Ideas recipe — submission and voting

The Ideas recipe (openintranet_ideas) adds an idea-submission and voting system to the intranet. Anyone can post a new idea, every authenticated user gets one upvote per idea, ideas stream into a dedicated Ideas listing, and the admin (or a designated Innovation manager) progresses each idea through a four-state lifecycle — Proposed → Selected → Implemented (or Rejected).

It is a recipe, so it is opt-in — install with drush recipe recipes/openintranet_ideas when the company is ready to ask for input from the floor.

What it is

The recipe ships:

A new Idea content type (oi_idea) with body, file attachments, dedicated comment thread and a status field.
A vote flag that lets any authenticated user cast a single upvote per idea.
A dedicated comment bundle — Idea comments — separate from the site-wide comment thread (so ideas have their own focused discussion).
A status workflow — Proposed / Selected / Implemented / Rejected — driven by a simple list field that the admin updates as the idea progresses.
An Ideas view that lists everything published, sorted by vote count, with status as a facet.
Permissions tuned for anyone can submit and vote, the original author can edit their own.

Components

The Idea content type

Each idea is an entity with:

Field	Type	Notes
Title	Text	The one-line summary.
Body	Long text + summary	The full pitch — what are you proposing, why, what’s the impact. CKEditor with the AI assistant available.
Files	File field, multi-value	Attach diagrams, mockups, supporting documents.
Status	List (string) — Proposed (default), Selected, Implemented, Rejected	The lifecycle state. Updated by an admin.
Comments	Dedicated Idea comments bundle	Threaded discussion specifically for this idea.
Author / Created	User reference / timestamp	The submitter and submission time.

Ideas are revisioned so the edit history is auditable.

The vote flag

The recipe configures a Flag module flag called Idea vote with:

Scope: Global flag = false ⇒ Personal — every user has their own one-vote tally.
Bundles: oi_idea only.
Show as field: Yes — the Vote for this button is rendered as part of the idea’s display.
Link type: AJAX — voting does not reload the page.
Flag short text: Vote for this. Unflag short text: You voted for this.
Messages: You cast your vote for this / You retracted your vote.

Each user can vote once per idea; clicking again retracts the vote. Vote counts are visible on the listing and are the default sort order.

The Ideas listing

view.ideas is a Drupal view that renders every published idea with:

Title, summary, vote count, status badge.
Filters: status, author, time range.
Sort: vote count desc (the default), or most recent.
Status facet: pick Proposed to see the active backlog, Selected to see what’s planned, Implemented to see what shipped, Rejected to learn from past decisions.

Idea comments

Ideas have a dedicated comment bundle (idea_comments) — separate from the main Comment bundle used by News / KB / Pages. This keeps idea discussions self-contained and lets the admin apply a different display, different moderation rules, and different notifications without affecting the rest of the site.

Status lifecycle

The status field is a plain list-string field with four values:

proposed   ← default for every new idea
selected   ← admin marks as chosen for implementation
implemented ← admin marks as shipped
rejected   ← admin marks as not pursuing (with rationale in a comment)

The lifecycle is intentionally light — there is no required workflow plugin, no moderation states, no gated transitions. An admin (or a custom role with edit any oi_idea content permission) just picks a new value from a dropdown when the status changes. This is by design — innovation programmes work best with low ceremony.

If a more formal workflow is needed (with transitions, approvals, automatic notifications), pair the recipe with ECA: a 4-node BPMN model can fire on each status change to broadcast a notification, lock further edits, or require approval.

Files attachment

The Files field lets submitters attach supporting material — a slide deck explaining the idea, a wireframe of a proposed UI, a spreadsheet showing the financial impact. Attachments are private to authenticated users by default; admins can adjust the field’s file directory and upload destination from Field UI.

Integration with other features

Social interactions — Idea votes and idea comments are the same Flag and Comment infrastructure used by Bookmarks / Reactions / Comments, so editors work with one mental model across the site.
Search — Ideas are indexed by DB Index Content automatically; a search for “onboarding” surfaces ideas alongside News and KB.
Engagement scoring — Submitting / voting / commenting on an idea contributes to the user’s engagement score on their profile.
Messenger — A custom ECA model can fire a Messenger broadcast when an idea reaches Selected state (“The idea X has been selected for implementation”).
Multilingual — The recipe enables language.content_settings for oi_idea and idea_comments, so ideas can be submitted and translated per language.
AI assistant — CKEditor’s AI button is available in the body field — submitters can polish their pitch before posting.

Permissions

Granted by the recipe to Authenticated user:

Permission	Default role(s)
Create oi_idea content	Authenticated user
Edit own oi_idea content	Authenticated user
Delete own oi_idea content	Authenticated user
View oi_idea revisions	Authenticated user
Flag idea_vote (cast a vote)	Authenticated user
Unflag idea_vote (retract a vote)	Authenticated user
Edit any oi_idea content (change status)	Administrator + custom Innovation manager role
Delete any oi_idea content	Administrator

Installing the recipe

cd web
drush recipe recipes/openintranet_ideas
drush cr

After applying:

/node/add/oi_idea is the submission form.
/ideas (the configured view path) is the listing.
The Ideas main-menu link is added.

Modules behind it

node, text, user, views, views_ui, options, comment, file — Drupal core
Flag — the vote flag (Personal scope)
Default Content — sample ideas to seed the system

Learn more

Social interactions — same Flag / Comment foundations
ECA — no-code workflows — to add transition automation on top of the lightweight status field
Messenger — broadcast on status change
AI Assistant in CKEditor — polish the pitch before submitting
Drupal recipes documentation