ProdPad vs Aha!

FAQs

• How does ProdPad’s Customer Feedback Portal compare to Aha’s Idea Portal?

  Aha’s customer portal is Ideas focused, asking customers what they want – rather than asking for feedback on what they have. This positioning will create a list of feature requests and expectations that you will deliver them. This removes the flexibility to discover the underlying problem your customers are facing, and explore the best way to solve that problem. That is how you build the most valuable solutions for your customers – focusing on the problem and running thorough discovery, testing and iteration. 

  ProdPad’s feedback portal doesn’t ask customers for feature requests, but rather gives them an open channel to tell you how well the product is working for them, where it falls short and what could make it more valuable for them. That feedback routes into ProdPad as just that, Feedback, rather than landing in your backlog as a feature request ready to be prioritized. Our AI will help you link every piece of feedback with existing, related Ideas and analyze your feedback as a whole, surfacing the themes to help guide your ideation.  

• Does Aha Roadmaps do Now-Next-Later roadmaps?

  Well, not in the true sense. They have interpreted the Now-Next-Later roadmap as literally just adding Now-Next-Later headings on a three column view of an idea backlog. Now-Next-Later headers does not make a Now-Next-Later roadmap.

  A Now-Next-Later roadmap, or the Now-Next-Later framework, calls for the time horizon view, AND for roadmap items to be higher level, at the Initiative level (instead of feature-level as shown by Aha) and to have those Initiatives (problem/opportunity level) tied back to Objectives (the ‘why’).
  Aha just has a list of features, under the headers Now-Next-Later, but subtitled with dates. This is not the Now-Next-Later framework and it will not help you to work in a lean way and stay outcome-focused.

• How is ProdPad’s OKR management better than Aha’s Goals tool?

  Aha does have a good goal setting tool which they have within their ‘Imperatives’ area. It does allow you to create individual objectives and assign a metric to it. However, the tool doesn’t easily fit the OKR framework. If you use Objectives and Key Results as your preferred goal setting framework you need multiple goals, or KRs, under each Objective. To achieve this hierarchy within Aha you will need to undertake some complicated configuration to make the tool work in this way. ProdPad’s full OKR management tool, on the other hand, is natively structured for the OKR framework allowing you to more intuitively align your product strategy with you strategic priorities.

• Do you get free and unlimited contributor/reviewer accounts with both Aha and ProdPad?

  With ProdPad, no matter the package or price, you will always get free and unlimited Reviewer accounts. Those Reviewer users can add and edit their own Ideas and Feedback, and can view and comment on those added by others.

  With Aha the free users included just have read-only rights – no adding or editing, no commenting or collaborating. It is only with Aha’s Enterprise plan that Reviewers are included for free.

• Can you set automation rules in ProdPad like you can in Aha?

  Absolutely! But get this, with ProdPad you get full access to our Automation Rules as a core feature on all plans at all levels. Aha! reserve this feature for its highest priced package only.

• How does ProdPad’s Jira integration stack up against Aha’s?

  Both Jira Software integrations are full sync, offering bi-directional content and status updates, with the ability to configure that flow of data however you want. However, Aha’s Jira Software integration is far harder to set up. You will need to get technical help to set up webhooks and it can only be done by an Administrator user for your Jira account.

  ProdPad’s 2-way sync with Jira is fast and easy to set up. It does not require webhooks so you won’t need to pull in a developer to help you! You can get connected with one click. And you don’t need to be an Admin on the Jira account either. As long as you have a login for your Jira you’re good to go. This means anyone on the team can set up the integration or create their own version with their own mapping requirements.

• How do the Slack integrations compare between ProdPad and Aha

  Both ProdPad and Aha have a Slack integration that allows you to show new Ideas in various channels, as well as being able to capture Ideas on the go. However, ProdPad’s Slack integration also enables you to do the same for Feedback. You can also vote on Feedback and Ideas using one click from Slack.

  But more importantly, with ProdPad, there is a 2 way sync on discussions. If someone sees a ProdPad Idea (or Feedback) that was posted in a Slack channel, they can add a reply to the Slack thread and it syncs/sends it to ProdPad. Then, if someone replies in ProdPad, their comment will appear in Slack. You can have a back and forth real-time chat, with some people in Slack and some in ProdPad, and it’s seamless. This makes it easy to get people from the wider organization involved in the discussion by not making them move from where they are to have their discussions.

  Furthermore, you can @mention a team member in ProdPad and it’ll notify them in Slack and give them a space to reply to the comment, directly in Slack, and that comment (and any further discussion) will be synced with ProdPad.

• What if we need custom hosting?

  That’s not a problem with ProdPad, but it’s not an option with Aha. ProdPad can provide both single tendency and on-premise hosting. Just book a call with us to discuss your needs. 

• Which is better if I need timelines?

  Aha! Here at ProdPad we don’t do timeline product roadmaps. We have very tight integrations with all the major development project management tools, so you can push Ideas through to those tools to manage your delivery planning and sprint planning (whilst tracking the workflow stages in ProdPad thanks to the sync). ProdPad isn’t a tool for delivery planning, it’s a tool intended to give Product Managers a strategic space to run their planning, undertake their ideation and discovery and only pass over what has been validated and specced to the engineering team to be delivered. ProdPad gives the Product team the space they need, and means the development team don’t have a backlog full of unrefined Ideas that may never see the light of day!

  We have a host of resources to help you convince stakeholders that timeline roadmaps are bad for business, so if you think you’d struggle to present your product roadmap in any other way, take a look and see if they’d help you make the case.