Advanced Lesson 5: Discussions and Email

Email discussions or conversations are a routine part of any workplace.  But often the information contained in the emails becomes lost in one person’s inbox – r worse, is deleted from everyone’s inbox.  With Workspace’s discussion tool, you can reliably store important email conversations in Workspace.  The following tutorial will show you how to add and use discussions and will show you other ways that email and Workspace can interact.

In Workspace, a discussion allows specific groups of people to discuss - via email – any topic. A discussion has its own email address and a list of discussion recipients. Any messages that are posted to the discussion are automatically sent to each recipient’s email address as well as being stored within the discussion.  Using Workspace discussions helps reduce inbox clutter by storing important email threads.

When a message is sent to a discussion, a thread is started. Recipients can reply to an email by clicking Reply All from their email client or by navigating to the discussion and clicking Reply.  Since the reply contains the same subject, related emails are contained in a single thread.

You can send emails to the discussion using either the Add Message and Reply options within Workspace, or you can send messages directly from your email client (such as Thunderbird). Attachments can only be sent using your email client.

Many Workspaces already have discussion, but if you need to add a discussion, it’s simple.  Navigate to where you would like to place the discussion.  In the Add section of the command bar, click More Item…then click Discussion.  Fill in the form; if you give the discussion an easy-to-remember name it will be easier for discussion recipients – otherwise a random number will be assigned.  Then select the discussion recipients.  You can select fellow Workspace user as well as external users.  Separate multiple addresses with a comma.  Non-Workspace users can participate in discussion, although they will not be able to navigate to the discussion itself.  They will only be able to participate using their email client.

When you receive a message as part of a discussion, remember to click Reply All to add to the discussion.  If you do not click Reply All, the message will not be saved in Workspace.

Non-Workspace user can also add content to Workspace by emailing messages and attachments to any folder – each folder has an e-mail address, and can accept email from anyone, even if they do not have a Workspace account.  This can be helpful if you are working on a project with someone who does not use Workspace.  Instead of filling your inbox with attachment, have them email the attachments directly to the pertinent folders in Workspace.

Similarly, if you’ve been have an email conversation with a client and you think your coworkers should be apprised of the situation, you can email any important messages or message threads to any Workspace folder.  That way your colleagues will know what is going on.

Now that you’ve learned about discussions and email in Workspace, watch the next video tutorial about Web Folders.