Core Concepts
Here's how the pieces fit together. Understanding these five concepts is enough to get started.
Workspaces
A workspace is your Quackback instance: the container for all your boards, posts, team members, and settings. Each self-hosted deployment is a single workspace.
Boards
Boards keep different types of feedback organized. Common examples: "Feature Requests", "Bug Reports", "Integrations".
Each board has a name, URL slug (e.g., /b/feature-requests), and a public/private visibility toggle.
Start with 2-3 boards. You can always add more later, but too many boards confuse users about where to post.
Posts
A post is a single piece of feedback: an idea, request, or bug report. Posts belong to a board and include a title, description, status, tags, votes, and comments.
Posts move through your workflow as your team triages them:
Open → Under Review → Planned → In Progress → Complete
│
└──→ Closed
When a post's status changes, subscribed users are notified automatically.
Statuses
Statuses show users what's happening with their feedback. They're organized into three categories:
| Category | Default Statuses | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Open, Under Review, Planned, In Progress | Posts that need attention or are being worked on |
| Complete | Complete | Posts that have been addressed |
| Closed | Closed | Posts that won't be implemented |
You can create custom statuses like "In Design", "In Beta", or "Blocked" to match your workflow.
Users & Roles
Quackback has two types of accounts: portal users (your customers) and team members. Every team member has a role. Four presets ship built in, and you can create custom roles:
| Capability | Portal User | Contributor | Manager | Admin | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submit feedback, vote, comment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Work feedback and support queues | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Configure boards, statuses, and product structure | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Workspace settings, members, and integrations | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Billing | ✓ |
Portal users are your customers. They sign up through the public portal. Team members are invited by an Owner or Admin and use the admin dashboard. See roles and permissions.
Team members can browse the public portal while signed into Quackback. The widget will not treat a team email as a customer account. See Session types.
More to Explore
Once you're up and running, these features help you get more out of Quackback:
- Tags: Label posts across boards by platform, priority, or team
- Roadmaps: Show users what's planned, in progress, and shipped
- Voting: Let users prioritize what matters most
- Comments: Threaded discussions with official team responses
- Changelog: Announce shipped features and close the feedback loop
- Support inbox: Answer customers over Messenger chat, email, and support tickets
- Status pages: Publish service status and incident updates on your portal
- AI & Automation: Let Quinn answer questions and automate work with workflows
- API & Webhooks: Automate workflows and build custom integrations
- Integrations: Connect to Slack, Linear, and more
Next Steps
- Quick Start: Get Quackback running
- Organize feedback with boards: Set up your first boards
- Deploy with Docker: Production deployment