What you’re building
A public-facing feature-request board where customers post ideas, other customers vote, and the top ideas surface for your product team to consider. Stops feature decisions from being driven by the loudest CSAT respondent.
This works for any product with a paying customer base: SaaS, plugins, courses, services. The pattern: a place to redirect every “could you add X?” email so the data lives in one searchable, voteable system.
The customer journey
What a customer does end to end, when they wish your product did something it doesn’t:
- Hits the gap. “I wish this had a CSV export.” Or “Why can’t I bulk-delete?”
- Opens the Ideas board. Searches the feature name.
- Finds it. Sees “47 votes, status: Considering.” Hits the upvote button. Done.
- (If not there) Posts a new idea. Title + 2-3 sentences explaining the use case. Tags it.
- Comes back when notified. The idea hits “Planned” → email. Then “Shipped” → email with link to docs.
The customer never sent you an email. Their vote is one data point. Your roadmap meeting now has signal instead of anecdotes.
What you set up (admin side)
- Create one Ideas space. Name it “Feature requests” or “Roadmap” or “Ideas”.
- Set the join policy to public posting. Anyone with an account can post + vote. Some teams limit voting to paying customers via membership gating — works either way.
- Define your status labels. Defaults are good: New / Considering / Planned / Building / Shipped / Declined. You can rename.
- Configure the moderation queue to require approval for new ideas. Prevents spam and stops 50 dupes of the same idea — you can merge before they go live.
- Pin “How to submit a good idea” with format: “Currently: X. I wish: Y. So I can: Z.” Better-quality ideas get more votes.
- Set up a weekly review cadence. Sort by votes, work the top 10. Update statuses. Reply with timeline if known.
The status-change loop is the magic
When you change an idea’s status, every voter gets notified. This is the moment that converts “I submitted an idea” into “they actually listened.” Customers who get the notification feel heard even if their idea wasn’t picked — because they know you’re reading.
Common cadence:
- Weekly: triage new ideas, mark Considering / Declined
- Monthly: sprint planning, mark some ideas as Planned with rough timeline
- On ship: mark Shipped, include the docs link
Why this works on Jetonomy specifically
- Ideas is its own space type. Voting is first-class (not bolted on with a plugin). The vote count is visible, the leader board surfaces top-voted ideas automatically.
- Tags work across spaces — a tag like “exports” connects ideas, Q&A questions, and forum discussions about exports.
- Real-time voting — no page reload when a customer upvotes. The UI feels modern.
- Status visualization — color-coded badges (orange for Building, green for Shipped) make scanning the board scannable.
- Self-hosted — your roadmap data stays on your servers. Not on Canny or ProductBoard’s infra.
What changes in your product ops
- Roadmap meetings open with “top 10 voted this month” instead of “what’s in my inbox”
- Sales team can point prospects at the public roadmap as proof you ship customer-requested features
- Customers stop emailing “wishlist” requests — they post in the Ideas board where you can see them
- Marketing wins: every “Shipped” status update is a mini-announcement, and the voters get a personal notification
Common questions
How is this different from Canny or Featurebase? Same pattern, self-hosted, no monthly fee, lives on your domain (SEO benefit). Trade-off: Canny has more polish + integrations. Jetonomy gets you 80% of the value for one-time license cost + zero SaaS fees.
Should I show vote counts publicly? Yes. Showing votes creates social proof for ideas. Customers see “47 people want this” and either pile on or move on.
What about prioritization signals beyond votes? Vote count + tag (which surfaces frequency) + your sales/support team’s anecdotal weight. Jetonomy gives you the customer signal; you still apply business judgment.
Try it
Spin up the demo, create an Ideas space, post 3 fake ideas, vote on them as another user, mark one as Planned. The state-change UX is the part you need to feel.