Community Central for SharePoint 2010 provides a site template which is integrated with many functions which differ from, and enhance,  the available features in SharePoint 2010 out-of-the-box.  Some of these additional features include: mark sticky; lock item for thread; verify answer; mark suggest answer; and providing ratings for posts. In addition, one of the standout features of Community Central is its ability to calculate a score for each action which has been completed by users. In this post, we'll take a look at how to manage the Scoring Rules for Forum and Blog sites in Community Central.

Challenge:

Scoring rules consist of a list that's used to define the point value assigned to a user when he/she performs any action in Community Central, such as creating blog posts, creating forum topics, verifying as answer, etc. I will now introduce to you how to control the point value assigned to each user action for Forum and Blog sites. One of the best benefits of this feature is that the system can automatically, quickly, and accurately calculate the point value for a given user.

Solution:

First, I will demonstrate how to manage the scoring rules in a Forum site.

Step 1: Go to your Community Central Site -> Site Actions -> View All Site Content and the Scoring Rules list:

You will see 11 action items that have been defined by default. Point values assigned to users will be calculated based on the associated values seen on this board:

Step 2: Create a Forum Site with many actions. For example, I'll create a Forum Site with three topics and two replies for each topic:

To see all activities, please go to Community Central Site -> Site Actions and View All Site Content and User Activity.

Here you will see details for each user action. In addition, the point value will be shown clearly, based on the Scoring Rules board above. This means that Community Central will add the specified number of points to a user after creating topics and replies.

Moreover, if you want to see the sum total for each user, please go to Community Central Site -> Site Actions and View All Site Content -> Site Member.

In this list, you will see a number of topics and a number of replies (created previously for the purpose of this example). The Points column will show the users' total score for all completed actions.

As a user completes more actions, the Site Member list and User Activity will automatically update the users' total score. For example, if we Verify Answer and Mark Suggest Answer for replies as seen below:

 

You will see that the total points assigned to that user increase accordingly:

Note: Points will also be deducted from a users' total if they remove/delete actions which have accrued points previously.

For example, if a user deletes two topics, their score will be decreased appropriately after that, as based on the Scoring Rules list.

Go to the User Activity list to check, and you will see their delete actions:

Go to Site Member list to check next, and you will see that their score will have been decreased accordingly:

Next, I will demonstrate how to manage the scoring rules in a Blog site.

Step 1: Go to your Community Central Site -> Site Actions -> View All Site Content and Scoring Rules list.

You will see five action items that have been defined by default. The point value assigned to a given user will be calculated based on their actions as seen in this board:

Step 2: Create a Blog site with many actions.

For example, I will create a Blog site with one Blog post and three comments:

To see all activities, please go to your Community Central Site -> Site Actions -> View All Site Content and User Activity.

We can create more Posts/Comments on the Blog to increase a users' score, and/or delete/remove Posts/Comments from the Blog to decrease a users' score (as shown with Forum sites above).

See Also:

• Announcing the Release of Community Central for SharePoint 2010 [Bamboo Nation]