Hello Community!
We’re hosting a special Ask Me Anything (AMA) community call focused on the Ideas Portal.
We know many of you have questions about how we work with the portal and how it affects our product processes—and @martin.hirschvogel is ready to answer them!
The call will not be recorded, so everyone could be comfortable sharing their questions and participate in the discussion.
Join us on Wednesday, November 5th at 4:00 PM CET for the call!
See you soon!
Hello Checkmk Team,
Thanks for organizing the community call - that’s a great initiative!
We all really appreciate the hard work Checkmk does. The Feature Portal was renamed, the Ideas Portal exists, and yes, many ideas never get implemented - fine.
But please, no more episodes of “why most ideas will never see the light of day”, we’ve watched that one already 
. What we really want to know is how our improvements can get done within a reasonable timeframe - preferably before we all retire 
.
Every time I demo or point something out, I hear the classic: “We know, but you have to understand…” or “It wasn’t intended for that / just how it is now - add it to the Ideas Portal”. That’s like putting a band-aid on a broken leg.
I get it - tracking everything is tough, and not every idea is worth implementing (mine included). But that’s part of the game. Closing/Rejecting ideas just to reduce numbers? Not the solution . And why do newer ideas generally receive fewer votes on average, at least subjectively? Is it because the portal is perceived as ineffective?
So, how will you make the portal truly impactful again and restore a real sense of community, so it actually benefits all of us?
Here’s an idea: Set up a “Cold Ideas” squad - a dedicated team that goes through the backlog of old and forgotten suggestions. Give them badges, magnifying glasses, and let them bring these ideas back to life! 
And if the idea mentions “cloud”, just ignore it:joy:.
About me: I started with Checkmk 1.2.cee, now using 2.4.cme. Around a quarter of the top 100 ideas come from me - most of them dating back to before the portal was launched in 2022. And yes, some of my ideas were even implemented (often without consulting me ).
Regards, Lars
Hi Lars!
All are great questions for the call 
It will be an Ask Me Anything session, so exactly focused on answering your questions.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Here’s a classic example:
Some checks store local data that occasionally needs to be refreshed (like port speeds). But updating it? Quite cumbersome - mark as vanished, remove, rediscover 
.
After several discussions with Checkmk, we submitted a feature request on the new Feature Portal back in 2022:
Service Discovery: Changed services - add “update/refresh” button - Checkmk
In 2024, it was marked as “Released”. At first, I was excited… until I tried it:
After more discussions with Checkmk, we were asked to post another request on the portal:
Add a “refresh service” button to the edit service view - Checkmk
…and it got promptly marked “Already exists” even though the actual button is still missing. So… why go through all that effort? Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad the feature exists; it’s just not quite how we expected it .
I’m sure many other ideas have been successfully implemented and appreciated by users with different needs and expectations. There are definitely great examples of effective collaboration within the community.
My role is to represent our company’s needs to Checkmk and to work together on finding practical and effective solutions for us. It’s not my place to judge or defend how Checkmk manages the Idea Portal.
If you think I’m completely off base, I’d really appreciate hearing your perspective — feedback from the community is always welcome, whether publicly or privately.
Everyone, let’s discuss in the session next week. Talking directly to each other, and also hearing the thoughts of others, is my preferred way of close collaboration, especially if it is about such controversial topics.
Otherwise just too much gets lost in translation.
In the past few days, Checkmk has updated the status of many ideas. Introducing a version tag, such as “2.4,” “2.5,” or “2.6,” could be useful to indicate for which version an idea is planned or has been implemented.