Comments on: The Most Powerful SharePoint Secret

By: Kat Weixel

Kat Weixel — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:49:30 +0000

We use them most effectively in our “Community” section, which is a non-work-related site to let employees connect w/ one another. We have one “Community Discussions” list, using only OOB functionality, and since 99% of our users have profile photos, the discussions actually look pretty nice with photos next to each reply.

People are free to post anything for which they want a reply. Recent discussions ranged from someone asking for feedback about Android phones, someone asking for a good cupcake shop/caterer, someone wanting a recommendation for a new primary care physician… you get the picture. I once even posted a quick question asking if anyone had tissue paper I could borrow (a gift emergency at work w/ a gift bag and no paper), and within a few minutes I got a response from someone who had some to share.

People who participate (more and more all the time via word of mouth) really love these forums. We encourage everyone to sign up for an alert to stay informed, and we remind people and even provide a quick link directly to that list’s alert sign-up page.

I really love the discussion list! There’s definitely a “What’s in it for me” factor, and in our case, participants are finding plenty in it for them!

By: Areon Jackson

Areon Jackson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:49:10 +0000

SharePoint 2007 and 2010 have them. And although I am not 100% sure about SharePoint 2003, I believe it does as well. If you do not have them in your environment it may be a configuration setting that is limiting you.

By: Areon Jackson

Areon Jackson — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:44:10 +0000

Discussion Boards are the “red-headed step childs” of SharePoint. It’s like Microsoft decided “Yes we have one, but we don’t really pay much attention to it.”; which is very unfortunate.

My company has employees all over the world and we use SharePoint Discussion Boards to collaborate on issues, questions, and announcements. Because we started using SharePoint 2007 with Office 2003 we had to find a way to integrate SP discussion boards with the Inbox within Outlook (not the SharePoint List). Not only did we develop the solution in-house, but we did so in such a way that is scalable to Office 2007 and 2010. All attachments and embedded images come through as well as a direct link to the SharePoint site and message thread.

I had hoped that Discussion Boards would gain a little bit of respect and attention from Microsoft with SharePoint 2010, but alas, twas not to be.

It’s still relegated to feeding off the scraps that fall from the Microsoft table.

In the meantime, our end users, and in turn our customers, continue to reap the benefits from the SharePoint discussion boards and our blood, sweat and tears.

By: Sabrina Lightfoot

Sabrina Lightfoot — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:52:29 +0000

So is this Discussion Forum feature available only on SP 2007?

-Sabrina

By: Christian Buckley

Christian Buckley — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:42:59 +0000

We are heavy forum users on our backend. It’s how we keep the dev and product teams in sync. Discussion forums (like wikis — and SharePoint, for that matter) are a cultural trait of an organization. For us, its part of the way we work together. As with any social computing tool, companies need to do what makes sense for their culture, and not force fit a technology just because its available.

By: Kevin Young

Kevin Young — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:42:49 +0000

We are getting great user benefit using a Discussion Forum OOTB for our Finance Unit. When we do our monthly financial close, users use the forum to instantly update status via alerts set on the forum. I also use it when I need to negotiate down-time in the DEV environment of our hosted financial system, and solicit agenda items for our meetings. The users like it, and it saves me time. (No hunting and pecking for user e-mail addresses or a distribution list.)