Signals
← Back to Customer Feedback section
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Availability
- Available to all users as a Beta feature. Signals will only be available for certain plans when this moves out of Beta.
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Roles and Permissions
- Admin and editors: can view and save suggested Signals, edit and delete saved Signals, add and remove Feedback from a saved Signal
- Reviewers: View only
Signals uses our advanced algorithms to review feedback and identify new trends. It analyzes your account and automatically highlights the most frequently mentioned themes.
It is currently available to all users as a Beta feature and we're keen to get your thoughts on it! The next iteration of Signals may change according to customer feedback. It will only be available for certain plans when this moves out of Beta. To keep up to date on Signals, get in touch at help@prodpad.com, and share your thoughts on the new feature by filling in our survey.
This guide covers
Understanding Signals
Signals is a powerful tool powered by machine learning that helps you spot emerging trends in your Feedback. Rather than extracting predefined topics, it focuses on grouping Feedback based on similarities in the themes being discussed. These themes are called Signals.
Once the Signals are generated, they will appear in the Signals menu, located under the Signals tab within the Feedback list. The Signals menu includes the Signal title, a Signal description, and the supporting Feedback tied to each Signal. Signals are ordered by the amount of associated Feedback, with the highest number appearing first.
It’s important to note that if you haven’t enabled the “Enable Generative AI Features” toggle in your account settings, a Signal description won’t be generated. (you can read more about how to enable this toggle and how Generative AI features work here).
The goal of Signals is to make it easier and quicker for you to identify emerging trends in your Feedback. By surfacing Signals, you can instantly see which areas and features are mentioned most frequently, allowing you to focus your discovery and research efforts. You can then dive deeper into the associated Feedback by either saving a Signal or adding the Feedback to an existing one. To do this, simply click the ellipses icon next to a Signal and choose from the two available options.
Once you’ve saved a Signal, you can view it by clicking the Saved button. From there, you can click on either the Signal title or the number of associated Feedback, which will open the Feedback list with the selected Signal already filtered. This makes it easy to explore and triage the Feedback linked to that Signal.
You can also filter the Feedback list at any time using the Signal filter, making it easy to navigate and explore any Feedback associated with your saved Signals.
Signals essentials
- You can refresh Signals every 24 hours.
- It is currently only able to analyze Feedback written in English.
- In this latest version, suggested Signals relies on your device's storage to keep track of changes. When you make a change to a suggested Signal (such as removing Feedback from a Signal), it's just between you and your device. Your ProdPad account and fellow users won't be affected.
- By default, the algorithm only analyzes Feedback found in your Inbox or Reviewed states to creates Signals. Once you start to view and analyze your Signals, you can filter by state.
- The more feedback you have in your ProdPad account, the more accurate and useful Signals will be. Here's how you can quickly import and populate your account with data from external sources, including CSV import.
Getting started with Signals
Signals is located within the Feedback area of ProdPad. To access it, simply navigate to Feedback and click the Signals tab at the top of the page.
When you use Signals for the first time, you'll have the option to:
- Analyze feedback - Start the scan of the Feedback in your account to generate Signals.
- Import feedback - Upload a CSV file to give Signals your most recent data to work with and populate the Feedback section.
- Explore Signals in the sandbox - If you want to get a feel for Signals, you can explore how it works in our test sandbox environment
When you're ready to start using Signals, click Analyze feedback. If you don't have enough Feedback in your account, a red banner message will prompt you to add more.
Navigating Signals
Once you’ve analyzed Feedback for the first time—and whenever you return to the Signals tab—you’ll see the following information:
- Filters – These filters apply to the Feedback that has been analyzed by Signals. You can filter by the tags you already use for Feedback, the product linked to the Feedback, and by Feedback state (Inbox, Reviewed, or Archived). (See our guide for more info on using Feedback states).
- Suggested / Saved – Easily switch between viewing Signals generated from analyzing Feedback and any Signals you saved.
- Refresh – If you’ve already analyzed Feedback within the past 24 hours, the Refresh button will be greyed out. Feedback analysis and Signal generation can only be done once every 24 hours. The date and time stamp above the Refresh button shows when your Feedback was last analyzed.
- Signal – The title of the surfaced Signal. Click on a Signal title to navigate and triage the associated Feedback.
- Description – The description of the surfaced Signal. If the “Enable Generative AI Features” toggle isn’t activated in your account settings, a Signal description won’t be created (you can read more about how to enable this toggle and how Generative AI features work here).
- Supported Feedback – The number of Feedback items the Signal surfaced, with an option to view these Feedback items by clicking "View Feedback". You can switch between Feedback using the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of the slide-out modal. You can also remove any Feedback you feel is unnecessary by clicking the "Remove from Signal" button.
- ? - A direct link to this help article.
- Elpises tool (...) - This tool allows you to save linked Feedback as a new Signal or add the Feedback to an existing one.
Analysing a Signal
Once you’ve clicked on a Signal title or the View Feedback button, you’ll see all the Feedback associated with that Signal.
From here, you can easily switch between Feedback using the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of the slide-out modal. If any Feedback doesn’t seem relevant to the surfaced Signal, you can remove it by clicking the Remove from Signal button.
Saving Signals
If you click the ellipses tool ( …) next to a surfaced Signal, you’ll have the option to save it.
Saving a Signal adds a new Signal attribute to all the Feedback associated with it. If the associated Feedback within the surfaced Signal changes for any reason (e.g., the number of analyzed Feedback), the saved Signal will remain unchanged. Even when new data is used to update the Signal by reanalyzing Feedback, any additional Feedback won’t be automatically added to the saved one.
It’s also important to note that you cannot add duplicate pieces of Feedback to a saved Signal. If you want to update a Signal with new Feedback from a previously used Signal, any Feedback already in this Signal will not be duplicated when adding additional Feedback.
Once a Signal is saved, you can click on its title to navigate to a pre-filtered Feedback list. This list uses the Signal filter to show only Feedback associated with it, making it easier to triage.
If you click on an associated piece of Feedback, you’ll notice a new Signals attribute in the Attributes section. This allows you to easily identify which Signals the Feedback is associated with.
You can also remove a piece of Feedback from a saved Signal by clicking the Edit button in the Attributes section of the Feedback and removing it.
From the Feedback list, you can navigate to Display Options and toggle on the Signals option. This will allow you to view the Signals associated with your Feedback directly in the Feedback list.
Add Feedback to existing Signal
You can also add Feedback to existing Signals, which allows you to include the Feedback associated with suggested Signals into an already saved one.
As mentioned before, you can’t add duplicate pieces of Feedback to a Signal. If you’re updating a Signal with new Feedback from a previously used Signal, any existing Feedback won’t be duplicated when adding the new items.
Cut big chunks of data down to size
If you have user Feedback in an external tool, such as a CRM or survey site, you can use Signals to get top-level insights. By importing data into ProdPad and surfacing Signals, you can quickly and easily get a sense of the main themes and needs of your users.
You can bring feedback into ProdPad via: