Microsoft Feedback Migration off of UserVoice

Unfortunately the Microsoft UserVoice site was purged from existance (i have not seen any publicly available information to explain this in detail). For many years, this was the officially recommended way to engage Microsoft Product Group (PG) teams for feature requests. There were various states of a request that let you know: new items users are submitting - under review, probably not going to happen - but PG has recognized the item - unplanned, road map items - planned, items being worked - started or triaged that was usually accompanied by a (very) rough guestimate of the timeline for said feature, completed items, and the always frustrating declined status.

I personally was following 60+ of these items - mostly Azure related. I submitted a handfull of feedback items as I came across various gaps in Azure infrastructure that directly impacted my ability to deliver a viable solution.

Some time around April 2021 microsoft decided to leave the UserVoice platform for a then un-named solution. I captured my distrust of this direction here:

Then it happened, in September 2021 - uservoice was shut down with no replacement in sight. Microsoft directed to use the Q&A sites for feature requests … felt like if i had done such a thing in StackOverflow my request would have been IMMEDEIATLY flagged and closed as off topic. Generally Q&A sites are reserved for questions - not ideas and bug reports. After a few frustrating reports on Microsoft Q&A I pretty much gave up trying to contact any PG teams for feedback.

Then in December 2021 - the new UserVoice replacement site was brought online. Judging by the URLs this is a homegrown dynamics365 platform. While much of the feedback and # of votes appears to have been captured, much is missing. The user who submitted feedback and any comments on the feedback is nowhere to be found. Further, any items you were following did not port over to your profile.

Luckilly, I had captured urls for each of the items i was following - making it possible for me to now search the new site based on the url name from the UserVoice site and find all my feedback. I feel like I am back in a good state after 3+ hours of hunting down all my old feedback, giving them new upvotes, following, and commenting if something critical needed to be added. If you know the exact name of the title it is a straight forward search in the new site. Fortunately the name of the title was url encoded in the old UserVoice site!

ex of url change:

  • From: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/169401-azure-active-directory/suggestions/42831765-b2c-custom-content-add-hiddenfield-as-userinputt
  • To: https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/5f39dfe1-b625-ec11-b6e6-000d3a4f0789