Chapter 9: Working with Surveys and Discussion Boards

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Chapter at a Glance

Create a survey, page 232. Respond to a survey, page 241. View results of a survey, page 245. Create a discussion board, page 250.

In This Chapter, You will Learn to:

• Create a survey.

• Respond to a survey.

• View the results of a survey.

• Use a discussion board.

Chapter 4, “Working with Lists,” introduced you to lists in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. By using two specialized SharePoint lists, surveys and discussion boards, you can gather feedback and information from users of your site.

By creating a survey, you can determine the format of the user’s feedback and configure whether respondents’ names appear in the survey results. If names are configured to appear, you can see how each user responded; if names are configured not to appear, the survey is anonymous. Windows SharePoint Services tallies the results and compiles a graphical summary of the responses.

By creating a discussion board, you can allow users to determine the type of response they give. A discussion board invites users to discuss issues with one another by initiating topics and posting replies.

Tip 

Discussion boards are also known as message boards or, on the Internet, as Internet forums.

In this chapter, you will learn how to create and respond to a survey and then view the survey results. You will also learn how to create and use a discussion board, including viewing a discussion board from within Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

Important  

Before you can use the practice sites provided for this chapter, you need to install them from the book’s companion CD to their default locations. See “Using the Book’s CD” on page xix for more information.

Important  

Remember to use your SharePoint site location in place of http://wideworldimporters in the following exercises.