New idea attributes for merged ideas

There are a few scenarios when Ideas need to be merged but the current vote count logic doesn't currently cater for all of these.

1. The idea is functionally an exact duplicate but just different verbiage

2. The idea is the same concept / theme but isn't identical

I believe an additional set of attributes would help users to better prioritise ideas in these two scenarios.

Imagine the following:

• Parent idea "New view" = 12 votes
• Child idea 1 "Move columns in view" = 8 votes (Justin voted once)
• Child idea 2 "Change order of columns in view" = 10 votes (Justin voted once)

Attributes on the parent idea to cover the following would be beneficial:

• Parent idea "Aggregate idea votes" would be 30 (12+8+10)
• Parent idea "Child idea votes" would be 20 (12+8)
• Parent idea "Aggregate idea votes (distinct)" would be the distinct vote count (so not counting a user multiple times for voting across multiple child ideas). Value would be 29 = (12+8+10 minus a duplicate)

Some of the values above can be calculated in a pivot table but having them as derived attributes gives greater reporting potential and frees the pivot for doing higher level calculations.

Users can then use these attributes to get the calculations they want without changing the merged idea vote count logic within Aha!.