Boards, items, ideas, and roadmap items

SimpleBoards uses four words a lot: board, item, idea, and roadmap item. This page explains each one and how they fit together. You will see these words in the admin and in every other doc page. Read this once and the rest of the docs will read faster.

Board

A board is the container. Each board has its own page on your website and its own set of items. Most sites only need one board. If you sell more than one product, you can create one board per product. Each board has two tabs:

Ideas. Where visitors send in new suggestions and vote on them.
Roadmap. Where you show what is planned, in progress, and done.

You create boards under SimpleBoards > Boards in the WordPress admin. Each board you save gets a shortcode you paste into a page to show the board to visitors.

Item

An item is one entry on a board. It has a title, a description, a vote count, and a comment thread. Every item lives on exactly one board. An item is one of two types:

An idea (submitted by a visitor, not yet planned).
A roadmap item (planned, in progress, or done).

Both types are stored the same way in WordPress. The only difference is a flag that says which tab the item belongs on. In the admin, you can see all items together under SimpleBoards > Items.

Idea

An idea is an item that has been submitted but is not yet on the roadmap. Ideas live on the Ideas tab.

Ideas can come from logged-in users or from guests, if you allow guest submissions.
Ideas can be voted on, commented on, and subscribed to.
Ideas do not have a status (such as Planned or In Progress). Status only applies to roadmap items.

When you decide an idea is worth building, you move it to the roadmap. The item stays. The vote count and comments stay. It now shows up on the Roadmap tab instead.

Roadmap item

A roadmap item is an item that has been planned. Roadmap items live on the Roadmap tab.

Each roadmap item has a status, such as Planned, In Progress, or Done.
The roadmap is a kanban-style board. Items are shown in columns, one column per status.
Roadmap items can have a deadline (a date) and a category.
Visitors can still vote, comment, and subscribe.

You can create a roadmap item from scratch (without it being an idea first) by adding it in the admin under SimpleBoards > Items and setting it as a roadmap item.

How they relate

Board
 ├── Ideas tab
 │    ├── Idea  (item, no status)
 │    ├── Idea
 │    └── Idea
 │
 └── Roadmap tab
      ├── Roadmap item  (item, status = Planned)
      ├── Roadmap item  (item, status = In Progress)
      └── Roadmap item  (item, status = Done)

A board has many items.
An item belongs to one board.
An idea and a roadmap item are both items. The type flag tells the board which tab to show it on.
A status belongs to roadmap items only.

A short example

You run a board called Acme App Ideas. A visitor named Maya submits an idea called "Dark mode". Right now:

Maya's idea is an item.
It is on the Ideas tab because no one has planned it yet.
It has a vote count of 1 (Maya's own vote) and no status.

Three months later, Dark mode has 80 votes. You decide to build it. You open the item and move it to the roadmap. You set the status to Planned. Now:

It is still the same item. The vote count is still 80.
It now shows on the Roadmap tab, in the Planned column.
The status is Planned. When work starts, you change the status to In Progress. When it ships, you change it to Done.

The item never moves between boards. The only thing that changes is the type flag and the status.

Last updated

2026-05-23 · SimpleBoards 1.0.4