Forums in Dynamics 365 Portal Add-on

In this blog we will be discussing about forums available on Portal Add-on in dynamics 365.
Firstly we understand major components in understanding the forums in Dynamics portal.

Forums – Forums are basically open spaces for discussion among members for a specific topic. For eg: CRM, AX, BI, etc. We don’t have multiple forums for same topic.
Forum Threads – Forum Threads are the Problem/ Question/ Discussion Point associated under a forum. For eg: All questions related to CRM will be added as Forum threads under forum for CRM.
Forum Posts – Forum Posts are the Posts and replies on a same forum thread. For eg: All responses for a particular question on CRM will be added as Forum posts.

Steps to add new forum in CRM. (We can create new Forum for the portal only from CRM.)

• Log in CRM.
• Go to Community -> Forums

• The list will show you already existing active forums.
• Click on New, to create new Forum. (Ideally forum is topic specific. For eg: CRM, AX, BI, etc.)
• Fill in the below details for the forum as in below image:

Name: Name of the forum.
Website: Website on which this forum is to be published.
Parent Page: Web Page under which you wish to display the forum.
Partial URL: Partial URL for the forum.
Publishing State: Publishing state of the forum page.
Forum Page Template: Page Template for the forum.
Description: Text that gives description for the Forum.
Thread Page Template: It indicates the page template to be used for Threads associated with Forum.

Few fields will be locked and auto-populated:
Thread count: Indicates number of threads for the forum.
Last Post: Lookup to last forum thread posted.
Post count: Indicates number of posts associated with the forum.

• Click Save. This will save the Forum and you can now see it on the Portal.
• Forum Threads: After saving the record you can now see all the associated threads in the sub-grid for Forum threads.
  
• Announcements: You can also add announcements for a forum by adding announcement record for the forum from the Announcement grid.
  
• Access Permission: You can also restrict a forum to set of users on the portal.
  

Forums in the Portal will look like in below images:

• Forum list:
  
• Forum Page (with list of threads for the forum and also the Announcement):
  

Note: In my next blogs I will try to cover Forum Thread and Forum Post in detail.