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Community Forum app for D365?

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Posted on by TonyG22

Hello....this might sound like a weird question....but right now, I am literally typing this question in a Community Forum solution from Microsoft, yes? Please can somebody tell me if there is a proper Dynamics 365 Community Forum application, just like this one that I'm typing in now, that I can offer my external customers to use as part of Dynamics Customer Service Hub? I'm having to consider using Yammer for my external customers by creating a private community within it and inviting them. I can't see any proper forum solution from Microsoft that come with Customer Service Hub, other than the Modern Community app which look so primitive that you can't even ask a question in it - it just allows Ideas to be logged - it's not a proper Community Forum solution with all the bells 'n whistles like this actual one that I'm typing in now - eg. gamification, badges, top contributors lists, questions, discussions, alerts & notifications, etc. I don't understand why Microsoft have lots of these forum solutions that I'm typing in right now for all of its products, yet there is no actual proper Community Forum desktop apps that come with Customer Service Hub for us ourselves to offer our own customers. What am I missing please? Is Yammer the only solution that we can offer customers? Thing is, Yammer doesn't have gamification stuff etc...it's not really an external customer offering is it? It is for internal company staff on Office 365? I repeat, the Modern Community app from Microsoft is truly awful - I can't believe that's all there is, and that there is nothing more advanced that is at least on par with this actual community app that I'm typing it right now?

Thanks!

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Guido Preite 54,086 Moderator on at

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Can you clarify what you are trying to achieve? from what I read maybe setting up a Power Apps Portals for your customer can be a solution but I am not sure based on what you wrote

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TonyG22 12 on at

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Hello Guido Preite - thank you for replying. I am trying to see if there is a Community solution for my customers, that is part of Dynamics 365 Customer Service Hub? I want to open up a Community Forum solution for my external customers, just like this one that you are typing in now? I can't believe that Microsoft don't offer such a solution, especially as they themselves have hundreds of forums (just like this one that I am typing in right now) for people like us who use Microsoft products. I want such a solution that I can customise and deploy to my own customers, which hangs off Dynamics 365 Customer Service Hub. There is something called the Microsoft Modern Community Portal app, but it is really rubbish - it barely has any features - it is nothing like this actual community solution that you and I are typing in right now. That's why I'm looking at Yammer as a possible ready-made alternative?

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Guido Preite 54,086 Moderator on at

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Hi,

looks like that the " Microsoft Modern Community Portal app" you are referring maybe is the community portal that is available for Power Apps Portals? here a link docs.microsoft.com/.../engage-with-communities

knowing what you already tried will be useful, but if that is the one you already tried I am not aware of a product that can be a replacement.

Personally I would not spend time in Yammer as Microsoft consider Teams an alternative in most of the scenarios covered by Yammer in the past.

As far as I know this forum doesn't run on a technology stack designed by Microsoft but I may be wrong

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TonyG22 12 on at

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Yes, that Power Apps Community Portal app is the one I was referring to....it really is complete rubbish...nowhere near as advanced as the forum solution that you and I are typing in right now. Teams is great but not an appropriate solution for my external customers....I want to give them a proper forum solution....Teams is really for closed chat and work channels for internal staff within a company....I'm looking at Yammer as it is closer to a more open community forum solution....I have created a private community within it and am inviting external customers to it to engage with, but it lacks some proper community features such as gamification, user leaderboards, etc. I just can't believe that Microsoft don't have a ready-made out-of-the-box Forums solution that I can just pick up and deploy to my external customer base, as part of our internal Dynamics 365 Customer Service Hub deployment, which includes things like a Knowledge Base and Case Logging features on its customer-facing portal solution - all I want to do is add a Forums solution to that same customer-facing portal.....

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JasonA 15 on at

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Have you looked a the Customer Self Service portal template?

It might meet the use cases you're looking to achieve - it surfaces KB articles, allows self service cases, and has a rudimentary forums capability (sign in, thread, comment, reply, subscribe, etc).

See the first option on this link - appsource.microsoft.com/.../mscrm.dynamics365_community

This table shows that it has a few more features than the community portal - appsource.microsoft.com/.../mscrm.dynamics365_community

However, this portal template is rather dated and you'd have to do some work to theme it up to scratch. It is based on the same power apps portals tech as the other templates. Hopefully it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

You can also consider using the self service portal for surfacing KBs and cases, but use an alternative web-based forum solution with unified sign-on and theming if you want something with more bells and whistles.

The standard SS portal lacks any gamification, leaderboard features, but given the data around authors and posts are stored in dataverse, you could extend and build those capabilities and then surface them on the portal

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