SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 11. Creating and Managing Discussions

Introduction

MOSS 2007, like its predecessor, has the ability to create one or more discussion boards. A discussion board is a web venue where members can create content and respond to content created by someone else. Discussions are collected in "threads," usually by subject, and traditionally threads are organized by category. For example, let's say you manage a group of software developers and you want to create discussion groups for three broad areas: Applications, Languages, and Libraries (APIs). The easiest way would be to create three discussion groups, one for each category. Then, in the Languages discussion group, you could have threads regarding C++, C#, Perl, Python, Visual Studio, and so on.

The latest incarnation of discussion boards in SharePoint comes with a group created by default called Team Discussion. If you need only one board, you can change the name of the default board and use it. You can also create more boards to contain discussions either by category, by team, or by any other criteria that suits your needs. The most recent additions to the board are displayed on top, showing you which threads have had the most recent posts and which ones are the most popular.

If your email program supports it, you can submit content to the discussion board directly from your email client. It's just like sending any other email.