Monthly Archives: July 2015

Creating Discussion Board in Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Discussion Board in Microsoft SharePoint 2013

Discussion Board is used for communication among team members. The discussion board shows the most recent discussion first on top, as well as the number of replies for each discussion. User can quickly see which discussions have the most recent activity and which ones are the most popular discussion. Members can also customize their own views of the discussion board. In this SharePoint Tutorial for beginners, we will follow a step by step approach to create a discussion board in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and further see how to create a thread under it.

Key Features of a Discussion Board:

  • Communication between team members.
  • Shown recent discussion of team members.
  • Admin user can set number or limit of discussions and shown on top.
  • Easily customization.

Steps to Create a Discussion Board in Microsoft SharePoint 2013:

  1. Login with SharePoint site.
  2. Navigate to Site and Click on “Settings” option and then click on “site contents” option.SharePoint Site Contents
  3. Then click on “add an app” option.SharePoint List & Libraries
  4. Then click on “Discussion Board” option from your app.SharePoint Discussion Board
  5. This option will be available in publishing site, but it’s not available in team site template. So click on site section option.Site Section in SharePoint
  6. Then click on “Manage Site features” option.Manage Site Features
  7. Then activate the “Team Collaboration Lists” option.Team Collaboration List
  8. That’s it. Now “Discussion Board” option available to user.
  9. Now click on “Discussion Board” option, as per step 4. It will open one popup box.Adding Discussion Board
  10. Give proper name of discussion board list and it will create discussion list in your site.Available Discssion ListsNew Discussion ListIt will show most recent discussion first and you can customize as per need.

Note: We have already discussed the same step by step approach to create a Custom List in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 using SharePoint Designer that will also be beneficial.

Steps to Create a Thread on newly created Discussion Board

  1. Click on new discussion option.New Discussion
  2. It will start new thread of particular discussion.Add New Discussion
  3. Now login user can participate in this thread and give their own view.Thread View in Discussion
  4. User can reply immediately after the post by clicking on the textbox at the end of the page, then clicking the Reply button.Reply Discussion Board

Discussion Views in Share Point

Each discussion can be seen with many different Out-of-Box Views.

The views available are:

  • Flat
  • Management
  • Threaded

Available Discussion Board Views

Other Microsoft SharePoint For Dummies and related Articles:

Simple Steps to Create Content Type in SharePoint 2013

What is a Content Type?

A Simple way of explaining what is SharePoint Content Type is by imagining us grouping Columns used in your list or library together, which we plan to reuse often.
For example, if I know I have to often use “First Name, Last Name, Phone No, Birthdate” etc. columns together when working with task, then I will group together into an “Employee” Content Type.SharePoint Content Type

Where Content Type is used?

  • SharePoint List and Library
  • Page layout
  • Workflow
  • Event Receiver

Key Features of Content Type:

  • Content types is a term used for describing a collection of metadata
  • SharePoint content types support user interface customization
  • SharePoint content types can have specific user interface elements attached
  • SharePoint content types support behavior through workflows and event receivers
  • SharePoint content types support inheritance of properties, appearance, and behavior

Step by Step Creating a Content Type

  1.  Create a content type is a very simple. For this fist you have to create Site Column.
  2. Click on Site Setting in site action menu. Then click on Site columns.Site Columns in SharePoint 2013
  3. Then click on “Create” button on the top bar.Create Site Columns
  4. Add Site column name with appropriate data type.Site Column in SP 2013
  5. I have used following data type for site columns.
    Site Column Name Data Type
    First Name Single Name
    Last Name Single Name
    Phone No Number
    Birth Date Date and Time
  6. In this way, you can created four site columns.Site Columns
  7. Now, we have create content type with help of these columns.
  8. Click on “Site Content Type” in site setting option. Then you have to click on “Create” button on the next screen.Site Column Types
  9. Then give the content type name and select appropriate parent content type. Here I have selected document parent content type. These steps will create content type.New Site Content Type
  10. Then, add following columns in create content type.Site Content Type

How to Use a Content Type?

  1. You can associate content type with following features:
    • SharePoint List and Library
    • Page layout
    • Workflow
    • Event receiver
  2. We are going to associate created content type with document library.
  3. For this, first we have to enable content type option in document library.
  4. So, Open document library, then click on list setting and click on advanced setting option.Advanced Settings
  5. Then click on “Add from exiting site content types” in list setting option.Existing Site Content
  6. Select created “Employee” content type and click on add button.Existing Content Type
  7. Now, employee content type is available in document menu.Document Library
  8. While you upload any document in this document library with help of this employee content type and you have to enter all metadata information.SharePoint Web Parts

In this we you can create content type as per your requirement and used in SharePoint site.

Other SharePoint and related Articles:

2 Simple Ways to Create Custom List in SharePoint 2013

What is a Custom List?

A Custom List is a collection of different type of columns and information pieces which are collaborated together and is developed with some unique set of properties which provides user to access form features.

Key Features of a Custom List

  • Ease to use
  • You can Share information and data with other users.
  • You can set rich standard interface
  • Can easily add binary data
  • Accommodates workflows
  • List items can be linked/synced with outlook to specific users and become a task
  • Relative links can be linked/synced to other lists in SharePoint without to refresh formulas.
  • Lists can contain links (URLs) to other SharePoint pages that contain information, documents or emails related to the project.
  • Everyone on the team can access, change and update this list whenever and from wherever, even from mobile also.
  • No compatibility issues.

Approaches to Create Custom List

Custom list can be created with following approaches:

  1. Using SharePoint OOTB UI feature
  2. Using SharePoint Designer

1. Create Custom List using SharePoint OOTB UI feature:

Follow the steps:

  1. Login with SharePoint site.
  2. Navigate to Site and Click on “Settings” option and then click on “site contents” option.SharePoint 2013 Site Settings
  3. Then click on “add an app” option.Add an app - SharePoint 2013
  4. Select “Custom list” option from the “your app” page. It will be popup for open create custom list.Create Custom List in SharePoint 2013
  5. Give the proper name as “EmployeeList” and click on Create button.Adding Custom List in SharePoint 2013
  6. These steps will create custom list in SharePoint site, now you can add multiple columns with different data type in this list.Newly Created Custom List
  7. Now open create custom list and go through list setting and click on “Create column” option and create multiple column with different data type as per need.Create Column - Custom List

2. Create Custom List using SharePoint Designer:

  1. Open SharePoint Designer and move to top navigate and select “SharePoint List” option and then select the Custom List.Custom List using SharePoint Designer
  2. Moving forward add a decent name and description for the listSharePoint Designer Custom List
  3. Finally click OK once done.

Hopefully this step by step approach will help SharePoint developer to understand in details the possible ways to create a Custom List in SharePoint 2013 using OOTB UI features and SharePoint Designer.

Other SharePoint and related Articles: