Shipped & Rejected
Close the loop on every product decision
Overview
Every idea in IdeaLift eventually reaches a final state: shipped or rejected. These are not dead ends but important milestones that complete the feedback loop. Shipped ideas demonstrate to customers that their voice matters. Rejected ideas, when handled well, build trust by showing transparency in your decision-making process.
Shipped Ideas
What happens when you mark an idea as shipped
Marking an idea as shipped triggers a series of actions that close the feedback loop and keep your workspace organized:
Status update
The idea moves from your inbox or backlog to the Shipped queue. It no longer appears in active views.
Changelog entry
If you have the Changelog feature enabled, IdeaLift can automatically generate a draft changelog entry based on the idea title and description.
Stakeholder notifications
The original requester and any subscribers are notified that their idea has been shipped (via Slack, Discord, Teams, or email depending on the source).
Roadmap update
If the idea was on your public roadmap, it automatically moves to the "Shipped" stage so visitors can see progress.
Metrics recorded
Time-to-ship and other metrics are calculated and stored for your analytics dashboard and Measure view.
Auto-ship from issue tracker
When an idea is linked to a GitHub issue, Linear issue, or Jira ticket, IdeaLift can automatically mark it as shipped when the linked ticket is closed. Enable this in Settings → Integrations for each connected tracker. This eliminates the need to manually update status in two places.
Rejected Ideas
Rejecting with context
When you reject an idea, IdeaLift prompts you to select a decision reason and optionally add a note. This documentation is valuable for your team and for customers who want to understand why their request was not pursued.
Tip: Always provide a decision reason. Six months from now, when a similar request comes in, your team will be able to see the original reasoning and decide whether circumstances have changed.
Re-opening rejected ideas
Rejected ideas are not permanently deleted. If priorities shift or new information emerges, you can re-open any rejected idea from the Rejected queue. Re-opening moves the idea back to your inbox for fresh evaluation, and the original decision history is preserved for context.
Decision Reasons
IdeaLift provides built-in decision reason categories. These standardized reasons make it easy to analyze patterns in your decision-making over time.
You can add custom decision reasons in Settings → Decision Reasons to match your team's vocabulary.
Notifying Stakeholders
Shipped notifications
When an idea is shipped, IdeaLift notifies the original requester through the same channel they submitted the idea on. If the idea came from Slack, the notification goes to Slack. If it came from Discord, the notification goes to Discord.
Slack / Discord / Teams
A message is posted in a DM or channel thread thanking the requester and linking to the shipped feature
For ideas submitted via email, web form, or API, a notification email is sent
Rejection notifications
By default, rejection notifications are turned off to avoid sending negative messages unprompted. You can enable them in Settings if your team values transparency. When enabled, the notification includes the decision reason so the requester understands the context.
Note: Even with notifications disabled, requesters can see the status of their idea on your public roadmap (if the idea was listed) or by asking in your support channel.
Notification settings
Configure notification preferences in Settings → Notifications. You can enable or disable notifications for shipped ideas, rejected ideas, and status changes independently. Notifications can be sent to the original requester, all subscribers of the idea, or both.
Analytics on Decisions
IdeaLift tracks metrics on your shipped and rejected ideas to help you understand your team's decision-making patterns and responsiveness.
Ship rate
Percentage of total ideas that were eventually shipped
Time to ship
Average time from idea capture to shipped status
Rejection breakdown
Distribution of rejection reasons to identify patterns
Re-open rate
How often rejected ideas get re-opened, indicating premature decisions
Decision quality over time
The Analytics dashboard includes a decision quality chart that tracks your ship rate and time-to-ship over months. Use this to spot improvements in your process or identify periods where decisions slowed down. A healthy ship rate combined with decreasing time-to-ship indicates a well-functioning feedback loop.
Best Practices
- Always include a decision reason when rejecting. It helps your future self and builds institutional knowledge about product strategy.
- Enable shipped notifications to build customer trust. People who see their feedback acted on become your strongest advocates.
- Review the rejection breakdown monthly. If "out of scope" dominates, your capture filters may need tuning. If "deferred" dominates, you may be avoiding hard decisions.
- Use the auto-ship integration with your issue tracker to eliminate manual status updates and keep everything in sync.
- Generate a changelog entry for every shipped idea. It doubles as marketing content and shows customers you listen.