Good ideas rarely arrive fully formed. You might have the core of an idea but still need to gather some data, add attachments or think through the details before sharing it with others. This is where saving an idea as a draft comes in handy.
Draft ideas are only visible to you and your co-creators. They don't show up on the board for other users, they're not included in reports or statistics, and nobody gets notified about them until you submit them. Once you're happy with your idea, you can submit it to the board just like any other new idea.
Saving an idea as a draft
Step 1:
On the board, click the button to add a new idea
Step 2:
Fill in the details of your idea. When saving a draft, you don't need to fill in all of the required fields yet. You can come back and complete them later.
Step 3:
At the bottom of the submission form, click "Save as draft"
Step 4:
You'll see a toast notification saying "Success! Saved as a draft", and you'll be taken to the "My Drafts" view where your new draft is waiting for you.
Finding and editing your drafts
Draft ideas are not shown on the board by default. To see them, you'll need to use the "My Drafts" view.
Step 1:
In the left sidebar of the board, go to the "My views" section and click "My Drafts".
Step 2:
The board now shows only your draft ideas. Drafts appear greyed out.
Step 3:
Click on a draft to open it. Drafts open directly in the submission form, so you can continue right where you left off.
From here you can:
Keep working on the idea and click "Save as draft" again.
Click "Submit" to publish the idea to the board.
Delete the draft if you no longer need it.
Note: The "My Drafts" view shows drafts where you are either the original creator or a co-creator. All creators have the same rights to view and edit a draft.
Submitting a draft to the board
Step 1:
Open your draft from the "My Drafts" view.
Step 2:
Make sure all required fields are filled in, such as the category and any mandatory custom fields. While you can save a draft with empty required fields, you can't submit it until they're completed.
Step 3:
Click "Submit".
Congratulations! Your idea is now on the board.
There are a few things you should know when you submit a draft:
The idea is treated exactly like a brand-new idea. If your board uses pre-moderation, the idea will go to the admins for review first.
Users who follow new ideas are notified at this point, not when the draft was first saved.
The idea's creation date is set to the date you submitted it, not the date you started the draft.
Deleting a draft
If you decide not to go ahead with an idea, you can delete the draft at any time.
Step 1:
Open your draft from the "My Drafts" view.
Step 2:
Click "Delete" in the submission form and confirm that you want to delete the idea.
Note: Deleting a draft is permanent and can't be undone.
Things to know about draft ideas
While an idea is in draft state:
Only creators can see and edit it. Other users, including admins, won't see it on the board or in any view.
The idea is shown greyed out on the board.
Nobody can like, favorite or evaluate it.
No notifications or emails are sent to other users, and the idea isn't sent to integrations such as Jira.
Workflow automations don't run on it.
It can't be moved to another board.
You can only add tags that already exist on the board. New tags can be added once the idea is submitted.
Draft reminder emails
To make sure good ideas don't get forgotten, HYPE Boards sends creators of a draft reminder emails while the draft is waiting to be submitted.
When | What happens | Can it be turned off? |
7 days after the draft was created | Reminder email to submit or delete the draft | Yes |
14 days after the draft was created | Second reminder email | Yes |
21 days after the draft was created | Final warning that the draft will be deleted in 7 days unless it's submitted | No |
28 days after the draft was created | The draft is deleted permanently | No |
Important: Drafts are deleted automatically 28 days after they were created, even if you've turned off the reminder emails. Make sure to submit any draft you want to keep before then.
Turning off draft reminder emails
Step 1:
Open "Edit your profile" and go to the "Notifications" section.
Step 2:
Search for and select the board where you want to disable draft reminder notifications
Step 3:
Disable/enable "Draft idea reminders
Note: In case your board admin has disabled draft idea reminders, it will not appear in the notifications preferences. The final 21-day warning is always sent, regardless of your notification preferences, so that you never lose a draft without notice.
For admins: how drafts affect your board
Note: This section is for board admins. Please contact your HYPE Boards super user for access if you don't already have an admin account.
Drafts are private to their creators, so they're kept out of everything admins see and measure on the board:
Other users' draft ideas are not shown to admins on the board or in the "Ideas" section of the admin portal.
Drafts are excluded from the analytics dashboard, the idea count on the organization dashboard, Kanban column counts, and reports and exports.
Time an idea spends as a draft is not counted towards its cycle time in analytics.
Drafts can't be added through idea imports. Every imported idea is added as a regular idea.