Letting people submit ideas by email
Each collection has its own email address. When you switch it on, members of your hive can submit an idea by sending an email to that address. The subject becomes the idea’s title and the message becomes its description.
Who can do this: collection managers and Admins.
Switch on email submissions
- Open the collection and select the Manage tab.
- Click Share in the sidebar.
- In the Submit by email card, turn on Accept email contributions.
- Click Save in the Unsaved changes bar.
- Copy the address shown under the switch and share it with the people you want ideas from.
The address ends in @mail.hives.co. It belongs to the collection and never changes, even if you switch email submissions off and on again. Only collection managers and Admins can see it in Hives.
How an email becomes an idea
| In the email | In the idea |
|---|---|
| Subject | Title (up to 255 characters) |
| Message text | Description |
| Attachments | Not included |
The idea lands in the collection’s Inbox, like any other new idea. Other questions on the submission form are left unanswered, so the idea only has a title and description.
Who can send ideas by email
Email submissions follow the collection’s Access setting, just like the contribute button. See Collection settings explained.
| Access | Who can submit by email |
|---|---|
| Everyone with access | Members who can see the collection. If Allow contributing without signing in is on (in the Link & QR-code card), anyone else can too. |
| Managers | Only the collection’s managers and Admins. |
| Closed | Nobody. Emails are ignored. |
Hives matches the sender’s email address to the members of your hive. When the sender is a member, the idea is saved under their name, unless the collection’s contributor privacy settings hide it. Ideas from anyone else are saved anonymously. Emails from people who aren’t allowed to submit are ignored.
See Sharing a collection with a link or QR code for more about contributing without signing in.
The sender doesn’t get a confirmation email.
Tips
- Tell people to send from the same email address they use to sign in to Hives. Otherwise Hives can’t match them to their account.
- Ask people to put their whole idea in the message. Attachments are not saved.
- If your submission form has questions that matter for reviewing, ask people to submit through the collection page instead, so they answer every question.
- Closing the collection stops email submissions too, so you can leave Accept email contributions on if you plan to open the collection again.
Turn email submissions off
Turn off Accept email contributions and click Save. Emails sent to the address are no longer turned into ideas. The address stays the same if you switch it on again later.