forum, in the Support Portal. Alternatively, you can read more about the product enhancements on our blog. You can also click on the "What's New" icon on your PPO home page to access the blog.
How do I get insight into the product roadmap / pipeline?
Once an idea has been selected for implementation, and we are reasonably sure that it will in fact be implemented, we change its status to Planned on the Community forum.
I see enhancements to PPO without a corresponding idea. Why is that?
Ideas logged by users are only one source of the changes that we make. We also take input from our internal teams, including development, sales, support, customer success management, implementation and product management. We try to balance all of these requirements to ensure that we make changes that have the greatest "bang for the buck". We also sometimes make changes that indirectly address, at least partially, a number of individual ideas that have been logged. We also make changes that we believe are strategically important or to address changes in the market.
Your Success Manager at PPO can provide insight into other upcoming development items that are not listed on the Community forum.