Before configuring your Feedback Portal or reviewing submissions in the Workspace, it is important to understand the core entities that power feedback management in Craft.io. This article defines the foundational components you will encounter throughout the Feedback lifecycle.
What is a feedback item?
A Feedback Item represents a single piece of submitted input. It is a standalone entity that exists independently from Epics, Features, and Stories. Feedback items can later be connected to delivery work, but they are never automatically converted into backlog items.
Each feedback item can contain meta-data such as:
Submitter: the individual who submitted the feedback or on whose behalf it was submitted
Company: the organization associated with the submitter
Status: the stage or status of a feedback item. Two types are available - customer facing status, and internal status.
Importance Value: optional signal selected at submission
Labels: administrative tags applied internally
Connected Items: linked Epics or Features
Form Data: structured responses captured at submission
Attachments: files or supporting documents
Comments: conversation between submitters and your team
A feedback item remains intact throughout its lifecycle. Even if it is connected to or promoted into delivery work, the original submission, context, and metadata remain traceable.
💡 Feedback items represent demand. Work items represent execution. Keeping them separate preserves clarity and scale.
What are Companies in Craft.io?
A Company represents the organization associated with a feedback submission. This can be:
A customer organization
A partner
An internal business unit
Each feedback item can be linked to a Company, allowing teams to analyze demand based on account context rather than volume alone.
Companies can include additional attributes such as revenue, tier, industry, or strategic importance. This enables product teams to:
Prioritize based on business value
Identify demand by segment
Understand which accounts are driving requests
In restricted portals, Company settings also control visibility, ensuring users only see feedback from their own organization when required.
💡 Companies add strategic weight to feedback beyond vote count. For more detail on setup and how to use companies, read this article
How can users submit feedback?
The Submitter is the individual associated with a feedback item.
Depending on configuration, the submitter may:
Be an authenticated Portal user
Be associated with a Company
Be captured via integration or API
Submitter identity enables communication, notifications, voting, and reporting by user or account.
💡 If feedback is captured via the Public API without authentication, contextual details can still be preserved in the submission body.
Statuses: Internal vs customer-facing
Craft.io supports two distinct status types for feedback.
Customer status
This status is visible in the Feedback Portal. It communicates high-level progress to submitters, such as:
New
Under Review
Planned
In Progress
Released
Its purpose is transparency and communication. Updating this status can trigger email notifications to the submitter.
Internal status
The Internal Status is visible only to your internal team inside Craft.io. It allows product teams to:
Track operational evaluation
Manage internal workflow stages
Separate decision-making from external communication
Internal statuses are not shown in the Portal to non-administrative users.
💡 This dual-status model ensures teams can build clear communication processes for external customers without accidental exposure of internal prioritization logic:
Voting
Voting is an optional engagement mechanism in the Feedback Portal.
Each authenticated user can:
Cast one vote per feedback item
Remove their vote at any time
Key characteristics:
Vote counts can be viewed internally
Voting is not wired into prioritization formulas
Users cannot vote on behalf of others
💡 Voting in Craft.io is a signal, typically considered alongside company value, strategic alignment and qualitative context.
What comes next?
Now that you understand the core entities of Feedback in Craft.io, you can explore:
Setting up your Feedback Portal
Configuring Companies and visibility rules
Reviewing feedback in the Feedback Table
Connecting validated feedback to your backlog
These foundational concepts will guide you throughout configuration and ongoing management.
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