Splunk Ideas

In the Splunk Ideas portal, you can search for, vote on, and request new enhancements (called an idea) for any of the Splunk solutions. Splunk Ideas replaces the need to log a P4 enhancement request ticket with Splunk Support.

Splunk Ideas provides better visibility into requests across our community. You can see the status of any idea within the system and communicate directly with our Product Management team.

Accessing the Splunk Ideas portal

1. Access the portal at: https://ideas.splunk.com
2. Use your Splunk.com username and password to log in

You must have a Splunk.com account to access the Splunk Ideas portal. Click here to sign up for an account.

Browsing Ideas

Click on any idea in the list to view additional details and comments. You can also sort the ideas list by clicking on Recent, Trending, or Popular at the top of the list.

Recent	Sorts the ideas list from newest to oldest
Trending	Displays ideas that have received votes recently at the top
Popular	Sorts the ideas list from most votes to fewest votes

Filtering Ideas

You can filter the ideas list by any of the filters on the menu on the left. They are separated into three sections.

Type of Filter	Description
Filter on Ideas related to you	There are three filters: My ideas. Ideas that you have created. My votes. Ideas that you have up-voted. My subscriptions. Ideas that you have subscribed to.
Filter by Status	You can filter by Idea status, such as Under Consideration, or In Development. For more information, see How ideas are reviewed and prioritized.
Filter by Category	You can filter by category to see only the ideas for specific products.

Searching Ideas

You can search existing ideas by using the Search ideas box in the top-right side of the Splunk Ideas page. You can further refine search results by applying filters. Any filters you have previously applied are cleared when you run a search.

Voting for an Idea

Votes are an important component of the Splunk Ideas prioritization process. You can increase the chances that a specific idea will be considered by up-voting the idea.

You up-vote an idea by clicking on the vote badge next to any idea. You can allocate between 1 and 10 votes to any idea from your total votes.

Voting Limits

• Every community member is allocated 50 total votes. After an idea has been marked as Done or Shipped, your votes are automatically returned to you and can be used to vote for other ideas. You can see your remaining votes at the bottom of the vote badge for every idea or by clicking the My votes menu item on the left.
• If you would like to vote on additional ideas, but have already allocated all of your available votes, you can withdraw votes that you have already cast for an idea to reallocate the votes to another idea.
• Any ideas that you create after you've allocated all of your available votes are created with zero votes. Other community members can up-vote your idea, or you withdraw your votes from another idea and reallocate votes to your new idea.

Withdrawing a Vote

• You can withdraw any number of votes that you've allocated to an idea by clicking on the vote badge next to the idea. Select the number of votes you'd like to withdraw up to the total number of votes you originally allocated.

Posting a New Idea

If you can't find the idea that you want to be considered, post a new idea!

1. Click Add a new idea.
2. Select the Splunk product that your idea relates to.

   If your idea relates to multiple products, select the product that it most relates to.

3. Type a short summary of your idea in the 'Your idea' field. Use keywords that are commonly used when describing this idea. The keywords in the summary will help others find your idea.
4. Ideas with similar terms will automatically be displayed below the text box. Consider voting for and commenting on one of these existing ideas if they are related to your idea.
5. Provide a detailed description of your idea in the Please add more details text box.
   • Focus on describing the problem you are trying to solve before prescribing a solution. We might be able to develop your idea with a variety of solutions, so having a clear understanding of the problem is very important.
   • Ideas should describe a single, specific problem. If you have multiple problems or a multi-part idea, please file separate ideas so that we can determine the specific scope of work needed to develop the idea.
   • Avoid posting ideas that are too broad or generalized in order to rapidly move your idea through the triage process. Ideas that are too general trigger a redefining process that can delay a response to your idea. Be as specific as you can.

   Ideas that are too general	More specific Ideas
   Search performance is too slow	Grouping by more than 10M values using the stats command takes longer than 5min
   Better monitoring console	Provide more specific reasons for skipped searches and guidance on how to resolve the problem
   Improve KVstore	Allow for KVstore collections larger than 1B records
   Backward compatibility	Support compatibility between 7.3 indexers and 6.6 forwarders

6. Depending on the Splunk product you selected, there may be additional fields for you to fill out.
7. Click Share idea to post the idea.

How Ideas are reviewed and prioritized

Due to our large and active community of Splunkers, the number of enhancement requests we receive can be voluminous. Splunk Ideas allows us to see which ideas are being requested most across different types of customers and end-user personas.

When we determine which ideas to triage we look at total vote count across a variety of cohorts, which include but are not limited to:

• Number of total votes (this is the number displayed in the "Vote" box for an idea)
• Number of unique customers requesting an idea ("customers" refers to organizations, not employees)
• Number of votes by customer size or industry. For example: large, small, financial services, government, and so forth.
• Number of votes by customer geography. For example: Americas, Europe, Asia, and so forth.
• Number of votes by end-user persona. For example: admin, SOC analyst, business analyst, and so forth.
• Number of votes from special audiences. For example: Splunk Trust, Design Partners, and so forth.

Splunk evaluates all of the ideas on a monthly basis to determine which ideas have received enough votes to be triaged. An idea must receive enough cohort votes to place it within the top percentile of ideas within its idea category in order to qualify for triage. The number, or quota, of ideas that a category will accept for triage each month is not published, and in some cases, multiple related categories may share a single idea triage quota. Since "total votes" is only one cohort, ideas with lower "total vote" counts can qualify for triage before other ideas with higher "total vote" counts.

For example, take 3 Ideas: A, B, C, all submitted to the same product & category: "Community Portals: Splunk Ideas". In this example, Splunk Ideas has a quota of one idea per cohort.

• Idea A, with 50 total votes, has been voted on by 20 customers, is the top-ranked idea for the cohort "unique customers" (it has more unique customers voting on it than any other idea).
• Idea B, with 100 votes, has been voted on by 10 customers, is lower on the ranking for the cohort "unique customers". It is the 2nd highest-ranked idea for the "total votes" cohort.
• Idea C, with 150 votes, has been voted on by 5 different customers, making it the lowest-ranked idea for the cohort "unique customers.". It is the highest-ranked idea for the "total votes" cohort.
• Result: Ideas A & C will get chosen for triage this month, and Idea B will have to wait until the next month to have an opportunity to be chosen for triage.

Qualifying for triage does not guarantee the idea will be developed, it just guarantees a response from Splunk for the idea. Additionally, an idea may get triaged or promoted to subsequent statuses independently of the review process if it is aligned with current or planned development efforts. After an idea qualifies for triage, the idea moves through the review process defined below.

Any information about our roadmap outlines our general product direction and is subject to change at any time without notice. It is for informational purposes only, and shall not be incorporated into any contract or other commitment. Splunk undertakes no obligation either to develop the features or functionalities described or to include any such feature or functionality in a future release.

Review process and statuses

Status	Description
Under Point Threshold	Idea has not yet received enough votes within any of the cohorts defined above to qualify for triage.
Triaging	Splunk is currently reviewing the idea for specificity and completeness. Splunk also gathers additional data points and might ask additional questions to ensure the product manager has enough information to make a final determination.
Under Consideration	Idea is currently being evaluated by the Product Management to determine if it can be included on the product roadmap.
In Development	Idea is currently being developed
Planned	Idea is on the product roadmap for future development
Future Prospect	Idea is not on the immediate roadmap, but is being considered. Ideas in this queue are reconsidered on a regular basis and will not remain in this status indefinitely.
Done	Development work for the idea has been completed but may not be generally available yet
Shipped	Idea has shipped in a product and is generally available
Already Exists	Idea is requesting functionality that already exists. Ideas with this status are considered closed.
Declined	Product Management has declined to develop the idea at this time.

Enhancement requests filed with Splunk customer support

If you previously filed an enhancement request with Splunk customer support as a P4 case, that request cannot automatically be moved over to Splunk Ideas because it might include sensitive customer details.

Splunk is currently reviewing existing P4 cases to determine if we can migrate any of the enhancement requests to Splunk Ideas.

For faster consideration, you can close your P4 case and create an Idea for your enhancement request on the Splunk Ideas portal.

Notifications

The Splunk Ideas portal provides a robust notification system. You can receive e-mail notifications for all of your ideas and ideas that you are interested in.

Receiving notifications for an idea

You are automatically subscribed to notifications for an idea when you:

• Post a new idea
• Up-vote an idea
• Comment on an idea

Subscribe to notifications for an idea

If you have not been automatically subscribed to notifications for an idea, you can follow these steps to manually subscribe:

1. Click on the Idea to open the idea.
2. Click Subscribe.

Notification events

For ideas that you are subscribed to, you will receive email notifications when the following events occur:

• You create an idea
• An admin response is posted by Splunk
• Another community member comments on the idea
• The idea status changes

Stop receiving notifications for an idea

You can stop receiving notifications for ideas that you are subscribed to by following one of these procedures:

Unsubscribe using the Ideas portal

1. Browse to the idea and click on it.
2. Click Unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe using email

1. Open the email notification that you received.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the email.
3. Choose to unsubscribe from notifications for this specific idea or for all ideas.

View all ideas you are subscribed to

You can view all of the ideas that you are subscribed to receive notifications for by following these steps:

1. Access the Splunk Ideas portal.
2. Click My subscriptions from the menu.

Feedback on the Splunk Ideas portal

You can post feedback on the Splunk Ideas portal by creating a new idea and selecting Splunk Ideas as the product.

Adhere to Community Guidelines

Because this is a public facing portal, ensure that you abide by the Splunk Community Guidelines.