What's an 'Ideas Portal'?

The Ideas Portal is a website for creating and tracking product enhancement requests for various Descartes Products. The portal allows registered users to create new ideas, users may also read, add comments to, and vote for other user's ideas. Product Managers change the status of ideas, allowing the entire community to monitor the progress of ideas as they evolve, are implemented or are rejected.

How Do I Log in To The Ideas Portal?

Go to https://descartes.ideas.aha.io/ideas and enter your email address to sign in to the Descartes Ideas Portal.

If you have not registered yet, go to the Descartes Customer Portal (see section Requesting Access to the Ideas Portal), select Requests and complete the Ideas Portal registration form. Alternatively, contact servicedesk@descartes.com to receive an invite to the Descartes Ideas Portal. Self-registration is not possible at this point.

How Do I Create A New Idea?

Click 'Add A New Idea' on the main portal page.
Select the Descartes Product for your idea from the dropdown.
In the resulting Add Idea dialog, give your idea the most descriptive name possible so that everyone can understand the concept just from the title. Similar ideas will be shown instantly, so you can consider voting or commenting on an existing idea that fits your topic.
In the detail control box, provide a clear description of the business problem that the idea attempts to solve, what the benefits would be, and any approach to a solution you think might help others understand the concepts better. Feel free to attach files that may help illustrate your idea using the Attach Files icon beneath the detail control box.
(Applicable to some products) Select a category that best explains the area of the product your idea most closely applies to.

Can I Add Comments To Other People's Ideas?

Portals are designed to provide a forum for community discussion, so please feel free to add your comments to other people's ideas. Engaging the entire community can expose concepts, connections, benefits, flaws, and risks that may not have been appreciated or articulated fully by the original idea author and allows ideas to evolve spontaneously.

What Are 'Votes'?

Every registered user can vote for any idea they feel is a good enhancement. Adding your vote gives product managers an understanding how widespread the support for an idea is to the greater community. To vote for an idea, click the blue 'VOTE' button. The button will fill and the vote count will be incremented by 1.

What Are Idea Statuses?

Every idea has a status that allows portal users to observe their progress. Statues are changed by Product Management as ideas evolve. Current idea statuses are:

Great ideas progress from an initial 'Needs Review' status to a final status of 'Shipped'. Ideas that are less 'popular' or more poorly conceived may end up in 'Unlikely to implement' or 'Will not implement' status.

Are There Notifications?

Yes - When a portal user creates, votes on or comments on an idea, they become subscribers to that idea. Subscribers are notified of important status changes to an idea via email.

Ideas portal users can one-click unsubscribe to portal email notifications if they do not want to receive notifications.

Requesting Access to the Ideas Portal

If you have not registered yet, go to the Descartes Customer Portal, select Requests and complete the Ideas Portal registration form. Alternatively, contact servicedesk@descartes.com to receive an invite to the Descartes Ideas Portal. Self-registration is not possible at this point.

Access to the Descartes Customer Portal is gained through the following URL address: https://servicedesk.descartes.com

If you have previously contacted the ServiceDesk, they may have already been set up to access the portal. If you do not have a login, click Sign Up and register your details.

After logging in, you will be directed to the portal as follows.

Select Request, then click Descartes Ideas Portal, complete the form and finally, click Place Request.