Idea Workflow

Access from the Admin Console

Location: Content > Node Structure > Idea Workflow

Overview

The idea workflow page provides customization options for each state of the Idea content type. There are three default states: submitted, started, completed. The admin can create new states, if necessary. Each tab allows the admin to configure "Appearance", "Workflow Rules", "Votes and Reputation" for that specific state. With the Ideation plugin enabled, an admin can grant users the ability to post, vote for, and comment on ideas. Admins can also grant other admins and moderators the ability to "accept" ideas by changing the status of the idea to completed or to their own custom status created in the idea workflow menu.

Configuring Ideation States

The ideation states are used to demonstrate the current state of the Idea within the workflow and trigger specific rules around votes and reputation.

Appearance

In this section, you can configure the label, background color, and text color as follows:

Label: The label in the community UI.
Background: Use Hex Color Code to change the color of the background of your label.
Text Color: Use Hex Color Code to change the color of the text of your label.

Workflow Rules

In this section, you can configure rules around establishing a state as the initial state or the final state, and votes and comments determined by switching to a specific state. These rules affect user interaction with the ideas by having the ability to lock all votes, disallow canceling votes, lock all comments, and return votes to all voters.

Votes & Reputation

In this section, you can configure reputation and votes for the idea author and the idea voters, based on switching to a specific state.

State Order

By default, this section allows you to select from 0 to 2 to list the states in descending order, when you use 0 for the starting state and end with 2 for the last state. If you add more states, each new state will add one more to the numeric choices; i.e. adding a fourth state will add the number 3 to the drop-down list and so forth.

Reasons for switching to this state

This section allows the creation of additional reasons for switching to a specific state by clicking the ADD button. Any reasons created here will populate a drop-down menu for that specific state and the Name will display in the community UI next to the status.

Name: This name provides a reason for the status change and will display beside the status in the community UI.
Label: After selecting the status to change to, this name will display in the "Select a new idea status" modal as an additional drop-down. This name is the reason to add the name of the reason when changing the status.
Allow Extra Comments: Selecting this checkbox will create an extra text field in the modal window after the user selects the reason for changing the status.

Create Custom Ideation States

You have the option to add more states to the default set of states when you click the CREATE A NEW STATE button.

After you click the CREATE A NEW STATE button, you will see the "New State" modal window. This window will ask you to enter a machine name for the new state. This name will be the name of the state in the admin console. The name of the state in the community UI can be changed with the Label text field in the Appearance section.

Follow the same process described above for configuring the already existing states for your newly created state.