Email-To-List is a useful function in SharePoint because it enables users to create data by sending an email to an available nominated email account. Basic requirements to use this function in SharePoint OOTB include:

• Incoming Email Configure in Central Administration
• Each email uses just one specific account. (This is an inconvenience if there are a large number of lists because we need to have a commensurate number of email accounts, which can create problems trying to remember which list an email account belongs with!)

Here we’d like to introduce a new function for Discussion Board Plus, expanded from the function for Email-To-List in SharePoint OOTB). Features include:

• No need to configure Incoming Email Configure in Central Administrator
• Many Lists can use only one email
• Users do not have to worry about which list is associated with which email in order to create a topic or reply

HOW TO USE

Before using the email-to-list function of DBP, we must configure the settings in Central Administration:

• Go to Central Administration
• Click on the Bamboo Discussion Board Plus E-mail settings link
• Enter the information in the form
  • Exchange Service URL: Enter the URL for server mail, such as https://webmail.domain.com/owa, or the IP address
  • Email Address: enter the email to host the messages
  • User Name: We need to enter the full domain and account for the NT account, or email account if using Office365
  • Password: the password will be encrypted and stored in the property bag of the Central Administration site

CREATE TOPIC

• Log in to your  mailbox
• Create a new email
• Email subject is to be a topic title
• Body: In this part, to create the topic in the correct Discussion Board Plus area, we need to enter the following format: List: {Full URL of Discussion Board Plus} Content of topic 

OR

List:{Name List Discussion Board Plus}

Content of Topic

Note: Having many discussion board plus lists in the web application with the same title means the email will be passed. All discussion board plus lists must have unique titles.

CREATE A REPLY

In this release, we support three methods to create a reply:

Method 1: If we receive an alert email from the system and want to write a reply:

• Log in to your mailbox
• Open an alert email
• Click Reply
• Keep all information in the form as is and just type the content of the reply into the body of the email.

Method 2: Create a reply for specific topics through the topic title:

• Log in to your mailbox
• Compose a new email
• Keep the subject of the email in the form as is. DO NOT change anything in the subject field. The system will use this field to indicate the topic and add a reply. When not matching any topic titles, the message will be passed.
• Content

Method 3: Create a new reply without using a title:

• Log in to your mailbox
• Compose a new email
• The subject of the email will not be used in this case, thus this field can be any string
• Content: Apply the content in the following format:List: {Full URL of discussion board plus list} Topic: {Full URL of topic} Reply Content 

And that’s it! We at Bamboo hope this simple guide provides you with a clearer understanding of using email in DBP.