Forum Discussion

Graham McHugh's avatar
Graham McHugh
Iron Contributor
Nov 17, 2018

Community Site Template

Hi All,

 

We have a need for an out of the box forum/community solution in SharePoint Online -- it's looking like the Community template is the best option. Is anyone using it successfully? It feels pretty old-timey, but maybe still functional?

 

Teams would be a consideration, but the limit to the number of users makes it unusable for this particular forum/community need. Yammer is not an option.

 

I wish we had an OOTB template like techcommunity, or answers.microsoft.com -- maybe one day...

 

Thanks in advance!

7 Replies

  • Yammer is really the right answer for this problem, so if you are sure it is not available and you have to use the legacy Community Site template, check out this presentation before you go too far. The template has bugs that will never get fixed. There are work around a that I painfully discovered and documented several years ago when this template was first available. I really wish you didn’t have to use it, but if you do, at least understand what you are getting in to! https://www.slideshare.net/susanhanley/hanley-exploring-thecommunitysitesharepointintersection
    • Graham McHugh's avatar
      Graham McHugh
      Iron Contributor

      A lot of great information there -- thanks for sharing!

       

      The two biggest issues I see with the community site template are the sharing and organizing of files being awkward, and the lack of mobile (modern) functionality -- the latter of which is pretty much a deal breaker.

       

       

      I guess I'll keep looking for a better option.

       

      Thanks all for the responses.

  • I would check this app from Lightning tools

     

    https://lightningtools.com/products/social-squared-client-side-web-part/

     

    • Graham McHugh's avatar
      Graham McHugh
      Iron Contributor

      That looks like a decent product -- but we need an out of the box solution. Thanks anyway.

  • Well, the community template is a classic one and since Yammer is not an option, it seems you are limited to that template that in my opinion is not very useful nowadays
    • Graham McHugh's avatar
      Graham McHugh
      Iron Contributor

      It's looking that way. The community template could be workable for computer/tablet users, but pretty much unusable from a smartphone.

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