Post an idea

How to add an idea to a challenge.

An idea has a title and a description, and it belongs to a challenge. When creating an idea you minimally provide those details, and optionally provide additionally information that identify, describe, and enhance you idea.
  1. Click Post an Idea.
    The Post an Idea form opens.

    Empty Post an Idea form.

  2. Optional: Select the challenge in which to post your idea.
    Clicking Post an Idea in a challenge adds the idea to that challenge. Clicking it from the navigation menu requires that you first select a challenge from the panel on the left. You may change the selected challenge,
    • Select a challenge from the panel on the left.
    • To learn about the selected challenge, click View Challenge, which opens the challenge in a new tab/window.
    Switching a challenge may discard any details you have already provided, depending on how the new challenge is configured.
  3. Give your idea a title.
    The title identifies your post. Titles work best when they are succinct and capture the main point of the idea.
  4. Provide a description of your idea.
    Tell people about your idea. This description appears on your idea's page and with your idea throughout the community. Read the instructions in the challenge brief carefully to understand what the challenge is looking for.
  5. Provide information for the other options as required and as you see fit. See Idea options for detailed descriptions of the options.
  6. Publish or save your idea.
    Save to draftsSave your work and come back to it later to edit, publish, or delete the draft. See Idea draft for details.
    PublishAdds your idea to the challenge and immediately makes it available to everyone to see.
    Note: If your idea isn't visible when you click publish, it may be because any new ideas must be moderated before they are visible to the rest of the community.

Idea options

Identify, describe, and enhance ideas.

Of the Ideas options, only Title and Description are required. Other options may be required as defined by the challenge settings. Not all options are available to every idea; administrators can include or hide options are necessary.

Additional files
Additional files support your idea. You can add Add additional images You can also add files to support your idea, for example, an Excel spreadsheet, PDF, etc.
  • Images to be presented on the idea's page as a carousel view.

  • Videos play below the idea description without downloading them or leaving the page.

  • Raw files to download, such as spreadsheets or PDFs.

You can add any of these file types:

ClassMax sizeFile type
Image40 MBgif, jpeg, png, or pdf
Video300 MBmp4, 3gp, mov, avi, wmv, flv, mpeg, mpg, mp3, or wav
Raw100 MBdoc, docx, odt, ppt, pptx, xls, csv, zip, rar, text, or rtf
Authoring method
Whether the idea is authored by one, or multiple authors.
AuthorYou are the sole author of this idea.
Author with co-authorsYou are jointly authoring this idea with other users. See Post an idea with other users for more information.

Author and Author with co-authors options in the Details section

Challenge
The challenge the idea belongs to. The list of available challenges is in the panel on the left-side of the Post an Idea form. The form options that appear on the right depend on the settings of the selected challenge. Switching the challenge after you have entered some values in the options may discard some or all of the changes you made.
Description
(required) Tells people about your idea. This description appears on your idea's page and with your idea throughout the community. Read the instructions in the challenge brief carefully to understand what the challenge is looking for.
Image (featured)
The featured image appears on your idea's page and with your idea throughout the community. To add an image, either:
  • Drag an image from your computer onto the Attach Image box.

  • Click Add Image and select the image on your computer.

Question
Some challenges ask — may even require — you to answer a question about your idea.
Tag users
Notify up to 10 other users about your idea or comment, or to credit them with helping to develop the idea.
Theme
Challenge subcategory. When themes are available, you may post the idea into the challenge or into a theme in the challenge.
Title
(required) The title identifies your post. Titles work best when they are succinct and capture the main point of the idea.

When writing the title, Ideas checks it against those already posted across all visible challenges. If your title has similar words to another idea, you'll see a list of Possibly related posts. Move the pointer over a listing and click Preview to open the listed idea in another browser tab/window.

Idea title whose value is "Let's keep on going"

Tags
Tags are keywords that help users to find your idea when they are searching for particular subjects. Enter any keywords or phrases and separate them by a comma to add them as a tag. You can add up to 10 tags to your idea.