Product Q&A

Let shoppers ask questions on your product pages and answer them from the admin. Approved questions and answers appear in a "Questions & Answers" section on the product page, with search, helpful votes and optional FAQ structured data. This guide covers installation, every setting and day-to-day use.

• Demo (Luma): https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/joust-duffle-bag.html
• Demo (Hyvä): https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/hyva/joust-duffle-bag.html
• Admin demo: https://demo.softawarecommerce.com/try-admin/product-qa
• Changelog: Release notes · Questions: FAQ

1. Requirements

2. Installation

Install with Composer from repo.softawarecommerce.com. Your access keys and the full set-up are described at https://softawarecommerce.com/shop/composer-access/.

composer config repositories.softaware composer https://repo.softawarecommerce.com
composer config --auth http-basic.repo.softawarecommerce.com PUBLIC_KEY PRIVATE_KEY
composer require softaware/module-product-qa
bin/magento setup:upgrade
bin/magento setup:di:compile            # production mode only
bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy # production mode only
bin/magento cache:flush

The installer adds and enables the "Softaware Product Q&A" cache type. On Hyvä, run your usual Tailwind build after installing so the module's classes are included (the module registers itself for Hyvä's Tailwind source scanning).

To update later: composer update softaware/module-product-qa, then the same bin/magento commands.

3. Quick start

1. Go to Stores > Configuration > Softaware > Product Q&A (also under Softaware > Product Q&A > Configuration). The module is enabled by default.
2. Check Email Notifications > Staff Email Address(es). When empty, staff emails go to the General Contact address.
3. Open a product page on the storefront. The "Questions & Answers" section is there, with an "Ask a question" button.
4. Ask a test question, then open Softaware > Product Q&A > Questions in the admin, open the question, write the store answer, set Status to Approved and save. The question and the answer now appear on the product page.

4. Settings

All settings are under Stores > Configuration > Softaware > Product Q&A and can be set per website and store view (the reCAPTCHA type per website). Every field shows its default in the comment and has "Use system value".

General

Questions

Answers

Email Notifications

Both templates can be copied and edited under Marketing > Communications > Email Templates.

Structured Data

Product Listings

5. On the storefront

The Questions & Answers section. On Luma it is a tab next to Details and Reviews, titled "Questions & Answers (3)" with the number of published questions. On Hyvä it is a full-width section below the product information with the count in the heading. Each question shows who asked it and when, the store answer ("Answered by" your store name) and the approved customer answers. Questions marked as FAQ are listed first.

Hyvä	Mobile

Search, filter and sort. Shoppers search the questions and answers, show all, answered or FAQ questions, sort by most recent or most helpful, and load more with "Show more questions". All of this runs in the browser over the questions in the page, so there are no extra requests. A product with more questions than "Maximum Questions per Product Page" shows a note with the total.

Helpful votes. Shoppers mark answered questions and customer answers as helpful. Each customer votes once; a guest is recognised by a cookie (sw_qa_visitor, set only when a guest votes) and their IP address for 24 hours. Duplicate votes are rejected.

Asking a question. "Ask a question" opens a form with name (shown with the question), email (not published), the question and "Email me when my question is answered". Signed-in customers get their name and email filled in. After sending, the shopper sees that the question will be published once it has been reviewed.

Answering a question. With "Signed-in Customers Can Answer" on, every question has an "Answer this question" link. Guests are sent to the sign-in page first.

My Questions. Signed-in customers find their questions under My Account > My Questions, with the status (waiting for review, published or not published) and the published answers.

Links to the Q&A. Add #softaware-product-qa to a product URL to open the Questions & Answers tab (Luma) or jump to the section (Hyvä), for example https://example.com/joust-duffle-bag.html#softaware-product-qa. Add #question-<id> to open one question: it is shown even when it is behind "Show more questions", highlighted and scrolled into view. A question that is not published in that store view opens the Q&A section instead. The listing badge, the widget, the customer emails and the admin "View on storefront" link use these links.

Listings and widget. Products with an answered question show "N answered questions" under the product in category and search listings, linking to the Q&A section. For CMS pages and blocks there is the widget Softaware: Latest Product Questions (Content > Widgets, or Insert Widget) with a title, the number of questions and an "Answered Questions Only" option.

6. In the admin

Product Questions

Softaware > Product Q&A > Questions lists all questions with ID, question, SKU, product, status (Pending, Approved, Rejected), answered, FAQ, pending customer answers, asked by, visible in, helpful votes and date. The asker's email is available under Columns. Filter by any of them or use the keyword search.

Mass actions: Approve, Reject, Set to Pending, Mark as FAQ, Remove FAQ Mark and Delete.

Add Question creates a question yourself, for example a common question you want to answer in advance.

Answering a question

Open a question to edit it:

• Details: the product, when and where the question was asked, whether the customer asked for an email, and the helpful votes. The product name links to the product in Catalog > Products when your role may open products (otherwise it is plain text). View on storefront opens the product page with the question highlighted, in the store view the question was asked in, or another store view where the product is enabled and visible and the question is shown. For a question that is not published yet it opens the Q&A section. When the product is not on the storefront in any store view, the form says so instead.
• Status: Pending, Approved or Rejected. Only approved questions appear on the storefront.
• Product SKU, Question and Asked By (Public Name). Leave the name empty for your own questions; "Store" is used.
• Email of the asker (never shown on the storefront).
• Visible In: the store views the question appears in.
• FAQ: lists the question first and, with a store answer, adds it to the FAQPage structured data when that is switched on.
• Store Answer: rich text editor. The answer is reduced to safe HTML tags before it is shown.
• Email the Customer: when the question is approved and has a store answer, saving sends the "question answered" email (once, and only if the customer asked for it).
• Customer answers to this question are listed below.

Customer Answers

Softaware > Product Q&A > Customer Answers lists the answers from customers, with mass actions Approve, Reject, Set to Pending and Delete. Approving an answer emails the asker if they asked to be told.

Permissions (ACL)

Under System > Permissions > User Roles > Role Resources > Softaware > Product Q&A:

7. SEO and developers

When "Output FAQPage JSON-LD" is set to Yes, FAQ questions that are approved, visible in the store view and have a store answer are printed on the product page as FAQPage JSON-LD (<script type="application/ld+json"> at the end of the page). Customer answers are never included. The setting is off by default: this is optional structured data, and Google no longer uses it for FAQ rich results (they stopped appearing in Google Search on 7 May 2026).

SEO extensions can use Softaware\ProductQa\Api\FaqProviderInterface:

• getFaqItems($productId, $storeId): the question and answer pairs;
• getFaqPageData($productId, $storeId, $pageUrl): a FAQPage node without @context, for an @graph;
• suppressStandaloneOutput(): stops this module printing its own script.

The event softaware_productqa_faq_jsonld (with transport, data, render and product) lets you change or drop the node.

8. Command line

bin/magento softaware:product-qa:seed-demo [--sku=24-MB01] [--stores=0] [--file=qa.json] [--remove]
bin/magento softaware:product-qa:email-preview --question=<id> [--answer=<id>] [--type=asker|admin] [-o file.html]
bin/magento softaware:product-qa:recount

• seed-demo adds three answered example questions to one product (for demo stores), or removes them with --remove. --file takes a JSON list of question, author, answer and faq.
• email-preview renders a notification email to a file or the screen without sending it.
• recount recalculates the answer and vote counters (for example after importing data with SQL) and refreshes the caches.

9. Performance and caching

The Q&A section is part of the full page cache. On a cache miss the questions and customer answers of the product are read with one query and stored in the "Softaware Product Q&A" cache type (System > Cache Management). Publishing, changing, unpublishing or deleting a published question or answer cleans the product's cache tag (built-in cache and Varnish). New questions waiting for review do not touch the page cache, so posting the form cannot be used to flush it. Helpful votes do not clean the page cache either: the voter sees the new count at once, everyone else after the next refresh of that product page.

10. Troubleshooting

11. Privacy (GDPR)

• Questions store the public name, the email address, the question and the store view. The email address is never shown on the storefront.
• IP addresses are only stored as keyed hashes (for the hourly limit and the guest vote check).
• Questions are deleted with their product. When a customer account is deleted, the link to the customer is removed but the name and email stay on the question; delete the question too if a customer asks to be forgotten.

12. Uninstall

bin/magento module:disable Softaware_ProductQa
composer remove softaware/module-product-qa
bin/magento setup:upgrade

The tables softaware_product_qa_question, softaware_product_qa_question_store, softaware_product_qa_answer, softaware_product_qa_question_vote and softaware_product_qa_answer_vote stay in the database until you drop them.