Social Squared allows you to create topics, which can be in the form of a question, or a description of a discussion area. Users can reply to topics and therefore be part of the conversation. In Social Squared you will also see reference to posts. A post can be a topic, a reply to a topic, or a reply to a reply.
Social Squared also offers a forum experience that categorize topics around subject areas, thereby allowing users to seek or provide information about the subject area, and connect to users who have subject matter expertise. Social Squared also provides reporting.
Forums are arranged into forum groups. Forum groups allows the development of dashboards, (SharePoint® pages), using Social Squared Web Parts, that display information from forums in one or more forum groups. Below is an example of the Social Squared Forums Web Part configured to displaying all forums in one forum group, Products. You can use this Web Part to find information by navigating the forum hierarchy and to search.
This Web Part also displays on the top far right, up to two tab :
- Chat. This can be used to show or hide the chat pane, allowing users to chat to each other. This tab is only displayed if Chat is set to true on the Forum Settings page.
- Notifications. This link will turn red if there is a notification such as another user “liking” a post that you have created. Clicking the Notification link will display a notifications window.
- Forum Tools. When a user hoovers their mouse over this tab, they are provided with links to edit their Social Squared User Profile, view email subscriptions, and to see followers.
Navigation
The Social Squared Forums Web Part provides a mechanism of navigating down the forum hierarchy by clicking the title of the Social Squared object, for example, to navigate to a topic, in the forum group view, click the forum title to see a summary of the topics in the forum, and then click on the topic subject title. Once you have navigated down the forum hierarchy, the Web Part provides a breadcrumb that allows you navigate back up the hierarchy, for example, by clicking the Web Part title; or to a forum by clicking the forum name, and to a topic by clicking a topic name. The breadcrumb is displayed at the top of the Web Part which is not only a navigation aid but also allows you to keep track of your location within the forums. The breadcrumb is displayed in the format < Web Part tile > < forum > < topic >.
Search
An alternative to navigating the forum hierarchy, you can use the Social Squared Forums Web Part, to search the forums, by typing keywords in the Search text box, which is displayed to the top right of the Web Part.
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