Overview
The Discussion area can be used for announcements, and to have open discussions with your staff and co-managers. In open discussions people can comment on posts.
When creating a new discussion, you can be specific about who can see it. For example, if you want to discuss ideas for a new menu item, you might only discuss with staff that have a kitchen or dining role (and save the security guards from all the talk about changing the main dish from beef to chicken).
Particularly important discussions or announcements can be marked Sticky. This will ensure they always show at the top of the discussion list. Your might ‘sticky’ important topics like dress codes and other company policies.
Viewing / commenting on a discussion
To view a discussion, click on the discussion row and select View discussion from the popup menu. The discussion view page has been broken up into the following areas:
Discussion information – This top section holds information like the topic title, description text, when it was started (and by who), when the last comment was posted on it (and by who), and who the audience is. For more details on these fields, consult the table below.
Comment area – All comments for the particular discussion will be listed here in reverse chronological order (newest at the top). To delete a comment, click it and select ‘Delete’ from the menu.
Creating a new discussion
To create a new discussion, click the Create New button. Here is a description of the fields:
| Colour | Description |
|---|---|
| Topic title | The topic title will be used on the discussion list page, and in the message which goes to the audience, if you turn the Notify audience setting on (more on that below). Try to keep the title short and descriptive – under 10 words is ideal. |
| Description | This is the body of the discussion topic. Use this area to fully explain the point you are trying to make and the action you want to be taken. There is no word limit on the description field. |
| Sticky | Marking a discussion as ‘sticky’ ensures it will always show at the top of the discussion list page, regardless of its last comment date (the default way with which discussions are sorted). Mark only the most important discussions as sticky. |
| Allow comments | If you want to make an announcement rather than a discussion that staff can comment on, change this setting to ‘No’. Managers can always make comments. |
| Notify audience | If this is set to ‘yes’, all the staff as defined in your audience (see below), will get a new message notifying them of the new discussion. If you set this as ‘no’, the staff will still have access, it will just be reliant upon them logging in and finding the discussion. We recommend leaving this set to ‘Yes’ for important announcements or discussions. |
| Audience | Here, your selections in the audience section define who can view the discussion via their logged in area; to all other staff it will be invisible. If you don’t want any of your staff to view the discussion, select ‘Managers only’. |
Once you have completed the above fields, click the Save button. If Notify audience was set to ‘yes’, all the staff specified in the Audience will be messaged. If Allow comments was set to ‘yes’ your Audience will now be able to comment.
Editing a discussion
To edit a discussion, click on the discussion row and select Edit discussion from the popup menu.
Deleting a discussion
To delete a discussion, click on the discussion row and select Delete discussion from the popup menu.