At a glance
Key takeaways
- Publish a small set of meaningful items instead of exposing the entire backlog.
- Use status language that describes the team’s current commitment honestly.
- Update or decline old items so the roadmap remains useful.
Decide what the public roadmap is for
A public roadmap can gather demand, reduce repeated support questions, explain product direction, and show customers that feedback reaches real decisions. Choose the primary purpose before deciding what to publish.
It should not be a copy of your engineering backlog. Internal work contains technical tasks, experiments, and sensitive context that do not help customers understand where the product is going.
How to create a public product roadmap
- Review private feedback and choose clear customer problems worth discussing publicly.
- Write short titles and descriptions around outcomes rather than implementation details.
- Choose a few statuses such as Received, Planned, In Progress, Shipped, and Declined.
- Enable votes and comments when they will help validate demand and use cases.
- Link the roadmap from your product and support documentation.
- Review it on a schedule and explain significant status changes.
Use roadmap statuses customers can believe
Received means the team has acknowledged the request. Planned should mean there is genuine intent, not simply that the idea sounds good. In Progress should reflect active work. Shipped means customers can use it. Declined is a valid, respectful answer when paired with a brief explanation.
Avoid “soon” unless you can define it. Dates create strong expectations, so publish them only when the team is comfortable communicating changes.
How to build a public roadmap with TellTide
TellTide lets your team collect requests privately, review them in the inbox, and choose which ones appear on the roadmap. This protects customer details and keeps unclear or duplicate submissions out of the public view.
Configure the roadmap for your app, publish selected items, arrange them by status, and share the public URL. Customers can vote and comment while your team remains responsible for priority and status.
Questions teams ask before choosing this workflow
What should be included in a public product roadmap?
Include selected customer-facing problems or improvements, clear descriptions, honest statuses, and a way for users to vote, comment, or follow progress when appropriate.
Should a public roadmap include release dates?
Only include dates when the team is prepared to manage the expectation and communicate changes. Status-based roadmaps are often safer for early-stage SaaS products.
Can TellTide keep some feature requests private?
Yes. Feedback stays in the private inbox unless your team chooses to show a suitable item on the public roadmap.
Abhijith
Founder of TellTide, writing practical guides about product feedback, feature requests, and public roadmap workflows for SaaS teams.