Working With Discussion 🤼‍♂️ Boards In SharePoint

This article is the 42nd part of my SharePoint series. Here are my previous articles.

  1. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part One - Introduction
  2. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Two - Web Application
  3. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Three - Site Collections
  4. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Four - Subsites
  5. Learn SharePoint In Series – Part Five – SharePoint Lists
  6. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Six - Power Of Versioning
  7. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Seven - Lists Advanced Settings
  8. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eight - Validation Settings in List Settings
  9. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Nine - Audience Targeting
  10. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Ten - Rating Settings
  11. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eleven - Form Settings in List Settings
  12. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twelve- Save list as a template in List Setting
  13. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirteen- Permission Settings in List Settings
  14. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Fourteen- Enterprise Metadata and Keywords
  15. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Fifteen - Retention Policy Under Information Management
  16. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Sixteen - RSS Settings in List Setting
  17. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Seventeen - List Columns in SharePoint
  18. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Eighteen - Multiple Lines Of Text Column Type in SharePoint
  19. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Nineteen - Number and Choice Column Type in SharePoint
  20. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty - Currency and Yes No Column types in SharePoint
  21. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty One - Person or Group Column types in SharePoint
  22. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Two - Date and Time Column types in SharePoint
  23. Learn SharePoint In Series – Part Twenty-Three – Look Up Column Type in SharePoint
  24. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty Four - Hyperlink or Picture Column Types in SharePoint
  25. Learn SharePoint In Series -Part Twenty-Five - Calculated Column in SharePoint
  26. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Six - Task Outcomes and External Data Column Type in SharePoint
  27. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Seven - Introduction to Managed Metadata Column Types
  28. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty-Eight - Introduction to Site Columns
  29. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Twenty Nine - Editing and Deleting Site Columns
  30. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty - Column Reordering in SharePoint
  31. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-One - Indexing in SharePoint Lists and Libraries
  32. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Two - Introduction to SharePoint Views
  33. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Three - Creating a SharePoint List View
  34. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Four- Editing and Deleting a SharePoint List View
  35. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Five - Standard View and Datasheet View
  36. Learn SharePoint In Series - Part Thirty-Six - Gantt View in SharePoint
  37. Learn SharePoint In Series - Calendar View In SharePoint
  38. Learn SharePoint In Series - Contact List in SharePoint
  39. Learn SharePoint In Series - Announcement List in SharePoint
  40. Learn SharePoint In Series - Link Lists in SharePoint
  41. Learn SharePoint In Series - Promoted Links In SharePoint

In the previous article, we saw SharePoint Promoted Link in details. Now, in this article, we will explore SharePoint Discussion Lists and try to understand the importance of Discussion List and when we can use this. In this article, we will cover the below points.

  • What is a Discussion List in SharePoint?
  • How to create a Discussion List?
  • Creating a new Discussion in SharePoint Discussion Board
  • Responding to the Discussion
  • Benefits of Discussion Board
  • Different views on Discussion Boards.
  • Making Discussion as Featured
  • Summary

What is Discussion List in SharePoint?

 
Discussion List in SharePoint is a type of list template that provides a facility for creating a platform where you and your employees or organization’s users can discuss some topics. This can be useful when you have any new product to launch and you want your employees to provide their valuable feedback.

Let’s understand this Discussion List in detail by considering a scenario as below.

You have to launch a new company website. But before that, you want that your employees to review the design of the website and provide their feedback. So, let’s build a platform for discussion.

How to create a Discussion List?

 
In order to create a discussion list, please follow the below-given steps.

Step 1

Open the Site Content page by clicking on the "Settings" icon and then clicking “Site Contents”.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Step 2

This will open the "Site Contents" page. Click on the “Add an app” icon from this screen.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Step 3

Search for “Discussion” in the search box and then click on the “Discussion Board” icon link.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Step 4

Now, enter the name of the Discussion Board and click on the “Create” button.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Once you hit the “Create” button, this Discussion Board will be added to your site content.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Step 5

Open the “Company Discussion” board. It will look similar to the below image.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Currently, the board is new and does not have any item. Let’s start the discussion.

Creating a new discussion in SharePoint Discussion Board


In order to create a new discussion, follow the below steps.

Click on the “new discussion” link.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint
Enter the following information to the form.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Subject - the subject line that will be the heading of the discussion

Body - your actual discussion content. This can be of any type, like text, images, HTML tags etc. It is rich supported and of "Multiline-of-Text" column type.

Question - this checkbox indicates that you are asking something. If this is left unchecked, that means you are not asking a question but creating a general discussion.

Hit the “Save” button. Your new discussion will be added.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Responding to the discussion

Now, let’s assume that a Contoso user has logged in to the same discussion list. The user will now respond to the discussion. In order to take part in the discussion, a user has to click on the subject line of the discussion.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Once the Contoso User has clicked on the subject, he/she will see the below screen.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

 

This screen is equipped with the following functionality.

Reply Count

The discussion will display the total number replies received.

Like

In case a user wants to like the discussion, they can like this by pressing this “Like” button.

Edit

If a user has permission to edit the post, they will see the link for “Edit”. Using this link, the user can edit the current post.

Reply

Here in this text area, a user can provide his/her feedback.

Let’s assume that the user has replied to the post.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Now here, you can see that the discussion has 1 reply and the count has got updated with 1 reply. Also, a thread has been started. Other users can like this reply or edit this reply if they have permission. There is no need to say that they can post their own reply in the given text area.

Here, the question asker or the person who has permissions can mark any of the responses as the “Best Reply” or they can just delete some or all unwanted text.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Benefits of Discussion Boards

There are many benefits for having discussion boards in your organization.

  1. Using Discussion Boards, an organization can set up the personal support forum for internal organization members where the internal users can communicate to each other on a particular product or at particular point.

  2. Discussion Board can be used as Social Media, like we have Facebook. Here also, the users can upload their thoughts and other users can provide their feedback.

Different Views of Discussion Boards

There are many Views available of the Discussion Boards by default, such as -

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Recent

This View will always display the discussions that are created last.

My discussions

This will display the discussions created and participated in by the current logged-in user.

Unanswered questions

This will display the discussions which are asked as questions and with no replies posted so far.

Answered questions

This will display the discussions which are asked as questions and answered by the users in the community.

Featured

This will display the discussions that are marked as Featured or important. Yes, the Discussion List provides the functionality of marking a discussion as featured.

Making Discussion as Featured

In order to mark a discussion featured, we have to follow the below steps.

Open the discussions by clicking on the subject of the discussion.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Then, click on three dots and then, click on “Mark as featured”.

Working with Discussion Boards in SharePoint

Once you have marked this as Featured, this will start displaying under the Featured View of the discussion boards.
 

Summary


In this article, we leaned what discussion boards are, how we can create a discussion board in SharePoint, and how to create a new discussion and respond to the existing discussions. Apart from this, we have also seen how we can mark any discussion as featured. If you have any questions or any suggestions related to this, do let me know in the comment section.

In the next article, I will be explaining the “Issue Tracking” list template in SharePoint.


Hyper Cloud 365 Software Solution
Hyper Cloud 365 Software solution is a development and IT Consulting company.