How Zapier works

Zapier works via a “trigger” app and an “action” app. In this case, ProdPad is the trigger and Zendesk is the action.

The first thing to do is to set up your trigger and authenticate your account. Our specific trigger is based on whenever a new piece of feedback is added to ProdPad.

Because we have previously set up a Zap to send items from Zendesk to ProdPad when feedback is submitted, we’ve added a filter to prevent the item from being sent back to Zendesk once it reaches ProdPad. Otherwise we’d be stuck in a constant loop!

We’ve set up an additional filter to continue only if the contact email is present in ProdPad. This is to ensure the Zap doesn’t throw constant fail notices when anonymous feedback is submitted.

The final action is now ready to be added! After authenticating our Zendesk account, we can now tell Zapier to create a new ticket based on the information collected.

In the Zendesk template, we’ve made sure that the first comment (the customer’s feedback) is added as an internal comment. This ensures that the ticket is created privately without spamming the user and allows us to sort through any items that may have accidentally been added as a bug in our system and reroute it to the correct team.

If you’re happy with the results, just click ‘Turn on Zap’ and done!

It’s as magical as watching unicorns jump over a rainbow.

The post Replying to Zendesk Customer Feedback appeared first on ProdPad.

Between email, CRMs, development tools, team communication, feedback and support, things can easily get out of hand. Sometimes, it can be a struggle to get them all working together.

Here at ProdPad we understand the value of integrations with the help of Zapier we now integrate with over 1,000 different apps, you can choose your favorite tools and have them all work together like a perfectly tuned orchestra.

Thanks to our Zapier integration, we now have over 1,000 apps you can choose from. And the best part? It doesn’t require any code! Zaps will automatically send information from one tool to another, so you’ll spend less time manually transferring data between your business tools and can dedicate more time to building products people love.

Give your productivity a boost with app integration

No matter what other apps you use, chances are you can integrate with them via Zapier. Check out some of the most popular apps that ProdPad users are zapping about!

If you’re loving this as much as we are, don’t waste any more time! Try out some of the Zaps above or view more ways to integrate ProdPad.

The post ProdPad Now Integrates With 1,000 Other Apps! appeared first on ProdPad.

Once both of your accounts have been authorized, you can set up custom filters (optional) and then match up the corresponding fields. For example, you will want to match ProdPad’s ‘username’ field to the ‘from’ address in Gmail, and the ‘feedback’ field to the body of the email. When the setup is complete, you will have the opportunity to test the zap using the test module available. Keep in mind this will create feedback in your account!

If the test Zap works just as you want it, go ahead and create it. From now on, all customer feedback emailed to that address will be automatically pushed to ProdPad!

Weekly Clean-ups

If you’re wondering how you can clean up your feedback backlog, I would recommend doing this as a weekly task. You can use your slowest day of the week to go through all the feedback submitted, tag it, and link it to the corresponding Ideas and User Personas as needed. Because who doesn’t love simple and effective organization?!

What’s your top tip for organizing customer feedback? Let us know in the comments – or see for yourself why ProdPad’s customer feedback features are so popular with a free trial!

The post Feature Friday: Send Feedback Via Email appeared first on ProdPad.

We have set up a special view within Zendesk called “Suggestions.” This means that any ticket that lands on this view will trigger the zap and import to ProdPad. Alongside the view, we also tag all tickets for reporting purposes.

Now authenticate your ProdPad account and define the trigger. For this scenario, we want the action to create new feedback within ProdPad.

Zapier will then prompt you to map fields between the two apps.

These are our current settings:

You can insert as many fields as you want to map over, but I recommend keeping it at a minimum to avoid confusion.

Once you’ve mapped everything, you can go ahead and test the zap to make sure the information is being imported as needed. Keep in mind that this test will generate an instance within ProdPad.

If you’re happy with the results, just click ‘Turn on Zap’ and done! All new submissions moving forward will be automatically added to ProdPad’s Customer Feedback module.

My top tip: Log in once a week and tag all feedback and link it to ideas. It’s a great practice to keep your backlog clean and up to date!

Which tools have you hooked up to ProdPad? Let me know in the comments – or if you haven’t seen the power of ProdPad for yourself start your free trial right here, right now!

The post Feature Friday: Connect Zendesk to ProdPad via Zapier appeared first on ProdPad.

The Customer Feedback module in itself contains a form which any team member can use to input feedback received from clients.
You can set up the form fields to collect necessary details, including a client’s email address, so you can easily reach back to the client for a follow up.

While we do have a CSV bulk upload option available, manually creating lists for upload soon becomes a tedious and time-consuming job. Wouldn’t it just be easier if you could hook up a form directly to the ProdPad form, and have all feedback uploaded automatically? Well guess what? You can! There’s lots of ways you can do this, depending on your preferred feedback platform.

The Zapier Connection

Zapier is a neat little tool that allows you to hook up any two API’s. One app acts as the trigger and the other as an action. At ProdPad, we use this system to push all customer feedback that comes through to Zendesk, Slack, and ProdPad, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Here’s how we did it:

TypeForm to Slack

This one is pretty simple. TypeForm is the trigger, Slack is the action. All feedback is posted to one of our Slack channels automatically upon submission.

TypeForm to Zendesk

This setup is a bit more complicated. You will need to set up a specific view within Zendesk that pushes all feedback there. Because you cannot select a specific channel for this type of submission, we have it set up to detect a comment string within the form that will automatically tag it (for reporting purposes) and send it to the ‘feedback’ view within our Help Desk.

Zendesk to ProdPad

Once the piece of feedback has been tagged, we use that tag to push it over to ProdPad directly. Zapier allows you to map fields, so we have each field required to complete the ProdPad form with as much detail as possible. (Find a more detailed look at creating your Zendesk-ProdPad Zap here.)

Keeping a clean feedback backlog

Once a week, I go through the feedback requested, add all appropriate tags, and link it to the relevant ideas. This is the leanest way to keep our backlog clean and helps our team understand which ideas are the most wanted. Happy backlog, happy clients!

Have you tried any of these techniques for managing your customer feedback? Let us know in the comments. You’ll also find lots more tips and tricks right here in our blog, or for specific how-to guides check our Help Center!

This is the first blog in our new series: Andrea Says, written by ProdPad Head of Customer Success, Andrea Saez. Each Andrea Says post is dedicated to a using a specific feature of ProdPad that will save you time, energy, and have your whole team working efficiently and collaboratively, building products your users love.

The post Send User Feedback Straight to ProdPad appeared first on ProdPad.

Why these integrations?

Our goal is to make the lives of Product Managers and their teams easier. We know that our users are already using a variety of project management, development management, and task management tools. ProdPad helps teams decide which projects or development tasks need to be worked on next, so it was a natural progression to allow an idea in ProdPad to be pushed directly to a project management tool so development can take it from there.

Transparency in Development

While the immediate benefit of these integrations means that you no longer need to manually copy over a finished spec from ProdPad into JIRA, Trello, or Pivotal tracker, it does more than that.

Your development team will always work best if they know why they are building out a specific feature. They need to know what problem they are solving, and what impact it’ll have on the company.

Because ProdPad pushes through a record of the product spec as well as a link back to the original idea, your developers using JIRA, Pivotal Tracker or Trello will be able to track back a request to it’s core. Who requested it (was it the CEO or a client?) and what was their original intention?

This will help ensure your devs are building the right thing and know who to ask if the spec isn’t clear.

Transparency in Business

Your sales team is a great source of new ideas, and so is your marketing team, your support team and even your CEO. However, when they tell you a great new idea, they usually have no way of knowing where it ended up.

With a direct integration set up, they can see whether it landed in Trello, JIRA, or Pivotal Tracker to be worked on by the development team, or whether it’s still sitting in ProdPad waiting for a little more feedback.

Keep your team in the loop from end-to-end by integrating ProdPad with your development tool.

What are you waiting for? Start your free trial today!

API and more integrations

While JIRA, Trello and Pivotal Tracker are our first direct integrations, we’re on the lookout for new integration ideas. Our API is being built out for developer access, and we’re open to suggestions on what else you’d love to see ProdPad integrated with.

Get in touch at hello@prodpad.com if you’ve got a particular integration in mind.

Using a different tool?

If JIRA, Pivotal Tracker and Trello aren’t your bag, don’t worry! We might already have you covered with our Zapier integration! Have a look at their full list of integrations available, now up to more than 240 3rd-party services you probably already use.

The post Integrate with JIRA, Trello, and Pivotal Tracker appeared first on ProdPad.