Idea Boards

Suite
Employee Experience
Product
Qualtrics
What's on this page
Qtip: This page describes functionality available to Engagement, Pulse, and Lifecycle projects. For more details on each, see Types of Employee Experience Projects.

About Idea Boards

Action idea boards help managers crowdsource ideas from their team on what exactly they should do to improve employee engagement. Managers can create an idea board to send to their teams in Qualtrics. The idea board is structured around a managers’ focus areas for improvement. Teams can log into the board, give ideas anonymously, and vote on each others’ ideas. After collection ideas, a manager will have a set of potential solutions for their focus areas that they can act on.

Qtip: You do not need action planning enabled on your dashboard to use action idea boards, although it is recommended.
Attention: There is a limit of 100 ideas per board.

Enabling Idea Boards in a Dashboard

To enable idea boards:

First, you must enable idea boards for your dashboard.

As a dashboard owner or editor, click your dashboard’s Settings.
the settings button at the top of a dashboard
the settings button at the top of a dashboard
Go to Action plans.
enabling idea boards in the action plan settings
enabling idea boards in the action plan settings
Toggle the Enable idea boards setting to On.

Granting permission to create boards

After enabling idea boards for your dashboards, you can determine which participants in your project can create idea boards. To do so:

Create a role containing the participants you want to create idea boards.
Enable the Use action plans role permission.

Creating an Idea Board

There are multiple ways to create your idea board, depending on your dashboard settings. This section will cover how to create your idea board for each scenario. To create an idea board, users must have the action planning role permission enabled and have access to the dashboard.

Qtip: Once idea boards are enabled for a dashboard, all dashboard users with action planning role permissions enabled will automatically have access to an idea board.

Dashboard with Action Planning and Idea Boards Enabled

If your dashboard has action planning and idea boards enabled, create your board using the following steps:

In your dashboard, click Ideas and actions.
the ideas and actions button at the top of a dashboard
the ideas and actions button at the top of a dashboard
Select Create idea board.
clicking create an idea board
clicking create an idea board
Begin setting up your board.

Dashboard with only Idea Boards enabled

In your dashboard, click Idea board.
the idea board button at the top of a dashboard
the idea board button at the top of a dashboard
Begin setting up your board.

Via a Widget

No matter your dashboard settings, you can create your idea board through the following widgets with action planning enabled:

To create your board:

In the widget, click the Improve next to a focus area. Note that the selected focus area will be automatically added to your idea board.
the improve button in a question list widget
the improve button in a question list widget
Select Use your idea board.
choosing use your idea board and clicking confirm
choosing use your idea board and clicking confirm
Click Confirm.
Click View your idea board.
clicking view your idea board
clicking view your idea board
Begin setting up your board.

Setting up an Idea Board

After creating your idea board using the instructions above, you are ready to customize it for your organization’s needs.

Click Add focus area.
clicking add focus area
clicking add focus area
Choose your focus area. You can choose a survey question, a category of questions, or create a custom area (e.g., a “open brainstorm” area for miscellaneous ideas).
choosing an item to base the focus area on, and then clicking add to idea board
choosing an item to base the focus area on, and then clicking add to idea board
Click Add to your idea board.
If needed, click Add focus area to add additional areas. You may add up to 8 focus areas in your board.
adding a focus area, an idea, and inviting collaborators
adding a focus area, an idea, and inviting collaborators
You can rename a focus area by clicking on its title and typing a new one. Note that renamed focus areas will still be tied to the original survey question or category that it was created from.
To delete a focus area, click the trash can icon next to the focus area name.
Attention: Deleted focus areas are irretrievable! Any ideas will be lost.
Click Invite collaborators to share your idea board with your users.
In the popup window, click Copy link.
clicking copy link
clicking copy link
Share this link with your organization internally.
Qtip: Idea boards are only accessible to users with a Qualtrics account in your license.

Submitting Ideas

Attention: There is a limit of 100 ideas per board.

This section covers how to submit an idea once an idea board link has been shared with you.

Click the idea board link that was shared with you.
Log in through your organization’s login system.
Click the plus sign ( + ) in the focus area you want to add an idea to.
adding a new idea
adding a new idea
Enter your idea in the text box. Ideas are anonymous.
Click Share to submit the idea.
Qtip: If someone has already submitted your idea, upvote it to show your support by clicking the arrow next to the idea. Ideas with the most upvotes will appear at the top of the focus area.
the arrow for upvoting an idea
the arrow for upvoting an idea

Managing Ideas

As the owner of an idea board, you can manage the ideas in the board. You can move ideas to different focus areas, and create action plans based on your focus areas.

Creating Action Plans

After ideas are collected, the idea board owner can click Create an action plan at the bottom of a focus area to create an action plan based on the ideas.

clicking create an action plan at the bottom of an idea board
clicking create an action plan at the bottom of an idea board

Then, give your action plan a name and click Create an action plan again. This will then create an action plan that you can edit normally.

the creating an action plan popup
the creating an action plan popup

Moving Ideas

You can move ideas to a new focus area by clicking the dots next to the idea, and then choose the focus area you want to move it to.

the menu for moving an item in an idea board
the menu for moving an item in an idea board

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