Getting started as a contributor in Productboard

Welcome to Productboard! Your organization’s product team uses Productboard to discover what customers need, decide what to build next, and share that roadmap with you. As a Contributor, you’ll play an important role in helping your product team build the right things next. By submitting ideas and user feedback, you're empowering product managers to make better prioritization decisions. You're also providing context that will determine how designers and developers build those features to address users' underlying needs and stay informed on the direction the product is taking. When you use this information to guide how you interact with your customers by sharing roadmaps, you have the ability to close the loop on requests and demonstrate your commitment to being customer-focused.

In this article:

• What is a Contributor? 
• How do I know if I am a Contributor?
• What does Productboard look like for a Contributor?
• Sharing customer feedback
• Get started with the Productboard extension for Chrome
• Watch our on-demand webinar

What can a contributor do in Productboard? 

Contributors are a role in Productboard which provide user insights and can access product roadmaps. As a Contributor you can:

• Create and tag new notes.
• Highlight and link insights to related features in notes you own or create.
• Assign ownership of notes you own or create.
• Submit feedback via the Chrome extension.
• View data on Features and Roadmap boards.
• Review Portal if shared with the company or made public.
• Leave comments and @mention colleagues.
• Follow features to receive notifications.

How do I know if I am a contributor?

To check the role associated with your profile in Productboard:

1. Click the avatar menu in the bottom left corner.
   
2. Click Members.
3. On the Members page, you'll see a list of all active members currently associated with your workspace, along with their respective roles. 
   
4. Under the Contributor list, you will find your profile.

What does Productboard look like for a Contributor?

When you log into your workspace, you will have access to the Insights board, Features board, Roadmap board, and Portal.

Using the Insights board to share customer feedback

Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, support, and customer success have a wealth of insights into what users really need, and your product team needs your help! Using the Insights board you can share this feedback into Productboard, advocating for your customers and keeping them happy.

Use the Insights board to:

• Create and tag new notes of customer feedback.
• Highlight and link insights to related features in notes you own or create.
• Assign ownership of notes you own or create.
• Follow notes created by your customers and other users to stay up to date on the progress of the note.
• Filter the Insights board by Companies to see all the feedback shared by particular customers. 
  

For more information about the Insights board, see the article 5. Insights: Understand what your users need.

See what features your product team is working on using the Features board

Customer-facing teams have access to a wealth of insights into what your product teams are building on the Features Board.

On the Features board, you can: 

• Click on the feature name on the Features board to see the Feature detail view which contains the key information you need to know about the feature such as the feature description and feature owner.
• Filter your Features board by Companies to see the feedback from your customers and how it relates to the features your product team is building.
  
  
• Follow features to stay updated on the latest developments.
• Leave comments and @mention colleagues.

For more information about the Features board, see the article 3. Features: Capture and organize your feature ideas.

Using the Roadmap board

Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, support, and customer success have access to a wealth of insights around what your product teams are building, and with customer-facing roadmaps, you can share these with your customers to close the loop and let customers know what you are planning next.

On the Roadmap board, you can:

• View details about features appearing on roadmaps.
• Leave comments and @mention colleagues.
• Filter your roadmaps by companies to understand what feedback your customers have provided and then share with your customers the roadmap of features they contributed to, demonstrating your commitment to being customer-focused.
  
  
• Follow features on the roadmap to stay updated on the latest developments.

For more information about the Roadmap board, see the article 6. Roadmap: Communicate your plan.

Using the Portal

The Portal is a great way to engage your user community by validating ideas and collecting upvotes and feedback. The Portal can be shared with customers which is great for Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, support, and customer success who want to show point customers in the right direction for leaving feedback and also see what's planned by your product team. 

On the Portal, you can:

• Review the Portal if shared with the company or made public.
  
• Add insights to Portal cards to share personal or customer feedback which helps your product team plan what features to create next.
• Share Portal cards with customers, this is great for Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, support, and customer success who want to show point customers in the right direction for leaving feedback and also see what's planned by your product team. 
• Export a list of users who submitted insights on the Portal card to follow up with them. Doing this helps Marketing teams target users who already expressed interest in a feature once that feature is ready to launch.

For more information about the Portal, see the article Use the Portal to share your plans and collect feedback at scale.

Sharing customer feedback

By submitting user feedback into Productboard, you’re advocating for your customers and keeping them happy.

What is good feedback?

Good feedback helps to develop a standard for feedback. Productboard helps you do this by providing special fields for tracking the source of the feedback (the name of the company AND the individual) and for adding tags. Formatting options in the body of the note also help you format your feedback for maximum clarity. You generally want to include these 5 pieces of information when crafting your feedback.

Good feedback should include:

1. The company name
2. A user name and email address
3. Tags
4. Use case
5. Problem

Get started with the Productboard extension for Chrome

With the Productboard extension for Chrome, you can capture interesting observations, requests, and feedback when you hear it, and send it to the product team for review.

Here's how it works:

For more information on the Productboard extension for Chrome, see the article Submit user insights with the Productboard extension for Chrome.

school Productboard Academy Webinar

Learn how to use Productboard to contribute insights to your product team, follow feature ideas, and navigate your organization's roadmap in our on-demand webinar. 

👉 Start the course👈

Note: Webinars are available for trial users and paid customers only.

Next steps

• Begin forwarding emails that contain user insights to the Research board (ask your admin for your project's unique email address)
• Install the Productboard extension for Chrome to submit feedback on-the-fly
• View your company’s roadmap and familiarize yourself with upcoming feature releases.