Governance · Planning

Submissions

Set the questions Next works through when someone raises an idea, and brief the agent that runs the idea chat.

When someone submits an idea, they do it in a conversation with Next rather than by filling in a form. Next works out what the idea is about and asks for anything missing. The Submissions tab in Governance → Planning decides what Next needs to find out before an idea is complete.

Getting this right means the ideas arriving in the Inbox have the information triagers need, without anyone chasing for it.

Before you start

Governance → Planning opens on this tab.
You need permission to change Governance settings to edit this page. Without it, you see View only — you don’t have permission to change these settings. You can still open each question to read it, but the fields are switched off.
If you cannot see this page, your organisation may not use it, or your role may not include it. See Understanding roles.

Understanding the Planning tabs

Tab	What it sets
Submissions	The idea chat. This page.
Agent Packs	Which agent packs draft each planning document. See Agent Packs.
Workflows	The steps a planning item moves through. See Workflows.
Review	Review reminders and escalation. See Review.
Prioritisation	Scoring, score bands and categorisation. See Prioritisation.
Impact types	Impact labels for triage. See Impact types.
Strategy	Strategic themes, if your organisation uses Product Management. See Strategy.
Generation	What authors see about AI runs. See Generation.

Understanding the questions

The What we need to know list holds the questions, in the order Next works through them. Next asks for these in its own words, so they are a brief for Next rather than a script.

Each question has three parts:

Part	What it is for
What to capture	The name of the information, such as Who’s affected. The person submitting the idea sees this on the checklist of what has been captured so far.
What counts as an answer	Guidance for Next only. Next uses this to decide when it has enough.
Required	Required questions: Next keeps asking until they are answered. Optional questions: Next asks once, then moves on.

A new workspace starts with five questions:

Question	What counts as an answer	Required?
The problem	What’s wrong or missing today	Required
Who’s affected	Which people, teams, or customers feel this	Required
Impact	How often it happens and what it costs (time, money, risk)	Required
Desired outcome	What success would look like	Optional
Urgency	How pressing this feels	Required

Changes save automatically. Saving… and then Saved appear beside the heading.

Edit a question

Select the question to open it.
Change What to capture or What counts as an answer.
Switch Required on or off.
Select the question again to close it. Text changes save when you leave the field.

Add a question

Select + at the bottom of the list. A new question is added to the end and opened for editing.
Fill in What to capture and What counts as an answer.
Choose whether it is Required.

Reorder, duplicate or remove questions

Drag a question by its handle to move it.
Or select ⋯ on the question and choose Move up or Move down. With a question selected, you can also press ⌥↑ or ⌥↓ (Alt+↑ or Alt+↓ on Windows).
Select ⋯ and choose Duplicate to copy a question.
Select ⋯ and choose Make optional or Make required.
Select ⋯ and choose Remove to delete a question. A strip appears saying it was removed, with an Undo button to put it straight back.

If you remove every question, the list shows No questions, and Next holds an open conversation and captures what it can.

Brief the submissions agent

The Guidance box holds plain instructions and context for the agent running the idea chat — for example, the tone to take, what your organisation cares about, or terms it should understand.

Type your instructions into Guidance.
Click or tab out of the box. The guidance saves.

When the box is empty, a default brief is used, and the page says so. Write your own to replace it.

What to expect

Your changes apply to the next new idea. A conversation already under way keeps the questions it started with.
Next can capture several answers from one message, so a submitter who explains their idea well may answer several questions at once.

Good to know

Rewording a question changes what Next must cover, not the exact words it uses. Next always phrases questions in its own words.