Forum Discussion
Trying to create a user forum on a SharePoint Online site
I am trying to create a user forum for employees of my organization to interact within my company's internal news site. However, trying to use the search terms "Sharepoint forum" can be very frustrating given the nature of the search terms - can anybody point me in the right direction?
19 Replies
It's updated now must check the new one.
Setting up a forum in SharePoint for your employees to interact on your internal news site is a great idea. Here’s how you can do it in simple steps:
First, go to your SharePoint site where you want the forum. Click on "https://storiescastle.com/" in the left-hand menu, then choose "New" and select "App." From the list of apps, pick "Discussion Board" and give it a name like "Employee Forum." Click "Create," and you’ve got your basic forum set up.
Next, you can customize this forum. Set permissions so only employees can use it, adjust the views to make it easy to navigate, and set up notifications so employees get alerts about new posts or replies.
To make sure everyone can find the forum easily, add a link to it in the navigation menu or on the homepage of your news site. You can also embed the forum directly into a page on the news site using a web part.
To get people using the forum, announce it to your employees through email or on the news site. Start some discussions to show them how it works and encourage participation. Assign moderators to keep an eye on the discussions and keep things active and respectful.
Following these steps will help you create a useful and https://www.reddit.com/r/instructionaldesign/comments/ztpfcx/how_do_you_design_engaging_discussion_forums/ for your employees. If you need more detailed help, check out Microsoft Support for SharePoint or join SharePoint community forums for tips and advice.Markjons that's not an option in a modern SharePoint site as the Discussion Board app is only for classic.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User.
Principal Consultant, SharePoint and Power Platform WSP Global (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)
fred_valaris
Hello,
See this video on how to customize search results with bookmarks:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjgo2YlpWo&ab_channel=ArefHalmstrand
With this, you are able to have a SharePoint Forum and decide what search variables should point to the specific site as highlighted content.
Yours sincerely,
Aref Halmstrandfred_valaris if a Yammer community wasn't suitable (which it probably would be) what I would probably do in this scenario is to have a form on your SharePoint site that saves the response to a list in SharePoint via a flow in Power Automate. You would create a view of the list and format that view with JSON to make a nice-looking forum-type section on the page. I've done this one one of my sites for a suggestions forum-type situation.
Come back to me if this looks like what you want and you need the detailed flow steps and the JSON code. But you'll see we are also using a Yammer community.
Edit: Steven Andrews the discussion board can't be used in the modern experience, so Yammer or my solution above with a form, flow and list are the available - and very good - options.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User- How do we get the flow steps?
JohnH710 have a look earlier in the thread, I posted up a screenshot of all the steps in the flow.
Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User.
Principal Consultant, SharePoint and Power Platform WSP Global (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)
This is very interesting. I am looking for something like this.
User to submit question.
Wil you be able to share the JSON for the view.
Thank you
bbsin The user submits a question using a form from Microsoft Forms embedded on a page and that form triggers a simple flow in Power Automate:
The suggestion is added to the list and any response is added separately. The view of the list that we display on the page is shown below:
..and the JSON view formatting for that is:
{ "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/sp/view-formatting.schema.json", "hideSelection": true, "hideColumnHeader": true, "rowFormatter": { "elmType": "div", "_comment_": "MAIN DIV", "attributes": { "class": "ms-bgColor-themeLight" }, "style": { "display": "flex", "flex-wrap": "wrap", "align-items": "stretch", "flex-direction": "row", "padding": "20px", "margin-bottom": "16px", "max-width": "400px", "border-radius": "10px", "background-color": "#660066" }, "children": [ { "elmType": "div", "style": { "flex-grow": "1", "display": "flex", "flex-direction": "column", "flex-wrap": "nowrap", "align-items": "left", "max-width": "400px", "min-width": "205px" }, "children": [ { "elmType": "div", "style": { "display": "block", "font-size": "15px", "font-weight": "normal" }, "children": [ { "elmType": "span", "txtContent": "=[$Title]", "style": { "display": "=if([$Title] == '', 'none', 'block')", "color": "white" } }, { "elmType": "span", "txtContent": "[$SubmittedOn]", "style": { "display": "=if([$SubmittedOn] == '', 'none', 'block')", "color": "white" } }, { "elmType": "span", "txtContent": "='Suggestion: ' + [$Suggestion]", "style": { "display": "=if([$Suggestion] == '', 'none', 'block')", "padding-top": "20px", "margin": "0 20px 20px 0", "color": "white" } } ] } ] }, { "elmType": "div", "_comment_": "DIV TWO", "style": { "flex-grow": "1", "display": "flex", "flex-direction": "column", "align-items": "left", "max-width": "310px", "min-width": "155px" }, "children": [ { "elmType": "div", "style": { "display": "block", "font-size": "15px", "txtContent": "='Comment: ' + [$Comment]", "font-weight": "normal", "color": "white" }, "children": [ { "elmType": "span", "txtContent": "='Comment: ' + [$Comment]", "style": { "padding-right": "5px", "display": "=if([$Comment] == '', 'none', 'block')" } } ] }, { "elmType": "div", "style": { "display": "block", "font-size": "15px", "font-weight": "normal" } } ] } ] } }Rob
Los Gallardos
Microsoft Power Automate Community Super User
This looks very interesting, thanks for posting this.. If fred_valaris doesn't want to learn more I certainly do! I'd be interested in the steps you mention.
The functionality within SharePoint that would cater for this is I believe called a Discussion Board but note that I don't think it works in Modern SP (credit to Rob for confirming this below). It really would depend on what version of SharePoint you're using as to whether this was available. An older thread is available within these forums that discusses this very topic, which you can access here.
Depending on how you're building the blog, a Yammer webpart might meet your aims better than the legacy discussion forum.
A video that looks useful for the discussion board can be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K00wFH8-q8E.
Steven Andrews Sorry for not posting more about my environment in my original question; still very much a SP novice. If I'm not mistaken, I'm using Sharepoint Online Modern and I believe Yammer will work for my needs. I'll play with that and see how it goes.
Thanks all for the feedback and information!!
- No problem and do let us know how it goes. Some wise heads meander around these parts. Good luck.
