During this interview, I became intrigued with UserVoice. I liked the idea of letting the community post suggestions and vote for existing suggestions. Here at Telerik we talked about creating a UserVoice community for Sitefinity suggestions.
However, in the midst of these conversations I discovered that we already had an internal project underway to create a user suggestion / voting system that integrated into our project management systems (TFS). This project became known as the Public Issue Tracking System. PITS is currently in BETA and is managing suggestions for most Telerik products.
Sitefinity, however, is not yet using PITS. We will begin using PITS after the 4.0 release.
Gathering Sitefinity 4.0 Pre-Release Suggestions
The primary reason that we’re releasing early builds of Sitefinity 4.0 is that we’re very anxious to get feedback. However, managing this early feedback (and then communicating it back to the community) is becoming very difficult. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to gauge the popularity of the feedback we’re receiving.
Because, Sitefinity is not yet using the Public Issue Tracking System we decided to utilize UserVoice, the short-term, to gather pre-release suggestions. In this blog post, I’m delighted to announce the creation of the Sitefinity 4.0 Pre-Release UserVoice Forum.
UserVoice will give us a place to gather and organize Sitefinity 4.0 pre-release suggestions. It will also help us gauge the relative importance / popularity of suggestions.
Guidelines
Here are some general guidelines for the Sitefinity UserVoice forum.
This form is for Sitefinity 4.0 pre-release suggestions only
We are using this forum to gather suggestions and feedback about Sitefinity 4.0. Suggestions made to this forum will not impact Sitefinity 3.x. If you have a Sitefinity 3.x issue, please contact support. After the official release of Sitefinity 4.0 we will begin using the Public Issue Tracking System to manage Sitefinity suggestions.
Do not use this forum for support
This forum is not monitored by the Sitefinity support team. This forum is intended for suggestions for Sitefinity 4.0. If you require support, please contact support through the official channels.
Official product roadmap is influenced, but not dictated, by the popularity of suggested features
Our product roadmap is determined by many factors. UserVoice will become an additional tool that we use to set our priorities. Popular suggestions are very important to us, but these suggestions must be balanced against various other priorities (some of which might not be posted to UserVoice).
Keep it positive, Keep it constructive
This forum will be more useful to everyone if we keep it focused on solutions. It’s fine to mention a Sitefinity problem, but keep your suggestion focused on the solution to this problem…not the problem itself.
Get Involved – This is your chance!
On a personal note, I’ve wanted something like UserVoice for Sitefinity for a long time. I believed that a system like this would help us unearth great ideas and make Sitefinity a better product. In addition, I wanted the community to have a hand in shaping the product. Consequently, I really want this to succeed!
I really hope you will use this opportunity to make your voice heard. It only takes a minute to make a suggestion or vote on an existing suggestion. Your input will help improve Sitefinity for everyone!
Please give it a look. Thanks. :)