Discussion Explorer Portlets

The My/Community Discussion Explorer portlets display discussions in a project The common workspace for members working together on a project.. A discussion provides a virtual forum where project users can hold online conversations on subjects of interest. Since discussions are related to individual project, members of a project team can view and participate in discussions directly related to their work.

Depending on your permissions, you can participate in discussions by:

Posting a new message
Replying to any message
Creating a new discussion for messages on a different subject
Subscribing to a discussion to receive a notification email when a new message is added (you can reply to the message directly in email)
Editing a message that has already been posted

Project leaders can create moderated discussions where new messages must be approved by assigned moderators before they are posted on the discussion.

This topic discusses:

Explorer Action Bar for Discussions
Discussions List
Explorer Action Bar for Messages
Messages List
Thread Hierarchy View
Customizing the Portlet Height and Project List

Explorer Action Bar for Discussions

If a button is disabled, you either do not have permission to perform the action or you need to select a discussion before you can use the button to apply the action. For more information on permission levels, see the Permission Matrix.

Click	To
	Create a new discussion. For step-by-step instructions on how to create and configure a discussion, see Discussion Properties.
	Edit the properties of a discussion. Click a discussion in the navigation tree first.
	Project Leaders only. Delete a discussion. Select a discussion first.
Subscribe	Subscribe to the discussion. You will receive an immediate notification email when a new message is posted, and can reply to the message directly through email. For more information on notification events, see About Notification Events. To receive summary notification emails for the discussion, mouse over the Subscribe button and select Summary email. If your administrator has enabled RSS feeds, you can mouse over the Subscribe button and select RSS to add the RSS feed for the discussion to your personal RSS feed. Use the Subscription Explorer to configure your summary notification email frequency or to receive more than one type of notification for the discussion.
Unsubscribe	Unsubscribe from the discussion. You will stop receiving all types of notification when a new message is posted.
	Refresh the portlet.
	Launch the Project Explorer.
Project name/drop-down list	If only one project is available in the portlet, the project name appears in the portlet. If more than one project is available in the portlet, you see a project drop-down list. The list is divided into two sections: Enabled (projects in which discussions are enabled) and Disabled (projects in which discussions are not enabled). Select a project from the Enabled list to see the discussions in that project.

Discussions List

The discussions list displays the following information.

Column	Description
Discussion	Name of the discussion. Clicking a discussion displays all its messages. The icons of the discussion indicates the discussion format. The icons are: moderated discussion, unmoderated discussion, and closed discussion.
Created By	Name of the user who created the discussion. To see the user profile of the creator of the discussion, click the user name. If the instant messaging feature is enabled, you can click the online presence indicator to chat online with the creator of the discussion.
Messages	Number of messages contained in the discussion.
Date Modified	The date of the last posted message.
Status	Status of the discussion. Discussions can be open or closed.
Description	Description of the discussion.

Explorer Action Bar for Messages

If a button is disabled, you either do not have permission to perform the action or you need to select a message before you can use the button to apply the action. For more information on permission levels, see the Permission Matrix.

Click	To
	Post a new message to a discussion.
	Change the content of a message you posted. First select a discussion and a message. Moderators can edit messages posted in discussions assigned to them. Only users with Admin access rights can edit any message.
	Delete a message you posted. First select a discussion and a message. Moderators can delete messages posted in discussions assigned to them. Only users with Admin access rights can delete any message.
Subscribe	Subscribe to the message. You will receive an immediate notification email when a reply to the message is posted, and can reply to the message directly in email. For more information on notification events, see About Notification Events. To receive summary notification emails for the message, mouse over the Subscribe button and select Summary email. If your administrator has enabled RSS feeds, you can mouse over the Subscribe button and select RSS to add the RSS feed for the message to your personal RSS feed. Use the Subscription Explorer to configure your summary notification email frequency or to receive more than one type of notification for the message.
Unsubscribe	Unsubscribe from the message. You will stop receiving all types of notification when a reply to the message is posted.
	Refresh the portlet.

Messages List

The messages list displays the following information.

Column	Description
Message	Subject and text of message. Click the message subject to view the thread hierarchy view.
Created By	Name of the user who posted the message. To see the user profile of the author of the message, click the user name. If the instant messaging feature is enabled, you can click the online presence indicator to chat online with the author.
Date Modified	The date of the last posted message in the subject thread.
Date Created	The date the message was created.

Thread Hierarchy View

Click	To
Subscribe	Subscribe to the message. You will receive an immediate notification email when a reply to the message is posted, and can reply to the message directly in email. For more information on notification events, see About Notification Events. To receive summary notification emails for the message, mouse over the Subscribe button and select Summary email. If your administrator has enabled RSS feeds, you can mouse over the Subscribe button and select RSS to add the RSS feed for the message to your personal RSS feed. Use the Subscription Explorer to configure your summary notification email frequency or to receive more than one type of notification for the message.
Unsubscribe	Unsubscribe from the message. You will stop receiving all types of notification when a reply to the message is posted.
	Refresh the portlet.
	Change the content of a message you posted. Moderators can edit messages posted in discussions assigned to them. Only users with Admin access rights can edit any message.
	Delete a message you posted. Moderators can delete messages posted in discussions assigned to them. Only users with Admin access rights can delete any message.
	Reply to a message. The Reply to Message dialog box appears. For more information about replying to a message, see the Replying to a Message section of the Messages topic.
	Moderators only. Approve message. In moderated discussions, the message will not appear in the discussion until it is approved by a moderator or a user with Admin access rights.
	Moderators only. Reject message. In moderated discussions, a rejected message will not appear in the discussion.

Customizing the Portlet Height and Project List

To customize the height of the portlet and the list of projects available in the portlet, click Customize in the portlet toolbar.

Related Topics:

To display the page associated with this help topic, click the help button in the My/Community Discussion Explorer portlet toolbar.

Discussion Explorer Portlets

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