Most of us have participated in different online communities, and know from experience that there are times when we really need to get reliable answers fast. Consequently, we’d like to be able to get those answers, and potential updates to those answers, without having to log back into the site, right?

In the upcoming release of Discussion Board Plus, R1.5, Bamboo will provide exactly that functionality.

Here’s how it works:

There are two parts to setting up an automatic, unattended alert:

1. Configure outgoing e-mail settings

2. Set Auto-Alert from Forum Settings

Configure outgoing e-mail settings:

Step 1: Go to Central Administration page → System Settings → Click on Configure outgoing e-mail settings:

Step 2: Fill in the following information on the Mail Settings page:

• On the Outgoing E-Mail Settings page, in the Mail Settings section, type the SMTP server name for outgoing e-mail (for example, mail.example.com) in the Outbound SMTP server box.
• In the From address box, type the e-mail address as you want it to be displayed to e-mail recipients.
• In the Reply-to address box, type the e-mail address to which you want e-mail recipients to reply.
• In the Character set list, select the character set that is appropriate for your language.
• Click OK:

 

Step 3: Go to Discussion Board Plus list, where you will see the Alert Me menu in the Ribbon:

The configuration described above is needed to make sure that the Alert settings for e-mail have been turned on.

Note: See the TechNet article Configure outgoing e-mail (SharePoint Server 2010) for more detailed information regarding the configuration of outgoing e-mail settings.

Set Auto-Alert from Forum Settings:

Step 1: Go to Discussion Board Plus list → on the Ribbon, click on the List tab. Select Forum Settings menu. Select Yes, for the “Automatically subscribe authors to alerts about topics they post to” option:

Using the Automatically Subscribe Authors to Alerts About Topics They Post to Feature:

Step 1: Login into the site with your account → Go to Discussion Board Plus list → create a topic.

Alert settings will be affected as follows:

• Alert to mail when a user has created/updated/deleted threads.
• Alert to mail when a user has created/updated/deleted posts.
• Discussion Board Plus will send alerts to the creator for all new replies and to all repliers who reply to the topic and threads.

 

Step 2: Go to the mail client to see the alert email:

Discussion Board Plus R1.5 is scheduled to be released within the next few weeks. Want to be among the first to know when it’s released? You can sign up to get alerts when the new version is available on our storefront site.

More on Discussion Board Plus 1.5:

• Leverage the Video Feature in Discussion Board Plus 1.5 to Communicate and Collaborate Using Video and Audio in Discussions & Forums
• How to Automatically Receive Updates from Topics and Threads with Discussion Board Plus 1.5

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