This week was dedicated to improving the performance of our web app. We hope you’ll notice that switching between pages in the app should feel a bit snappier and hopefully a bit more pleasant as well.

We did this to lay the groundwork of some exciting new updates coming next week, including more robust keyboard shortcuts and even more flexible querying options for quotes and topics. These updates will take your prioritization game to the next level 💪.

Bug Fixes & Other Improvements 🚀

• We now have a sample application up to demonstrate Herald’s features to new and existing customers. Say hello to the roadmap for FastNG, a broadband provider dedicated to the needs of billionaires!

🥁 A Changelog for Everyone

Keeping customers in the loop when you're shipping features they asked for is essential to eliciting more, higher-quality feedback from them in the future. Changelogs are a great way not just to inform customers about new features, but also as a way to generate momentum from your team as you iterate on a weekly basis. Changelogs on Herald take minutes to set up. Get started with yours today!

🔥Topic Suggestions on the Chrome Extension and Front Plugin

Struggling to find the right topic for a customer quote, even though you know you’ve seen it before? We released an improvement to our Chrome Extension and Front Plugins to offer suggestions on the topic, based on the quote so that you don’t even have to search for it. Just open the dropdown for picking the topic and you’ll see what we recommend. Let us know if you want to enable this feature for your workspace!

Redesigned Topic Details View

The topics details view just got a fresh coat of paint! We reorganized the layout to put all pertinent information about the topic on the right, with all quotes from your customers on the left. This should make it much easier to scan and understand the gist of a topic. It also comes with nifty new shortcuts:

• e to begin editing the topic.

• CMD/Ctrl + s to save the topic once you've finished editing.

• q and d to switch between the quotes and description tabs respectively.

Descriptions and Hero Images for Every Topic

Want to add a more detailed description of a Herald topic for your roadmap? Herald now supports adding descriptions for every topic so that you can explain to teammates and customers (via your portal) what a topic is about. You can even add a hero image (maybe a screenshot?) to every description to give it some more pizzazz.

Bug Fixes & Other Improvements 🚀

• Now anyone can enable a public roadmap for their workspace without having to reach out to the Herald team. Just head over to Settings > Customer Portal, and you'll see a toggle to enable to disable public access to your roadmap.

Herald is now Open for Everyone

Our biggest update this week is that Herald is no longer invite-only. We'd love for you to give us a spin—no credit card needed.

Login Directly from the Customer Portal

Your customers can now log in directly from your Customer Portal. They just enter their email, and we'll send them a magic link to log in. Then they get a personalized view of your roadmap, along with the ability to provide feedback on new or existing ideas.

Suggest New Topics on the Customer Portal

When customers are logged into your Customer Portal, they can now suggest new ideas for you to work on without having to reach out to you. Their suggestions are routed into Herald as new topics for you to review and prioritize as necessary.

Bug Fixes & Other Improvements 🚀

• Roadmaps are now accessible as subdomains on *.herald.fyi. Check out Herald's public roadmap at https://portal.herald.fyi. Hooray for shorter URLs!

• Custom subdomains for your workspace's customer portal. Want a human-readable subdomain for your workspace on Herald? We're all ears. Just reach out via email or live chat and tell us what you'd like on *.herald.fyi.

Add Feedback to Topics on the Customer Portal

When users are viewing their personalized roadmap, they can now provide feedback on any existing topic. This makes it easy to understand how other customers are experiencing the same problem. These quotes are added directly to the topic in Herald.

Completed Topics in Public Roadmaps

Show customers all the important updates you've been shipping! Our roadmaps now include a column with completed topics. Not only does this highlight what you've done, it automatically flags the completed items your users personally requested. Let them know you're listening!

Export Quotes to a CSV

Download all the quotes for a given topic to a CSV, with contact details. This is great if you want to update all the customers that requested something, and personalize it with their verbatim quotes. Make them feel special, even if it's months later!

Bug Fixes & Other Improvements 🚀

• Customize the granularity of Slack notifications. You can now pick from two settings for the frequency of Slack notifications to your team. It can be configured to send a message whenever the first quote is added to a Herald topic, or when any quote is added to any Herald topic.

• Kanban View for Topics. We've heard from multiple customers that they'd like an "internal roadmap" to help get the team aligned on their priorities. Our new kanban view in the Topics section provides just that. Easily see which topics are in various stages of the development process.

• Revamped FAQs guide with best practices on organizing topics in Herald.

  Herald: Frequently Asked Questions

Herald product updates prior to June 1, 2020 are here.