5.2 Discussions

5.2.1 Applications of discussions

5.2.2 Starting a discussion

5.2.3 Participating in a discussion

5.2.4 Browsing through a discussion

5.2.5 Editing, moving and deleting discussions

5.2.1 Applications of discussions

The Business Collaborator discussion permits members of a workspace to hold private newsgroup-like discussions. You can think of discussions as providing a structure similar to a bulletin-board. Such discussions are threaded - as shown in Figure 5.2-1 - so that it is clear what particular point each reply is in response to. Such discussions may be held to discuss company policies, business initiatives, contentious points in a project etc.

Because discussions are stored in the workspace, they provide an archive of decisions and the arguments which led to the particular decision being made. They are useful sources of information for new project members. Unlike email messages, they are intended to be read and debated by all the project members, current and future, not just a select group of recipients.

Each person participating in the discussion may select the type of content they wish to contribute, possibly reflecting their attitude to the topic under discussion. Business Collaborator lets you characterise the tone of your contribution by assigning icons to be displayed along with the discussion name in the folder view. (Different icons to indicate different types of contribution may be available on different Business Collaborator servers.)The standard set of icons offered by a Business Collaborator server is

non-specific -- no specific tone

pro -- approval

con -- disapproval

cross -- strong disapproval

important -- significant contribution to the discussion

bright idea -- sudden inspiration

Figure 5.2-1: View of a threaded discussion.

5.2.2 Starting a discussion

Starting a discussion is a simple procedure:

• Go to the workspace or shared folder where you wish start the discussion
• click  Add   |   Discussion  to bring up the New discussion form - see Figure 5.2-2
• enter the topic for the discussion in the 'Subject' field - this is displayed as the discussion’s name
• type in the text of your contribution to the discussion into the 'message' field. (Note that HTML tags following a <P> tag in the text of a discussion will be interpreted by browsers displaying the text.)

• click (Create new discussion) to initiate your discussion

Figure 5.2-2: Starting a discussion.

5.2.3 Participating in a discussion

You can join in a discussion started by another member of the workspace or shared folder.

To reply to a comment by another user:

• click  |  Reply  for the particular comment to which you wish to respond if you are looking at the folder view containing the discussion.

If you are currently viewing a discussion:

• click  View/Change  |  Reply  to reply to a specific component of the discussion,
• click  View/Change  |  Reply to original  to reply to the original component of the discussion.

In both cases, Business Collaborator will bring up a reply form. The text of the part of the discussion to which you wish to reply will be copied to the 'Text' field, so that you can concentrate on your reply. You can choose whether or not you wish to overwrite this text as you type in your reply – other users will always be able to view the other components of the discussion. It is standard practice to keep only the parts of the original text to which your reply explicitly refers.

The default entry in the 'Subject' field for a reply simply indicates the component of the discussion to which it refers. If you edit the subject to reflect the gist of your reply, it will be more informative for other members of the workspace.

5.2.4 Browsing through a discussion

5.2.4.1 Moving from component to component of the discussion

5.2.4.2 Displaying the discussion hierarchy

A discussion is threaded with its components forming a hierarchical structure. There may be several replies to each component. Each reply can itself have several replies, but each contribution can only reply to one preceding component.

Business Collaborator provides two ways to browse the hierarchy of contributions to a discussion:

5.2.4.1 Moving from component to component of the discussion

If the component of the discussion which you are viewing:

• refers to a previous comment, then it will be possible to return to this component by clicking on its name, i.e. its 'subject' line
• has already triggered replies, their names ('subject' lines) are displayed as links to allow you navigate to them directly
• is one of several replies to the same component of the discussion, it will be possible to move between these parallel replies using  View/Change  |  Next Discussion  and  View/Change  |  Previous Discussion 

5.2.4.2 Displaying the discussion hierarchy

In the folder view, a discussion with at least one reply is indicated in the same way as a non-empty workspace or folder, using . In the same way that folders may be "folded out", the entire discussion thread may be expanded to make it easy to view individual components or contracted to reduce the amount of the page which the discussion takes up.

Also, all components of the discussion may be displayed in an unindented view by clicking  View/Change  |  View All  - as shown in Figure 5.2-3.

Figure 5.2-3: Viewing the entire discussion hierarchy.

5.2.5 Editing, moving and deleting discussions

Only the author of a particular component of a discussion can modify that component. Changes may be made even after replies have been submitted. Click  |  Edit Discussion  for the particular contribution which you wish to change.

Only the author of a discussion component may "cut" that component. If you  Selected   |  Cut  a component of a discussion, you can only  View/Change  |  Paste  it as the start of a new discussion, not as a reply to another discussion.

Remove a component of a discussion -- and all components referring directly or indirectly to it -- from a discussion by selecting it and clicking  Selected  |  Cut  or  Selected  |  Delete .

If you undo " delete "from the waste bin, the component which was deleted, and all components replying to it, will be returned to their original place in the discussion.