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Feedback Module - Review

While using DotNetNuke, most of us use few major modules, such as Text / HTML and Announcements. The others wait for their turn, the time they're needed.

Feedback Module is in fact one of the first modules to be needed in a portal (depending on the purpose of the portal). For the portals we built for the customers, we used this module. My overall opinion for the module is :

"Feedback Module is light and useful component. In some cases, it perfectly suits your needs. Most of the times, it needs some additional work."

A voluntary DotNetNuke Project

Feedback Module is a voluntary project, led by Sanjay Mehrotra. I didn't see any team members listed on the project page. It seems that we should be thankful to Sanjay for this bright work. There are still lots of things to be done for the module. But as we do not help Sanjay on this project, we don't have the right to criticize.

All I want to do here is just to inform about the features of the module to prospective users.

Main Features

There are three main components : Feedback Entry (for visitors), Feedback Moderation (admin), Feedback View (visitors or admin).

Feedback Entry is the main component form for visitors to fill. There are lots of settings to customize the way you collect feedback from visitors. On the left, you see this entry component. For this application, I chose settings for a form as compact as possible.

Feedback View is the component that the selected feedback entries are displayed as a list. You can choose to display it to all visitors, or you can keep it for your own view.

Feedback Moderation is the component where you can view the feedback entries before the visitors see it on Feedback View. If appropriate you can qualify the messages to be displayed on Feedback View.

You can distribute these components to different pages. For example, you can place the Feedback Entry to home page and carry the Feedback Moderation to a page where only admin users can see. Whereas, Feedback View component may be placed to a page like "Your Feedbacks". It's all up to you.

Positive Points

+ Easy to use : The module is easy to deploy and easy to use. You can immediately add a Feedback Module and collect feedback.

+ Quite Rich Settings : The settings provide you to modify the major behaviors of the feedback module. Such as deviating the feedback entries to different categories. You can then process these items via these categories.

+ Three Component Structure : This versatile structuring enables you options to get feedback and displaying them. I liked this. Nothing complicated is needed.

Negative Points

- E-Mail Text Box : You cannot take out email text box. That may lead to some security problems but, it may be overcome. For example, the feedback entry component may be as simple as the one in : Stock.XCHNG.

- Appearance of Feedback View : You cannot change the appearance of Feedback View. Because of this, I do not prefer to publicly display the list.

- One Feedback Pool : You can only have one feedback instance on the portal. In other word, all the feedback items are collected in one database table. You cannot create another feedback pool. This feature is more tricky, if you have many portals within the same DNN instance. For all these portals you have one feedback pool. You can deviate it by selecting appropriate categories, but it's risky.

- You Cannot Delete Feedback Entries: Maybe I'm mistaken, but I couldn't figure out how to delete a feedback entry.

One Last Word

One Last Word

Overall, I recommend you to use this core module. If you want to invest on a third-party module, you have more options. But if all you want is to collect some feedback, and if you can live with the negative points I've listed above, this module covers all your needs.

And finally : Thanks Sanjay, for providing this useful module.

For the project page of Feedback Module, click here.

Bilgin Esme, July 2007

Tip of the Day

"How do I change the favorites icon?"

Simply place (or replace) your "favicon.ico" to your portal folder. For example in "..\Portals\0" or "..\Portals\1". This way, you can assign different icons for different portals.

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