The Feedback Widget – Ideas from Your App

Customers have ideas while they use your product, not when they visit a feedback site. The UserVoice widget lets them post an idea or vote without leaving the page, and tells you who they are and which account they belong to. This guide covers where to place it, installing it, identifying customers, single sign-on, targeting, privacy, testing, and measuring.

What the widget does

The widget is a small panel inside your web product. Customers open it, describe an idea, and post it to your forum without leaving the page.

What customers see

1. The customer selects the widget button and describes their idea.
2. The widget shows related ideas already in the forum, with supporters and status.
3. They open a match and vote, or select Skip and post idea.
4. Either way, they're subscribed, and hear from you when the status changes.

Where to put it

Put the widget where customers notice a gap, and nowhere it gets in the way of their work.

Install it

An admin sets up the widget in Settings. A developer on your team adds the code to your product.

1. In Settings, open Widgets.
2. Under Step 1: Customize your widget design, choose Post Idea as the starting experience, then the trigger position, accent color, and trigger color. The preview updates as you go.
3. Under Step 2: Copy the embed code to your page, select Copy to clipboard, and send the code to your developer.
4. Your developer adds it to the page template of your product, once per page, and fills in the identify section with the signed-in customer's details.

<script>
// Include the UserVoice JavaScript SDK (only needed once on a page)
UserVoice=window.UserVoice||[];(function(){ ... })();

// Set colors
UserVoice.push(['set', { accent_color: '...', trigger_background_color: '...' }]);

// Identify the user and pass traits
UserVoice.push(['identify', { email: ..., name: ..., account: { ... } }]);

// Add default trigger to the bottom-right corner of the window
UserVoice.push(['addTrigger', { mode: 'feedback', trigger_position: 'bottom-right' }]);
</script>

Identify customers and accounts

The identify call tells the widget who is signed in to your product. With it, every idea and vote carries the person, their account, and its revenue.

Details that trip teams up

• Custom traits start with cf_. Add your own fields, such as cf_region on the person or cf_segment on the account. Fields with other names are ignored.
• Send revenue as a plain number, such as 1200.00, with no currency symbol, in the same period your team uses everywhere else.
• Older code may send monthly_rate. UserVoice still reads it as revenue when revenue isn't sent.
• Account details depend on your plan. Check with your UserVoice rep before you build on them.

Sign customers in with SSO

Identify fills in who the customer is. Single sign-on also signs them in, so they're never asked to log in to UserVoice.

1. Find the SSO key on the Widgets page, under SSO authentication.
2. On your server, your developer creates a token for the signed-in customer, signed with the SSO key using HMAC-SHA256. It can include an expiry time.
3. The page passes the token to the widget with UserVoice.push(['set', {{ sso: token }}]), along with the identify call.

Choose the forum, trigger, and look

The embed code covers the basics. A few options let you send ideas to the right forum and open the widget from your own interface.

Pass only what you need

Every detail you send is stored in UserVoice and visible to your admins. Send what helps you prioritize, and nothing else.

• Visitors in the EU and Brazil are asked for consent when they post. Customers signed in with SSO aren't asked, and nobody is asked twice.
• Ideas in private forums stay private. Without SSO, the widget only posts to public forums.
• Your legal and security teams may want to review which fields you send before launch.

Test before launch

Install the widget on a test or staging version of your product first, and walk through it as a customer would.

1. Sign in to your product as a test customer, open the widget, and check that it doesn't ask for an email.
2. Type an idea that matches an existing one, and check that related ideas appear and you can vote.
3. Post a new idea. Check it lands in the right forum, with a category, and your default status.
4. Open the idea in the admin console, and check the person, their account, plan, and revenue.
5. If you use SSO, post to a private forum, and check the idea is under the test customer's name.
6. Try each trigger you added, on a narrow window as well as a wide one.
7. Remove the test ideas, then release to everyone.

Measure it

The Activity Report, under Insights, shows whether customers find the widget and use it.