Table of Contents
Overview
Submitting a Feature Request
Example Feature Request
What Happens Next
Functional Blockers
Related Articles
Overview
If you discover something about one of our products that you think would make it better – something you think other members of our community would also find to be useful – we want to hear about it! You can share this with us by submitting a Feature Request.
Submitting a Feature Request
Feature Requests are submitted via the same steps as support tickets.
Step 1: Click the "Submit a Ticket" option at the top of Freshdesk.
Step 2: Fill out all of the requested information in the ticket.
Requester
This should automatically populate with your email address.
If you wish to have someone else alerted to this request, click “Add cc” and input their email address.
Product
Select the product in question form the dropdown.
Semester (Scheduling Only)
While not pertinent to Feature Requests generally, this information is required to proceed for any Scheduling support ticket.
Indicate the Semester and Year you are currently scheduling for.
Campus
If you are a multi-campus school, then please input the campus that you are submitting the feature request on behalf of.
Subject
Summarize the feature request in a way that captures the need.
A good example might be, “Show changes between current and proposed requirements in proposal view”.
Description
This is where you make the case for your Feature Request on a high-level.
Tell us what you need and how making that change would benefit you (and, by extension, improve the product).
A good example might be, “As an approver or degree audit encoder, I need to see which requirements changed and which courses were added or removed in order to review the curriculum or change the requirements in our degree audit system.”
If you’ll be attaching a file or files, tell us here what each one shows.
Attach File
If you have a screenshot that captures the need or have mocked up a visual of what you’re proposing, please attach those to your request.
Case Type
Select “Feature Request” from the dropdown menu.
How does this feature impact your institution?
Help us understand how critical this request is for core business processes.
Options include:
Not critical to core business process but important for expanding our use.
Critical to core business process
Nice to have
General feedback about functionality
What problem is this feature request trying to solve and why is it a problem?
Summarize the problem for us; tell us why/how it is an issue.
A good example might be, “Currently in order to know which courses were added or removed from a program – or which requirements were changed – an approver needs to open the requirements in the "Changes" tab of the approval screen and compare all text, requirement credits, and courses one at a time to determine if a course number, text, or requirement credit values have changed. This adds a lot of time to reviewing each proposal.”
What is the proposed solution? How does this solve the problem stated above?
Tell us how you think the problem could be fixed and how your proposed solution fixes the problem. This is essentially a description of your Feature Request.
A good example might be, “We would like the program requirements in the "Changes" tab in proposals to behave like when other fields change in a proposal. For example, we would like to see new values in green, old values in red and/or crossed out like we see when other fields have changed”.
How exactly will this feature be used? Walk us through the target user, the workflow you’ll follow, and the user experience.
Tell us who would be using this functionality, how they’d use it, and what the experience will look like for them.
A good example might be, “This would be used by approvers when viewing proposals and would help them more quickly see if the proposal includes any changes to requirements (and what those changes are, if so).”
Describe any possible workarounds and why they will, or will not, work.
Tell us how else the same objective could be accomplished and why this feature request outshines the workaround.
A good example might be, “The workaround would be to carefully compare the before and after one line at a time to find out what has changed, but this is time-intensive and inefficient.”
Environment
Use the dropdown to indicate if this Feature Request impacts Production, Staging, or both.
Step 3: Click “Submit”.
Example Feature Request
The below feature request includes all of the best practices outlined above.
What Happens Next
Feature Requests submitted via the Help Center are regularly reviewed by our Product team, but they are typically prioritized and fully investigated during our quarterly roadmap planning sessions.
We only provide updates on Feature Requests if they are added to the roadmap.
Functional Blockers
If your Feature Request is more urgent or is an issue that is blocking your institution from product use or adoption, please contact your Coursedog representative directly so they may flag it internally.