Campaign Modes

There are three campaign modes: Marketplace, Suggestion Box and Classic.

Marketplace mode

At creation time, campaigns are created in Marketplace mode. Marketplace mode allows users to weight the value of different ideas by casting multiple votes on a given idea. In this mode, each user gets a pool of votes determined by the campaign administrator.

The default number of votes is 25. As users vote, their pool of votes is reduced. Once all votes are cast, no more votes can be added to any idea. However, users can take back votes which they have applied to ideas and these votes go back into the pool for that user.

Manage idea campaign settings page where marketplace mode is enabled and configured.

Start date, end date and votes per user only apply if marketplace mode is selected. If a start date is specified, no actions (submitting, voting or commenting on ideas) can be done until the start date is reached. If an end date is specified, no actions can be taken after the end date is reached.

The pool of votes can be set to any positive integer value. In general, campaign administrators want users to have enough votes to be able to show significant support for ideas they prefer.

At the same time, giving very large pools of votes to users is not recommended because it requires many clicks for users to cast all the votes.

The number of votes per user should not be changed once the campaign starts.

Sample marketplace mode campaign that grants 26 votes per user, has started but hasn’t reached the end date yet

Suggestion Box mode

Often communities want to have a capability to capture ongoing suggestions in an open-ended campaign by having a virtual suggestion box. Suggestion box mode supports this use case nicely.

There is no voting in this mode. In some environments, transparency is enhanced when users can submit anonymously and so this is an optional setting for suggestion box mode.

Click on Make all suggestions anonymous ensures that the identity of the submitter is not revealed.

An example of a campaign with suggestion box mode turned on

Here is an example of a campaign with an anonymous suggestion box enabled. See that the idea submission is anonymous but the commenting is not (highlighted in red):

A campaign with an anonymous suggestion box enabled

Classic mode

In the case where both suggestion box and marketplace mode are disabled, the campaign defaults to classic mode. Classic mode allows the casting of one vote per idea per user. Classic mode campaigns do not support automatic start and end dates and do not have an anonymous submission option.

Like the other modes, classic mode campaign capabilities are driven by the setting of the other (last four) parameters.