How to build a company-wide suggestion box for innovation ideas

Turn everyday ideas into powerful improvements

In this guide, you’ll build a company-wide suggestion box that encourages employees to share innovation ideas, routes them to reviewers for evaluation, and tracks progress from submission to implementation. Perfect for HR, innovation teams, or leadership aiming to foster creativity and engagement.
📘 Learn more: Create your first form, app, or portal in a flash

Step 1 — Create your idea submission form

Start from your workspace and click + New → Form. You can start from scratch or choose the AI ideas for employee retention and engagement template from the Template gallery.

Or use Magic Createو describe what you need:

“A company-wide suggestion box where employees can submit ideas, managers can review them, and progress is tracked.”

Why this matters: creating a structured form ensures ideas are collected in a consistent, transparent way.
📘 Learn more: How to create any form using Magic Create in Formaloo

Step 2 — Add submitter and idea details

Start by capturing who’s submitting and what they’re proposing:

• Employee name (or anonymous option)
  
  
• Email address (optional for anonymity)
  
  
• Department or team
  
  
• Idea title
  
  
• Description of idea or improvement (long text)
  
  
• Problem it solves / expected impact
  
  
• Estimated effort or cost (dropdown or rating)
  
  

💡 Tip: use a toggle or conditional logic to allow anonymous submissions.
📘 Learn more: Form editor and field types

Step 3 — Add innovation category and impact fields

Organize ideas by relevance and potential benefit:

• Category (Product, Process, Customer Experience, Sustainability, etc.)
  
  
• Impact area (Revenue growth, Efficiency, Employee engagement)
  
  
• Priority level (1–5 scale)
  
  
• Estimated ROI or benefit (numeric or rating)
  
  

📘 Learn more: How to customize text field and long text field

Step 4 — Add reviewer and evaluation fields

Create admin-only fields for internal use (only visible to reviewers):

• Reviewer name / team
  
  
• Evaluation score (1–10)
  
  
• Feasibility score (1–10)
  
  
• Innovation rating (1–10)
  
  
• Overall score (calculated automatically)
  
  
• Review comments
  
  
• Status (Pending / Under review / Approved / In progress / Implemented)
  
  

📘 Learn more: How to edit forms and form responses

Step 5 — Add scoring logic for idea evaluation

Use variable fields to calculate a combined score automatically.

Example formula:

@impact = @evaluation_score  

@feasibility = @feasibility_score  

@innovation = @innovation_score  

@average_score = (@impact + @feasibility + @innovation) / 3

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💡 Tip: display the average score to reviewers or use it to auto-tag top ideas.
📘 Learn more: How to add and calculate scores using variable fields

Step 6 — Automate notifications and acknowledgments

Open Settings → Advanced logic or Notify tab and set up automatic emails:

• To employee: thank-you message confirming idea submission.
  
  
• To reviewer or innovation team: new idea submission alert.
  
  
• To employee: follow-up when the status changes to Under review, Approved, or Implemented.
  
  

Personalize emails with variables like @idea_title, @status, and @average_score.
📘 Learn more: How to send and receive conditional email notifications

Step 7 — Add on-update logic for review progress

Use on-update logic to make the workflow dynamic as reviewers act:

• When Status = Approved → Notify employee and add to “Innovation Pipeline.”
  
  
• When Status = Implemented → Send company-wide email announcement.
  
  
• When Score > 8 → Tag as “High Impact Idea.”
  📘 Learn more: What is on-update logic and how it works
  
  

Step 8 — Build your innovation dashboard

Go to Results → Responses and visualize ideas in real time:

• Table view: track all submissions by status or department.
  
  
• Kanban view: group by review stage (Pending, In review, Approved, Implemented).
  
  
• Charts: view most active departments, average scores, and innovation categories.
  📘 Learn more: How to create a Kanban board
  
  

Step 9 — Create an innovation portal for company-wide access

From your project, build an Innovation Portal.

Add pages such as:

• Submit a new idea
  
  
• All ideas (public view or filtered by status)
  
  
• Under review (reviewer-only)
  
  
• Approved and implemented ideas
  
  

Set access permissions:

• Employees can submit ideas and view approved ones.
  
  
• Reviewers can update statuses and add scores.
  
  
• Admins can manage everything.
  📘 Learn more: How to create a portal and manage users’ access
  
  

Step 10 — Use AI to uncover innovation insights

Enable AI Analyze to identify emerging trends and patterns, such as:

• “Most common innovation topics this quarter.”
  
  
• “Departments contributing the most ideas.”
  
  
• “Average approval rate by category.”
  📘 Learn more: Uncover insights and trends in your data with AI Analyze
  
  

Pro tips

• Use linked rows to connect ideas with follow-up projects or budget requests.
  
  
• Add reward logic to recognize contributors of approved or high-impact ideas.
  📘 Learn more: What are linked rows and how to use them
  
  

Example scenario

An employee from Customer Support submits an idea to simplify client onboarding. The innovation committee reviews it, rates it highly (average score 9.2), and marks it Approved. The submitter receives an email update and recognition badge. The idea appears in the Innovation Portal’s “Approved Ideas” page and is later linked to the Product Improvement Project form for implementation tracking.
📘 Learn more: Build personalized and time-saving flows with logic, automations, and AI

FAQ

1. Can employees submit anonymously?
   Yes, allow optional name/email fields or hide them completely for open submissions.
2. Can I let everyone view approved ideas only?
   Absolutely, create filtered pages in your portal visible to all employees.
3. Can reviewers score and comment directly?
   Yes, reviewers can log in through the portal and fill reviewer-only fields.

Your innovation hub is live, start collecting ideas that drive change

You’ve built a transparent, automated suggestion system that empowers employees to contribute ideas and tracks innovation from submission to implementation. Keep enhancing it with AI insights, role-based dashboards, and recognition workflows to make creativity a company habit.
📘 Learn more: How to personalize ending pages and email notifications with AI

Last updated October 2025

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