A Complete Guide to SharePoint Discussion Board

Blog

You are here:
SharePoint Discussion Board
sharepoint-discussion-board

Modern teams often need to work on multiple projects at a time, and to avoid any miscommunication, keeping the conversation listed in a written format becomes obligatory. Also, organizations often emphasize making communications accessible to all team members to avoid discrepancies or misunderstandings.

Besides, companies need a reliable platform for various organizational discussions if they have a remote or hybrid team. Instead of focusing on one-to-one communications, enterprises can utilize the SharePoint discussion board.

This feature keeps all the comments and conversations in one place. As a result, managers, team leaders, or other members can quickly and easily refer to it. Read on to know more about the SharePoint discussion board, its benefits, and how to use its basic attributes.

What Is a SharePoint Discussion Board?

What Is a SharePoint Discussion Board

Discussion is an app available to SharePoint users that facilitates a discussion board for the team members. It functions as a collaboration tool where people can share their views and ideas. Companies can also use it for asking a query, presenting new policy proposals, and sharing suggestions.

You might notice a similarity between the discussion board and some popular social media platforms. On this discussion board, your employees can post a topic while others can make comments sharing their views on it.

Moreover, people can like the post, reply to comments that their teammates made, and ask questions about a topic. Here, the conversation or discussion is shown in a threaded format. Hence, people can easily follow the conversation’s order or flow.

It is possible to add any number of discussion boards to your team site. So, how many discussion boards you want to create for your team depends on your requirements. A SharePoint discussion board serves as tangible proof of team communication and responsibilities, so businesses must use this SharePoint app wisely and frequently.

The discussion board displays the most recent discussion in the beginning. Besides, the number of interactions, comments on each discussion topic are also shown.

Benefits of Discussion Boards

Benefits of Discussion Boards

Your organizations can get the following benefits by using SharePoint discussion boards:

  1. Discussion boards can function as the organizational forum where employees can find support on any of their queries. You can also use this place to communicate with teammates about a particular product or project.
  2. You can keep all the general discussions on that topic in one place by creating a dedicated discussion board for each project. Instead of circulating a notification to each team member, you can put it on the board so that everyone can get notified.
  3. If your team does not have to deal with several products, one board might be sufficient for them. Thus, they do not have to switch between multiple boards and keep all the conversations in one place.
  4. Instead of adding your colleagues to your Facebook account, you can socialize with them through the Discussion Board. Here, users can share their thoughts and opinions, and others can also take part in the discussion or share feedback.

What Are the Differences Between SharePoint Newsfeed and Discussion Board?

Since SharePoint users are also familiar with Newsfeed, they might confuse it with the discussion board. Using the team site Newsfeed, colleagues can engage with each other by sharing interesting stories.

It can be also used to create attractive posts for status updates, news, announcements, and so on. Apart from adding graphics and rich formatting, it supports using @ for mentioning someone and # for the news topic.

Primarily, project managers, the business relations team, the public relations cell, and the HR manager submit posts on the SharePoint Newsfeed. Thus, Newsfeed content posting permissions are limited to certain people and not the entire organization.

On the other hand, a discussion board is a web part that you can add to your SharePoint team site. It is a SharePoint list in disguise, that offers a platform for forum-like discussion. Here, you can check out the discussion in other views as well that will be grouped and filtered properly.

The SharePoint Discussion app access is available to all the team members of a project or the entire organization. It ensures the availability of support, feedback, and comments for all the involved employees and not just the managerial level.

Site feed features like mentions and hashtags are not supported on the discussion board. Also, you cannot combine discussions happening on different sites in one place.

How to Create a Discussion Board in SharePoint

Here is how you can create a discussion board on your SharePoint team site:

  1. First go to the SharePoint site where you want to begin a new list or thread for the project’s online discussions.
  2. Click on the gear icon located in the top right corner of the page to open the settings. Then click on Site Contents.
  3. On the next page, select the Add an app option.
  4. Locate the Discussion Board app on the SharePoint app store.
  5. Add a suitable name for the board and click on create button to add it to your site.
  6. Your discussion board is ready for use.

How to Start a Discussion

Now that the board is ready, you can start a discussion using the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the discussion board and click on the new discussion link. This will open the Discussion entry page.
  2. Here, you need to add a topic in the Subject field and a short description in the body field. You can also copy text from other sources, like word files or web pages.
  3. You can also attach one or more files to a discussion item. For that, you need to upload the file from your local system and add its Destination Library.
  4. Once the attaching is done, click on the Save button to start the discussion.

How to Reply to a Discussion

If you want to comment on a discussion topic or thread, here is how to do it:

  1. Navigate to the discussion board.
  2. Click on the discussion topic where you want to comment.
  3. As the discussion page opens, write your comment in Add a Reply field.
  4. Click on the Reply button to submit the comment and make it visible to everyone.

How to Remove a Discussion Topic

These are the steps to delete a discussion thread from SharePoint:

  1. Go to the home page of the discussion board where all the topics are enlisted.
  2. Now, select the List tab view to change it to Management.
  3. Click on the three dots or More button next to the thread that you want to delete.
  4. Click on the Delete button. Click on OK if a confirmation appears.
 
In case, you want any customization in creating business-specific discussion boards for your enterprise, then you can avail of SharePoint services by Al Rafay Consulting.

Al Rafay Consulting for SharePoint Development

SharePoint discussion board is a SharePoint app that you can incorporate into the team site for forum-like conversations.

Therefore, organizations willing to add more features to the discussion board or customize it should contact Al Rafay Consulting. We can help you by developing customized discussion boards with ARC’s best Sharepoint development services that contain features of your choice and requirements.

Latest Posts

Blog

You are here:

A Complete Guide to SharePoint Discussion Board

SharePoint Discussion Board
sharepoint-discussion-board

Modern teams often need to work on multiple projects at a time, and to avoid any miscommunication, keeping the conversation listed in a written format becomes obligatory. Also, organizations often emphasize making communications accessible to all team members to avoid discrepancies or misunderstandings.

Besides, companies need a reliable platform for various organizational discussions if they have a remote or hybrid team. Instead of focusing on one-to-one communications, enterprises can utilize the SharePoint discussion board.

This feature keeps all the comments and conversations in one place. As a result, managers, team leaders, or other members can quickly and easily refer to it. Read on to know more about the SharePoint discussion board, its benefits, and how to use its basic attributes.

What Is a SharePoint Discussion Board?

What Is a SharePoint Discussion Board

Discussion is an app available to SharePoint users that facilitates a discussion board for the team members. It functions as a collaboration tool where people can share their views and ideas. Companies can also use it for asking a query, presenting new policy proposals, and sharing suggestions.

You might notice a similarity between the discussion board and some popular social media platforms. On this discussion board, your employees can post a topic while others can make comments sharing their views on it.

Moreover, people can like the post, reply to comments that their teammates made, and ask questions about a topic. Here, the conversation or discussion is shown in a threaded format. Hence, people can easily follow the conversation’s order or flow.

It is possible to add any number of discussion boards to your team site. So, how many discussion boards you want to create for your team depends on your requirements. A SharePoint discussion board serves as tangible proof of team communication and responsibilities, so businesses must use this SharePoint app wisely and frequently.

The discussion board displays the most recent discussion in the beginning. Besides, the number of interactions, comments on each discussion topic are also shown.

Benefits of Discussion Boards

Benefits of Discussion Boards

Your organizations can get the following benefits by using SharePoint discussion boards:

  1. Discussion boards can function as the organizational forum where employees can find support on any of their queries. You can also use this place to communicate with teammates about a particular product or project.
  2. You can keep all the general discussions on that topic in one place by creating a dedicated discussion board for each project. Instead of circulating a notification to each team member, you can put it on the board so that everyone can get notified.
  3. If your team does not have to deal with several products, one board might be sufficient for them. Thus, they do not have to switch between multiple boards and keep all the conversations in one place.
  4. Instead of adding your colleagues to your Facebook account, you can socialize with them through the Discussion Board. Here, users can share their thoughts and opinions, and others can also take part in the discussion or share feedback.

What Are the Differences Between SharePoint Newsfeed and Discussion Board?

Since SharePoint users are also familiar with Newsfeed, they might confuse it with the discussion board. Using the team site Newsfeed, colleagues can engage with each other by sharing interesting stories.

It can be also used to create attractive posts for status updates, news, announcements, and so on. Apart from adding graphics and rich formatting, it supports using @ for mentioning someone and # for the news topic.

Primarily, project managers, the business relations team, the public relations cell, and the HR manager submit posts on the SharePoint Newsfeed. Thus, Newsfeed content posting permissions are limited to certain people and not the entire organization.

On the other hand, a discussion board is a web part that you can add to your SharePoint team site. It is a SharePoint list in disguise, that offers a platform for forum-like discussion. Here, you can check out the discussion in other views as well that will be grouped and filtered properly.

The SharePoint Discussion app access is available to all the team members of a project or the entire organization. It ensures the availability of support, feedback, and comments for all the involved employees and not just the managerial level.

Site feed features like mentions and hashtags are not supported on the discussion board. Also, you cannot combine discussions happening on different sites in one place.

How to Create a Discussion Board in SharePoint

Here is how you can create a discussion board on your SharePoint team site:

  1. First go to the SharePoint site where you want to begin a new list or thread for the project’s online discussions.
  2. Click on the gear icon located in the top right corner of the page to open the settings. Then click on Site Contents.
  3. On the next page, select the Add an app option.
  4. Locate the Discussion Board app on the SharePoint app store.
  5. Add a suitable name for the board and click on create button to add it to your site.
  6. Your discussion board is ready for use.

How to Start a Discussion

Now that the board is ready, you can start a discussion using the following steps:

  1. Navigate to the discussion board and click on the new discussion link. This will open the Discussion entry page.
  2. Here, you need to add a topic in the Subject field and a short description in the body field. You can also copy text from other sources, like word files or web pages.
  3. You can also attach one or more files to a discussion item. For that, you need to upload the file from your local system and add its Destination Library.
  4. Once the attaching is done, click on the Save button to start the discussion.

How to Reply to a Discussion

If you want to comment on a discussion topic or thread, here is how to do it:

  1. Navigate to the discussion board.
  2. Click on the discussion topic where you want to comment.
  3. As the discussion page opens, write your comment in Add a Reply field.
  4. Click on the Reply button to submit the comment and make it visible to everyone.

How to Remove a Discussion Topic

These are the steps to delete a discussion thread from SharePoint:

  1. Go to the home page of the discussion board where all the topics are enlisted.
  2. Now, select the List tab view to change it to Management.
  3. Click on the three dots or More button next to the thread that you want to delete.
  4. Click on the Delete button. Click on OK if a confirmation appears.
 
In case, you want any customization in creating business-specific discussion boards for your enterprise, then you can avail of SharePoint services by Al Rafay Consulting.

Al Rafay Consulting for SharePoint Development

SharePoint discussion board is a SharePoint app that you can incorporate into the team site for forum-like conversations.

Therefore, organizations willing to add more features to the discussion board or customize it should contact Al Rafay Consulting. We can help you by developing customized discussion boards with ARC’s best Sharepoint development services that contain features of your choice and requirements.

Share This Post

Your email address will not published. Require fields are marked *

Contact Information

Have any questions or interested in our services? We’re here to help! Reach out to us, and our dedicated team will swiftly respond to your inquiries. 

Contact Information

Ready to Explore? Whether You Want to Discuss Our Services or Have Queries, Feel Free to Send Us a Message and Let’s Get Started.