Hives explained: hives, collections, ideas and steps
Hives is a place where your organisation collects ideas, feedback and suggestions from colleagues, and follows them through review until something happens. This page explains the main building blocks and the words you will see in the app, so the rest of the help centre makes sense.
Your hive
A hive is your organisation’s own space in Hives. It has its own address, for example app.hives.co/your-organisation, its own logo and its own people.
You can belong to more than one hive. One sign-in opens all of them, and you can switch between them at any time. See Joining a hive and switching between hives.
Home and pages
Home is the start page of your hive. It shows a welcome message, news from your organisation (announcements) and a list of pages.
A page groups collections and surveys for a team, a site or an initiative, for example “Production Gothenburg” or “Sustainability 2026”. Each page has its own audience. If you don’t see a page, it hasn’t been shared with you.
Learn more in Pages: how to create, publish and choose who sees them.
Collections
A collection gathers ideas around one question or challenge, such as “How can we reduce waste in the warehouse?”. It has a title, a description and a Contribute button that opens a short form.
Collections are where most of the activity in Hives happens. Read How to submit an idea to get started, or How to create a collection if you set them up.
Ideas, and the other words for them
Each contribution to a collection is called an idea in this help centre. A collection can call them feedback, posts, insights, solutions or suggestions instead. They all work the same way.
An idea is made of your answers to the collection’s form, usually a title, a description and sometimes a file. Once it’s shared, colleagues can like or vote for it and comment on it.
The Inbox and steps
Every new idea first lands in the Inbox. From there, the people who manage the collection move it through steps, for example “Under review”, “Approved” and “Implemented”.
You can see an idea’s step as a coloured bar at the bottom of its card. Ideas still in the Inbox have no bar. When your idea moves to a new step, you get a notification. See What happens after you submit an idea.
Workflows
A workflow is a ready-made template of steps and questions. Admins create workflows so that new collections can start with the right steps straight away. Once a collection is created from a workflow, it has its own copy of the steps. See What is a workflow?
Surveys
A survey is a set of questions that people answer one at a time. Surveys are separate from collections and ideas. Answers are anonymous: nobody, not even Admins, can see who answered what. See Answering a survey.
Announcements
Announcements are short news posts shown on Home, newest first. Admins and Managers write them. One announcement can also appear as a pop-up when people open Home. See Posting announcements and pop-ups.
Folders
Folders are a filing system that Admins and Managers use to organise collections, surveys and files behind the scenes. Most members never see them. See Folders: what they are and who can see them.
Ida, the AI assistant
Ida is an AI assistant that Admins and Managers can ask about the ideas in their hive, for example which themes keep coming up. It only reads what that person is allowed to see, and it’s available when AI features are switched on for the hive. See What is Ida?
The four roles
Everyone in a hive has one role. The role decides what you can create and manage across the whole hive.
| Role | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Admin | Runs the hive. Changes hive settings, roles and the Home page, and can see and manage every collection. |
| Manager | Creates collections, surveys, pages, folders and announcements, and invites people. Only sees ideas in collections they manage or have access to as a member. |
| Member | Takes part. Submits ideas, likes, votes, comments and answers surveys on the pages shared with them. |
| Guest | Has access to specific things only, such as a page that names them. See What guests can do. |
On top of their role, people can be named on a specific thing. The most common is collection manager: a person who runs one collection, moves its ideas between steps and answers its review questions. A collection manager can be an Admin, a Manager or a Member, and gets the same manager tools on that collection whatever their role.
Good to know: “Manager” (the role) and “collection manager” are different. A Manager can create collections but doesn’t automatically see ideas in other people’s collections. A Member can be a collection manager of one collection.
Other named roles include folder managers, page managers, survey managers and reviewers. The full picture is in Roles and permissions in Hives.