Mobile Apps – Feedback and Voting in Your App

Your customers spend their time in your mobile app, so that's where they should share ideas and vote. You can open your portal inside the app, or build screens that look like the rest of it on the UserVoice API. This guide covers both, how your server connects to UserVoice, signing customers in, showing and posting ideas, keeping customers updated, design, and testing.

Two ways to bring feedback into your app

Most teams start by opening the portal inside the app, then build native screens for the actions customers take most: browsing, posting, and voting.

How it fits together

The app never talks to UserVoice directly. It calls your own server, and your server calls the UserVoice API with a key only it holds.

1. A customer taps Vote in your app. The app calls your server, signed in as that customer the way it is for everything else.
2. Your server checks who the customer is, then calls the UserVoice API with your trusted API key, naming the customer by email.
3. UserVoice records the vote for that person, and your server sends the result back to the app.

Set up the key

1. In Settings, open Integrations, and choose UserVoice API keys.
2. Add a key named for the app, such as “Mobile app feedback,” and tick Trusted?.
3. Store the key and secret in your server's secrets manager.
4. Your server trades the key and secret for an access token, and sends it with each request. When a call is refused because the token expired, get a new one.

• One key for the app. Your other integrations keep their own keys, so you can turn one off without breaking the rest.
• Cache what everyone sees. Requests are limited per minute for your whole account, not per customer. Cache idea lists on your server for a short time instead of calling UserVoice on every screen load.
• Handle a 429. If you go over the limit, wait for the number of seconds in the Retry-After header, then try again.

Know who's giving feedback

Customers are already signed in to your app, so they should never be asked to sign in to UserVoice. Your server tells UserVoice who they are.

• Name the customer on every call. Send their email and name with each idea, vote, and comment. UserVoice finds the person by email, or adds them the first time.
• Use the same email everywhere. UserVoice matches people by email, so the same address in your app, widget, and portal keeps one person's ideas, votes, and updates together.
• Send only verified emails. If your sign-in provider, such as Auth0, Okta, or Firebase, marks an email as unverified, ask the customer to confirm it before they post.
• Bring their account along. If you connect Salesforce or HubSpot, each person is matched to their account, so ideas from the app show the revenue behind them.

Show ideas

Your server reads ideas from one forum and passes the app only what it shows. These are the calls you'll use most, in version 2 of the API.

Post ideas, votes, and comments

Each action is one call from your server, with the customer named by email and name.

Keep customers in the loop

The best reason to post an idea is hearing back. UserVoice emails subscribers when a status changes, and webhooks let your app tell them too.

1. In Settings, open Integrations, choose Service hooks, and add a custom web hook pointing at your server.
2. Tick Idea Status Update and New Comment for the forum the app uses.
3. When an event arrives, your server checks its signature, finds the customers who voted, and sends them a push notification.
4. The notification opens the idea in your app, showing its new status and the update your team posted.

Make it feel like your app

Native screens are worth building because they feel like the rest of your product. These choices make the most difference.

• Feedback one tap from your main menu or settings, labeled in your own words, such as “Ideas” or “Request a feature”.
• Vote buttons that respond instantly, with the count and status on every idea.
• A search-first form that shows similar ideas before the customer posts.
• A “My ideas” view of what each customer posted and voted for.
• Your own components, colors, and type, so feedback looks like part of the product.
• A link to the full portal for comments, history, and anything you haven't built.

• Asking for an email or a second login.
• Long forms with every custom question you've set up.
• Hiding statuses or closed ideas, so customers keep asking for shipped features.
• Showing ideas from private forums or the moderation queue.

Custom questions

• Send answers by each question's field key. Set the questions up in UserVoice, then show the same ones in your form. See Custom Questions That Make Ideas Actionable for what to ask.
• Check required questions in the app. The API saves what you send, so your form decides what's required.

Test before launch

Test end to end with a forum only your team can see, then point the app at your real forum.

1. Create a private test forum, and a test API key just for it.
2. Sign in to a test build of the app as a test customer, post an idea, and vote on another.
3. In the admin console, check that both show the right person and account.
4. Change the idea's status, and check the email and the push notification arrive.
5. Remove the vote in the app, and check the count goes down.
6. Run a burst of requests, and check your server waits and retries after a 429.
7. Point the app at your real forum, and delete the test key.