We asked, you answered. Last week we shared a poll with community builders to vote on — continue reading
We asked, you answered. Last week we shared a poll with community builders to vote on which feature is important for Open Social. The winner was the Community Announcement feature. In this post, we’ll explain what this win means and how we incorporate feedback into Open Social.
The community announcement feature (otherwise known as a global announcement) is a tool for community managers. It’s used to send announcements to the whole community at once or to an entire group. The announcement appears as an on-screen message for users after they login to the platform. It’s simple really, and very useful.
Why is it useful?
This particular feature allows community managers (or site administrators) to share important information as quickly and efficiently as possible. And who doesn’t love efficiency? It’s a lot more prominent than a regular post or topic but is less personal than a direct message on the platform.
Separating essential announcements from the rest of communications on the platform ensures that the users recognize that this message is first, one-sided and second, it’s important for them to read.
Here’s what happens next. Open Social has successfully implemented this feature before for a client. This means it’s on our shelf already! However, to make this feature awesome (it deserves to be), it will take time and effort to improve it from all sides: technical, design, and user experience. In order to do this, we will collect feedback from the client, see it in action, and implement it into our SaaS product.
We grow with feedback
It’s our goal to build the best product for you, and that’s why we are continuously looking on how to improve (by sharing a poll, for example!). We regularly include our customers and supporters in the decision-making process. We mainly do this in three ways:
Collecting customer feedback.
We ensure an effective feedback process by providing all of our customers with an account in our roadmap tool Receptive. Here they can submit feature suggestions, vote on other features, and keep track of which features are currently being developed
We carefully consider the most important suggestions and decide which feature will be added to the Open Social roadmap. Collecting suggestions does not mean that we will build anything our customers recommend. We look at the top priorities by analyzing the items that are voted on most in Receptive.
Reaching out to other networks.
We don’t only listen to our customers; we also make use of our social networks and the Drupal community. Drupal is a well-known open source software platform and consists of over 100.000 developers worldwide. Their expertise and assistance make our product better. We also enjoy engaging with our social followers and will continue to ask for their input on Open Social.
Calling all Community Builders! Which new feature is most important for Open Social? ? #Drupal #Community https://t.co/sbmuh0B0VI
— Open Social (@OpenSocialHQ) February 16, 2018
We recently asked our Twitter audience which feature is important for Open Social
Flexibility in our Enterprise version.
Our real strength in collecting feedback and actually using it becomes apparent in our Enterprise version of Open Social. Customers get together with our team to create custom features, integrations, and design.
Our enterprise solution offers the freedom to construct a community platform tailored to your needs. Flexibility results in higher quality, great custom features, and happy customers!
Thanks for contributing to Open Social, we appreciate it. Do you have any feedback or suggestions? Let us know in the comments!
