Need Ideas in Salesforce Lightning? Here’s What You Can Do

Salesforce Ideas gives customers a vehicle for sharing their ideas with companies, which in turn helps companies decide which products, services, and new solutions to put into development.

Since the launch of Salesforce Ideas in 2006, Salesforce has evaluated thousands of ideas for itself and Salesforce users have begun using Ideas capabilities to curate and evaluate ideas from their own customers, partners, employees, and other community members.

The problem? Ideas isn’t compatible with the new Salesforce Lightning platform, and it doesn’t look like it will be any time soon.

Quick Takeaways

Salesforce Ideas is a platform that gives customers and other stakeholders a voice in the development of new product ideas and solutions; Salesforce uses it themselves to drive innovation and improve user experience
Ideas is important in that it gives companies a way to remain user-focused, which research shows can lead to higher revenues and more customer-focused culture
Ideas is not compatible with the newer Salesforce Lightning platform, meaning that without an alternative solution, Salesforce customers can’t use it without extra effort and a compromised user experience
LEX Ideas by Rainmaker is available on the Salesforce AppExchange and provides the ability for customers to utilize Ideas in the Lightning platform

How does Salesforce Ideas work?

Year-round, Salesforce users can go on the IdeasExchange platform to post an idea they have, upvote the ideas of others, and leave comments to provide details about how others’ good ideas would also benefit them.

Then, three times per year, Salesforce runs what they call Prioritization, which happens in a few steps:

The Salesforce team curates a list of the top ideas on the IdeasExchange
Users can view the list and read details about the proposed feature and the level of effort it would require to develop
Users receive 100 “coins” to assign value to products on the list, which they can allocate to one product or to a few of their favorites
The Salesforce product team reviews the list, decides which ideas they can work on, and releases a list of the winning ideas as well as an expected timeframe for their delivery

Here’s a quick but helpful visual overview of the Salesforce Ideas platform and Prioritization process:

At any time, users can check the status of past Prioritization winners to see when they’ll be released.

Why is Ideas Important?

Like Salesforce itself, Salesforce users can implement the Ideas platform in their own ways to empower their customers, partners, and employees to share ideas and have a voice in the development of new innovations that improve overall user experience.

Companies can then allocate resources accordingly with a strong vision of what their stakeholders care about and confidence that they are prioritizing the ideas and improvements that matter most.

This isn’t just a nice-to-have offering from companies who care a little extra about their customers, either. Customer feedback and the amount of focus companies put on collecting and understanding it has a significant impact on success.

According to Forbes, companies who focus on user experience earn 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors, see financial gains as a result, and enjoy strong customer-focused cultures.

Salesforce Ideas creates an open line of communication between companies and their stakeholders and fosters transparency that can be beneficial for everyone involved.

Companies can use direct feedback to address the most pressing user requests. Users have a clear idea of which requests are being actively addressed and make decisions accordingly. For example, if a user sees the list of ideas in development and theirs isn’t included, they can seek an outside purchase or alternative solution to address their need.

The ability to upvote and comment on ideas submitted by others also creates a sense of community as users come together to emphasize what’s most important to them and gain a better understanding of their collective experience.

The Catch: No Lightning Capability

Salesforce Lightning enhances the overall user experience with centralized information, streamlined features, and tools for better communication, increased productivity, and better reporting (among other improvements).

Unfortunately, the list of Lightning features does not include Salesforce Ideas and despite a long line of requests in IdeaExchange for this capability, it’s not currently in development by Salesforce.

At first glance, this means that companies must choose between losing out on Ideas or continuing to support components of both Salesforce Classic and Lightning, meaning less consistency for their users.

The Solution: LEX Ideas

The good news is that you can switch to Lightning while enjoying the benefits of Salesforce Ideas. LEX Ideas by Rainmaker allows Salesforce customers to continue managing ideas from their stakeholder groups without having to switch back and forth from Classic to Lightning.

The app is designed to be compatible with Lightning while maintaining all of the best features of Salesforce Ideas as well as expanded ones like Teams to foster better collaboration across development teams.

Users can upvote other ideas, comment their own feedback, search for ideas relevant to their issues, and track which ones have been chosen for development and release.