# Feedback portal A public board where your users post ideas, vote on each other's, and follow what you're building. Source: https://docs.annot8.app/docs/feedback/portal The portal is the public, votable side of Annot8 — the thing your users see when you want them to shape the roadmap rather than report a bug. It lives at `https://www.annot8.app/p/` and needs no account to browse, post, vote, or comment. Set it up in **Project → Feedback → Portal**. It's a **Pro** feature. ## Portal settings [#portal-settings] The **Portal** tab controls what visitors see. Changes apply as soon as you save. | Setting | Does | | ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Title**, **Welcome message** | The name and welcome line at the top of every portal page | | **Accent colour** | The colour of the portal's buttons and links | | **Show roadmap** | A board of what's planned, in progress, and complete | | **Show changelog** | Your published updates, newest first | | **Allow new posts** | Off makes the portal read-only — visitors can still vote and comment | | **Require an email to post** | Lets you reply by email and notify the author when the post moves | Roadmap and changelog are shown and new posts are allowed by default; an email is optional unless you require it. ## Boards [#boards] A portal contains one or more boards. Creating a portal seeds a default **Feature requests** board; add more when you want to keep categories apart — `Feature requests`, `Bugs`, `Integrations`, `API`. Each board has a name, a slug, an optional description, an order, and a visibility flag. A board that isn't public is hidden from the portal but still visible to your team in the dashboard, which is a useful staging area. ## Posts [#posts] A post has a title, details, an author name (and optionally an email), a vote count, and a status. | Status | Says to your users | | -------------- | -------------------------- | | `open` | Received, not yet assessed | | `under_review` | We're looking at it | | `planned` | We're going to do it | | `in_progress` | Being built | | `complete` | Shipped | | `closed` | Not going ahead | Pin a post to keep it at the top of its board — useful for a "read this first" or a shipping announcement. ## Duplicate suggestions [#duplicate-suggestions] As a visitor types a title, the portal suggests up to five similar ideas already posted on its public boards, so they can vote for an existing one instead of posting it again. Closed and removed posts are never suggested. ## Votes [#votes] One vote per person per post, tracked by a per-visitor key so a signed-out user can still vote without duplicating. Votes are the ranking signal on a board and the honest answer to "how many people actually want this?" ## Comments and official replies [#comments-and-official-replies] Anyone can comment on a post. Replies from your team are marked **official**, so users can tell a maintainer's answer from another user's opinion at a glance. ## Followers and email updates [#followers-and-email-updates] Visitors can follow a post by email: with **Follow** on the post, or by ticking **Email me updates** when they post or comment. That checkbox is **unchecked by default** and only becomes available once they've entered an email. Nobody is subscribed unless they choose to be. Followers get an email when: * the post's status changes (except to `closed`), * your team adds an official reply, or * a [changelog](#changelog) entry that shipped it is published, if you choose to notify followers. Every email has an unsubscribe link, plus one-click unsubscribe headers that mail providers can act on directly. Unsubscribing removes that follow only; opening the link never unsubscribes by itself, so link scanners can't do it by accident. Each post shows how many people follow it. ## Changelog [#changelog] Publish product updates from **Project → Feedback → Changelog**. An entry has a title, a body, and **New**, **Improved**, or **Fixed** labels, and can stay a draft until you publish it. Link the posts it shipped: publishing can mark them **complete** and email their followers once. Published entries appear on the portal's Changelog when **Show changelog** is on, and can be unpublished later. ## Merging duplicates [#merging-duplicates] The same idea arrives worded five different ways. Merge the duplicates from the dashboard — votes, comments, and followers consolidate onto the surviving post, so the merged result reflects everyone who asked. The merged-away post is closed. ## Moderation [#moderation] The portal is public, which means it needs a moderation path. * Any visitor can report a post or a comment. * Reports land in **Project → Moderation**, where your team reviews and decides. * The reporter gets a receipt link they can revisit for the outcome, and can appeal a decision. * Removed content is marked with a reason rather than being silently deleted. See [Security & trust](/docs/security/overview#content-reports) for the whole flow. ## Portal or feedback form? [#portal-or-feedback-form] | Want | Use | | ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | Users to see and vote on each other's ideas | **Portal** | | Private feedback only you see | A [feedback form](/docs/feedback/links) | | Structured answers to specific questions | A [questionnaire](/docs/feedback/links#questionnaires) | | Feedback pinned to a real page | The [widget](/docs/widget/overview) | A portal is a public commitment: people can see what you did and didn't build, and what everyone else asked for. That's the point, and it's also worth deciding deliberately before you publish the link.