For Standard, Professional and Enterprise Plans, the OPTIONAL Discussions feature is an easy way for your members to communicate with each other. A Discussion can include everyone, or be limited to a board/committee. Participants in a Discussion thread can post their comments from inside the portal, or directly from their email. There are no special permissions required to take part in a Discussion thread. And participants have the opportunity to unsubscribe from a Discussion.

Creating a Discussion

To start a new Discussion:

1. Navigate to Discussions on the sidebar menu.
2. Click +Start Discussion.
3. Ensure the correct participant group is selected by clicking into the "Participants" field and choosing the group you wish to include in this discussion thread. Note: everyone in the group selected will receive notification of this new discussion via an email.
4. Add your "Discussion Topic" as a phrase or sentence and write the text of your discussion in the "Body" field, then click Save. Note: both fields are required and cannot be left blank. There is no limit on the amount of text you can write into the "Body" section.
5. In the "Ready to start this discussion?" popup box, ensure the appropriate people are checked and click Start Discussion.

Start a new Discussion

Viewing Discussions

Participating in a Discussion from inside the portal

1. Navigate to Discussions on the sidebar menu.
2. Click the blue title of the Discussion you wish to open.
3. You can view all comments in this Discussion and add a comment of your own in the "Add a comment" field. Note: Discussion comments are shown in order and will include the commenter's name as well as when the comment was submitted.

Read a Discussion thread

Participating in a Discussion from your email inbox

1. Navigate to your email inbox.
2. Open the email and from the email body you can click the Reply button to write an email reply. Alternately you can click the View Discussion button to enter the portal and add a comment there. *Note: All email notifications for each thread will use the "Discussion Topic" as the subject. Recipients will receive an unread email notification for each new comment posted.

Reply to a Discussion

Unsubscribing from a Discussion

Opting Out of a Discussion email thread

1. Navigate to Discussions on the sidebar menu.
2. Click the blue title of the Discussion you wish to unsubscribe from.
3. On the right side of the screen, click the button of the bell symbol.

Unsubscribed is grey

Note: If the button is greyed out, you are unsubscribed and will not receive comment notifications.

Subscribed is blue

Note: If the button is blue, you are subscribed and will receive comment notifications.

A few Discussion feature rules

• Discussions is an OPTIONAL feature because some nonprofit organizations must treat written communications as official records that require public disclosure. If your Standard, Professional, or Enterprise Plan organization wishes to enable or disable Discussions please contact support@boardspot.com.
• Discussions cannot be ended or removed from the portal.
• Discussions are organized by group (a specific board/committee, or Everyone). To discuss a topic with multiple groups you will need to post multiple Discussions.
• When a Discussion is started, all participants of a group (a specific board/committee, or Everyone) will receive an initial notification email.
• Discussions in private committees are private and only accessible by the members of that group.
• Discussions in public committees are visible to everyone who can access that committee and those people can subscribe to that discussion.
• Discussion emails are threaded according to the recipient's inbox threading settings.
• If a profile has an additional notification email set (Professional & Enterprise Plans) then discussion thread notifications will be sent to that additional email address as well.
• The subject of all email notifications will be the initial "Discussion Topic".
• Recipients will receive an unread email notification for each new comment posted unless the recipient individually unsubscribes.
• The person who initiates a Discussion can unsubscribe from the email notifications for comments in this Discussion.

More Questions? Chat with us

Updated on: 02/09/2025