User Guide

Discussion Forums

A discussion forum is a general term for any online bulletin board where you can leave messages
and expect to see responses to messages you have left. Forums are a very important tool in Project
Management because they enable team members to communicate with each other. All messages posted on
the forum are saved for other people to see at any time. This created a historical record of the
discussion which can be referred to at a later date.

ValleySpeak Project Server creates a separate forum for each project where all topics related to
that project can be discussed. Access to a forum is restricted to only team member of that
particular project. The owner of the project is also the owner of the discussion forum for
that project.

Posting and Replying to a Message
You can post messages to a forum either by starting a new thread or replying to a previously
posted message.

Post a New Message

New messages can be posted by the project manager or team members using New
Message action.

Steps to post a new message:

1. Click Forums tab.
2. Select the required project from the project drop down list (see Figure: 10.1).



Figure: 10.1 Selecting a project.
3. Click New Message action available in the action bar.
4. If you have selected an archived/deleted project from the Project drop down list
   then a corresponding message will be displayed (see Figure: 10.2).



Figure: 10.2 Message when a Archieved/Deleted project is selected.
5. If you have selected All Projects option from the Project drop
   down list then a page with a list of projects will be displayed. To continue with message
   posting process follow the steps given below:
1. Select the project required from the drop down list available in page (see Figure: 10.3).
2. Click Select Projects button to get back to the new message form.



Figure: 10.3 selecting a project when all projects option is chosen.
6. New Message page is displayed which has the following information with
   Cancel, Reset, Post Message buttons at the Right Bottom of the page
   (see Figure: 10.4). The new message form page contains the following fields:
1. From: this field has User name with User Email.
2. Date: this field has Date and Time Information of Message.
3. Subject: in this field you have to specify the Subject of the
   Message in the Subject field.
4. Description: in this field you have to provide the description of the Message.
7. If the information provided in the New Message form is valid, you have to
   click Post Message button.
8. New Message is posted in the project forum and displayed in
   List Messages page.

NOTE: If a Project Owner has posted a new message in the project forum, by
default the posted messages are Approved. If a Team Member has posted a
new message in the project forum, in the list page the messages are listed with status set to
Pending.

Figure: 10.4 New Message page.

List Messages
List Messages action will be available in action bar for all project members. To
list out all messages in a selected project (You can select a project from the project drop down
list available in action bar) click List Messages action (available in action bar)
or if you want to list all messages in all projects for which you are the member you need to
select All Projects option from the project drop down list. If there are no
messages posted in the selected project, then a message, “There are no messages in this
project forum. Click here to create a new message.” is displayed.

Steps to list the messages in project forum :

Figure: 10.5 List of messages in Selected Project.

If the number of messages to display exceeds the value set for Number of records per page
field in Preferences tab, then each page will list the number of Messages as per
the value you have set for the above field.

To navigate between list pages, select the page number from the page number drop down list
(see Figure: 10.7) available in the filter bar and this drop down will be displayed only when
the number of messages available in a selected project are more than the value set for
Number of records per page field. As you select a page number corresponding message list
for that page will be displayed.

Figure: 10.6 List of messages in all Project.

Figure: 10.7 Selecting A page number.

Filters for Forum messages
Typically list of messages displayed in the ValleySpeak Project Server Discussion Forum contains
Status and Ownership filters. To view a particular message, filters can be applied individually.
(see Figure: 10.8)

1. Status indicates the state of the message & can be Approved,Disapproved,
   Pending or Any status.
1. Approved display the messages which are Approved by the
   project owner.
2. Disapproved display the messages which are Disapproved by the
   project owner.
3. Pending display the messages which are yet to be Approved/Disapproved
   by the project owner.
4. Any Status display all the messages in the project forum with any
   status.
2. Ownership list the messages based on the Ownership of message.
   This filter consists of names of all the resources belonging to that project and displays
   those messages posted by the selected resource name in the filter. For example, Owned
   by Paulmacy etc.

To list out messages with same characteristics then select applicable filter options and click
Apply Filter button (available in filter bar see Figure: 10.8) then a list of messages for
that filter options will be displayed. For example if you have selected Owned By filter option
(see Figure: 10.8) and click Apply Filter button then a message list which are owned by that
user will be displayed (see Figure: 10.9).

Figure: 10.8 Selecting the owned by filter.

Figure: 10.9 Message list for a filter option.

View Message
To view detail information of a message, click List Messages action (available in action bar),
from the list displayed, click required message entry which you want to view and this will take
you to view page. This page will have all details of the selected message along with Cancel and
Reply Message buttons (see Figure: 10.10)

Steps to view a message in project forum:

Figure: 10.10 View Message page.

Message Approve and Disapprove
Discussion Forum in ValleySpeak Project Server provides an unique feature for distribution of
information. Forum in ValleySpeak Project Server has message Approval and Disapproval
feature which is available only to the Project Owner. Project Owner gets an
alert with status pending for approval when a team member
posts a message. Project Owner can either approve/disapprove the message.
Consequently team members receive an e-mail. Only Approved messages are
displayed and they are visible to team members.

Approve a Message
Any message posted by a Team Member is not visible to the team until it is
Approved by the Project Owner.

Steps to approve a message in project forum:

Figure: 10.11 View Message before approval.

After approval, the message status will be shown in the status column of list page for
a Project Owner (see Figure: 10.12) but for a Team Member the approved
status will not be shown in list page (see Figure: 10.13).

Figure: 10.12 List of Approved messages for Project Owner.

Figure: 10.13 List of Approved messages for Team Member.

If the message is already disapproved, then a Project Owner can approve it back. To approve a
disapproved message follow the steps below :

Disapprove a Message
Any message posted by a Team Member is not visible to the team until it is
Approved/Disapproved by the Project Owner.

Steps to Disapprove a Message in Project Forum :

After disapproval, the message status will be shown in the status column of list page
for a Project Owner and for a Team Member the approved status will not be
shown (see Figure: 10.14).

Figure: 10.14 List of Disapproved messages for Team Member.

Reply to Message
The Project Members can reply to messages by clicking Reply Message
button available in view page of an approved message. You can reply to a
message only if the message has been approved.
Steps to reply a posted message

Thread and Unthread Messages
Messages can be grouped together as a thread. The Unthread is a default action displaying
messages in descending order with date and time and without maintaining any relationship to
one another.

Threading Messages
A Thread is a set of messages, which are replies to each other. Since there can be more than
one reply to a message, a Thread is actually often a tree structure.

Figure: 10.16 List of Threaded Messages.

Unthreading Messages
By default ValleySpeak Project Server Discussion Forum displays the Unthreaded messages.

If the messages in the project forum are Threaded, all the messages and replies to messages
are arranged in Tree structure. You can use the Unthreading option to Unthread the messages.

Steps to Unthread Messages :

1. Click Forums tab. Select the required project from the project drop down
   list (see Figure: 10.1). If there are no messages in the project forum “There are
   no messages in this project forum is displayed”.
2. By default, if there are any messages in the project forum, all the messages are
   displayed in the List Messages page.
3. Click List Messages action.
4. If you have selected All Projects option from the Project drop down list
   then a page with a list of messages in all the projects will be displayed.
5. Click Unthread Messagess action.
6. All the messages in the project forum are displayed in Unthreaded view
   (see Figure: 10.1)

Alert Notifications
Alerts are the ones which gives the information to all team members about the modifications
done in his projects. You can disable E-mail alerts by doing following steps.

1. Click Preferences tab.
2. Click Forums action.
3. Then uncheck the check boxes to disable the E-mail alerts.
NOTE:For more information about enabling and disabling Email alerts, see
“Forums” section of chapter on “Preferences”.

You will get alert messages in Dashboard and E-Mail alerts
when you do the following operations in Forums tab.

1. When New Message posted in project forum.
2. When posted message needs Approval in Project.
3. When posted message is Approved in Project.
4. When posted message is Disapproved in Project.

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