Mendix Feedback

1 Introduction

The Mendix Feedback module allows end-users of your application to directly submit feedback into your app. The module contains a feedback widget along with other files. The feedback module is fully integrated with the Feedback page in the Developer Portal, where you can review feedback and convert it into user stories to improve your app.

The Mendix Feedback module is easy to set up and automatically attaches additional information to each submitted issue such as the user’s name, role, active form, browser version, and screen resolution.

1.1 Typical Usage Scenario

• Gathers feedback from end-users in an acceptance or production environment
• Reduces the length of the feedback loop

1.2 Features

• Gathers detailed information about the client state

1.3 Limitations

• This module can only be used in combination with Mendix apps.
• This module is compatible with Studio Pro 9.18.6 or higher.
• Atlas Core is required to apply the styling.
• In native mobile apps, some of the feedback metadata such as username, email address, and document name will be hard-coded, as they cannot be retrieved dynamically (to address this you can use the Native Feedback widget instead, located in Native Mobile Resources).

2 Installation

You should install the latest version of the Mendix Feedback module, as it will provide the most up-to-date features for leaving feedback and communicating with the team. To ensure you have the latest version of the module included in your app, follow the instructions in Using Marketplace Content to import the latest version of the module into your app.

3 Usage

3.1 Adding the Feedback Widget to Your App

1. Configure the User roles in the App Security for the Feedback module.

2. In the Toolbox, find the Feedback widget in the Feedback category.

   

3. Drop the Feedback widget into a position in the layout:

   

4. Configure the Feedback widget.

5. If your app allows anonymous users, do as follows:

   1. Drop an extra Feedback widget into a position in the layout:

      

   2. Configure the visible roles of each Feedback widget. The Feedback widget for anonymous users should only be visible to the anonymous user role, while the Feedback widget for logged-in users should not be visible to the anonymous user role.

   3. Configure the extra Feedback widget.

3.2 Configuring the Feedback Widget

To configure the Feedback widget, double-click it to open the Edit Feedback dialog box. To use the feedback feature, configure the following properties:

• Project tab

  • Allow screenshots – This controls whether the end-user can take a screenshot or not.
  • Submit successful image url – This changes the image to show on the last successfully submitted page. Leaving this empty will result in no image being shown.
  • Submit failed image url – This changes the image to show on the failed submitted page. Leaving this empty will result in no image being shown.

• Advanced tab

  • App ID – This is the unique identifier of your app. You can find it in your app’s General Settings in the Developer Portal.
  The original value of App ID is 1, but this value should automatically change to your correct app ID. If it does not change automatically, see Updating App ID below.

  • Feedback server location – This is the URL of the Developer Portal server (usually https://feedback-api.mendix.com). You should only change it when you use a different environment.

  • Screenshot Foreign Rendering

    • No (default)
    • Yes – This is only used when the page includes sensitive information.

  • Visibility – Select the correct user role for the widget.

• Authentication tab

  For the best user experience, we strongly encourage you to apply Mendix SSO to your app and connect the Mendix SSO module to the latest version of the Mendix Feedback module. The widget works without authentication configured correctly. However, without authentication, each user will be an anonymous user. The latest widget provides a quicker method to configure the widget. For details on the configuration of the previous version, see the Configuration section of the legacy docs.

  • Use data source – If the data source is applied and the following settings are configured correctly, the end-user can leave feedback without providing their name and email address.

    • User entity – Choose the method that returns the entity that contains the user’s information. It needs to be a list and the first item from the list will be used. Mendix recommends only allowing the user to see the information of the current user. After this is configured, the options for Display name attribute and Email address attribute will show up.
    If you are using MendixSSO 4, select the MendixSSOUser entity from the MendixSSOModule folder.

    • Display name attribute – Select the display name of the user from the user entity.

    • Email address attribute – Select the email address of the user from the user entity.

  See the screenshot below for an example:

  

  • Provided by user – Select this if you prefer users fill in their information or you are using the widget for anonymous users.

• Translation tab – The translation should be filled in automatically but you can still configure your own text and translation here.

3.3 Submitting Feedback on an App

When you click the Feedback icon, the Mendix Platform first checks if you are signed in. If you are not signed in, you will need to enter email address to continue as an Anonymous User to submit the feedback:

Click Enter Screenshot Mode to take a screenshot of your page or choose Upload From Computer to upload a selected image.

After clicking Submit, your feedback will go straight to the Feedback page of the app in the Developer Portal. Once you see the final page, you have successfully submitted your feedback.

4 Upgrading the Deprecated Feedback Widget to the Feedback Module

To update the deprecated Feedback widget to the Feedback module, download the latest version of the Mendix Feedback Module from the Marketplace. It will replace the deprecated feedback widget in your folder. You can encounter the following error:

When this happens, right-click the error message, and choose Update widget or Update all widgets. Then the name of the widget is changed to Feedback. The updated widget is ready for use.

If you are using MendixSSO3 for authentication, after upgrading to the module you can choose to continue using your microflow to configure the MendixSSO authentication or include and use the DS_GetCurrentIdToken microflow from the FeedbackModule folder.

5 Troubleshooting

5.1 Updating App ID on the Project Tab

The value of the App ID on the Project tab will be changed to your correct app ID automatically from the original value 1.

If it did not change to your app ID because of an unexpected error, you can update the app ID manually. You can find the app ID in your app’s General Settings in the Developer Portal.

5.2 Feedback Item Does Not Show in the Developer portal

If you cannot see your feedback items on the Developer Portal’s Feedback page, it is possible that you have configured a wrong App ID or Feedback server location. Check if all the configurations are filled in per the Configuring the Feedback Widget section above.

5.3 Widget Cannot Be Read

If you see the following error, click close and then go to your widget folder to remove the duplicate old widget.

6 Legacy Feedback Widget Docs

6.1 Introduction

The Mendix Feedback widget allows end-users of your application to directly submit feedback into your app. The feedback widget is fully integrated with the Feedback page in the Developer Portal, where you can review feedback and convert it into user stories to improve your app.

The Mendix Feedback widget is easy to set up and automatically attaches additional information to each submitted issue such as the user’s name, role, active form, browser version, and screen resolution.

6.1.1 Typical Usage Scenario

• Gathers feedback from end-users in an acceptance or production environment
• Reduces the length of the feedback loop

6.1.2 Features

• Gathers detailed information about the client state

6.1.3 Limitations

• This widget can only be used in combination with Mendix apps
• In native mobile apps, some of the feedback metadata such as username, email address, and document name will be hard-coded, as they cannot be retrieved dynamically (to address this you can use the Native Feedback widget instead, located in Native Mobile Resources)

6.2 Configuration

You can configure the widget for certain actions in your app. All the configuration properties are explained on the various tabs of the properties dialog box for the widget. The feedback feature requires the following properties to be set:

• Project tab

  • App ID – the unique identifier of your app, which you can find in your app’s General Settings in the Developer Portal

    The original value of App ID is 1, but this value should automatically change to your correct app ID. If it does not change automatically, see Updating App ID below.

    Allow screenshots – controls whether the app user can take a screenshot or not

• Advanced tab

  • Feedback server location – the URL of the Developer Portal server (usually https://feedback-api.mendix.com), which you should only change when you are using a different environment
  • Screenshot Foreign Rendering
    • No (default)
    • Yes – only used when the page includes sensitive information

• Authentication tab {#legacy-authentication}

  For the best user experience, your are strongly encouraged to apply Mendix SSO to your app and connect the Mendix SSO module to the Mendix Feedback widget version 8.2.1 or above. Choose only one of the authentication methods: either MendixSSO or Custom Authentication.
  
  You need to enter the value of authentication items manually as currently the widget does not support a drop-down menu for selecting microflow or the attributes of an entity.

  • MendixSSO – if Mendix SSO is applied and the following settings are configured correctly, the end-user can leave feedback without having to enter their name and email address

    • ID token microflow – recommended that you select the DS_GetCurrentIdToken microflow from the Mendix SSO module.
      If you are using MendixSSO 3, follow the Create a New Microflow to Retrieve DecryptedToken section below.
    • Decrypted Token Value – recommended that you select the Value attribute from it (the default if Value in the MendixSSO module).

    See the screenshot below for an example:

    

  • Custom Authentication – if you are using an SSO solution other than the Mendix SSO module, you should configure the following settings. With these settings, you can provide a microflow that should return a valid username and email when the end-user is signed in with your authentication solution. If the end-user is not signed in (meaning the User Object Provider microflow returns an empty username or an invalid email address) the end-user will have to manually enter their name and email address when they leave feedback.

    • User object microflow – selects the microflow that returns User entity from your module
    • User object – selects the User entity
    • User name attribute– selects the attribute of name from the User entity
    • Email attribute – selects the attribute of email from the User entity

    See the screenshot below for an example:

    

6.3 Usage

6.3.1 Adding the Widget to Your app

You should use the latest version of the Mendix Feedback widget, as it will provide the most up-to-date features for leaving feedback and communicating with the team. To ensure you have the latest version of the widget included in your app, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest version of the Mendix Feedback widget from the Marketplace. You are strongly encouraged to use version 8.6.0 or above of the widget.
2. When the widget is included in your app, ensure that it is added to all the layouts used in the application.

6.3.2 Submitting Feedback on an App

When you click the Feedback icon, the Mendix Platform first checks if you are signed in. If you are not signed in, you will need to either Sign in to Mendix or Continue as a guest to enter feedback mode:

Once you are in feedback mode, you can click anywhere on the screen to leave a comment:

And voila! A screenshot of the current page is created, which you can choose to attach to your feedback. After clicking Submit, your feedback will go straight to the Feedback page of the app in the Developer Portal.

When you have left your feedback, you need to exit the feedback mode by clicking Exit Feedback Mode:

6.3.3 Upgrading the Widget

To upgrade your Mendix Feedback widget, follow the instructions in Using Marketplace Content. You can encounter the following error:

When this happens, right-click the error message, and choose Update widget or Update all widgets. Then the name of the widget is changed to Feedback. The updated widget is ready for use.

6.4 Troubleshooting

6.4.1 Updating App ID on the Project Tab

The value of the App ID on the Project tab will be changed to your correct app ID automatically from the original value 1.

If it did not change to your app ID because of an unexpected error, you can update the app ID manually. You can find the app ID in your app’s General Settings in the Developer Portal.

6.4.2 Page Does Not Scroll in the Screenshot Image

The Feedback widget uses the HTML2Canvas library which attempts to make an image of a web page based on the content currently loaded on the page. Since HTML2Canvas tries to repaint the current content, it can make mistakes while doing so. There are two solutions for the issue:

• Turn off Screenshot foreign rendering
• Change the CSS selector for a scrollable container - Some variations are difficult to spot for HTML2Canvas. This sometimes causes the image to render incorrectly. Fixing this requires significant CSS, HTML, and JS knowledge, but it is possible to fill in a CSS selector that will determine where the scrolling is happening.

6.4.3 Feedback Item Does Not Show in the Developer portal

If you cannot see your feedback items on the Developer Portal’s Feedback page, it is possible that you have configured a wrong App ID or Feedback server location. Check if all the configurations are filled in per the Configuration section above.

6.4.4 Creating a New Microflow to Retrieve DecryptedToken

⚠ In MendixSSO 3, the Microflow DS_GetCurrentIdToken is deprecated. You will need to create a new microflow in your own module to retrieve the DecryptedToken. Place SUB_GetDecryptedTokenByTypeForCurrentSession in this new microflow, and then use it in MendixSS authentication:

The tokenType argument is MendixSSO.TokenType.ID_TOKEN:

6.4.5 Widget Cannot Be Read

If you see the following error, click close and then go to your widget folder to remove the duplicate old widget.