Creating discussion board topic

Creating a plan topic for discussion

1. From the Plans tab select the plan you wish to add items to.
2. The plan will appear on the right.
3. Select the Add a Plan topic button.
4. Create plan topic window will appear enter the following details:
• Title - enter a descriptive title that can be used to identify the plan topic .
• Text - enter a description for the plan to help assist communication within your organisation. The text is not visible to participants.
• Visibility - you can set the visibility to one of the following:
• Public - a public plan topic means that all posts by participants in reply to this item will be visible to other participants, moderators and observers.
• Private - a private plan topic means that posts by participants in reply to this topic will only be visible to that participant, the moderator and any observers.
• Reveal - a reveal topic is a topic which starts out as a private view only topic, this means the participant can only see the topic and no other participant comments or replies. Once the participant has posted a comment on the topic it will reveal all the other comments and replies added by other participants in the discussion.
5. Participant variables once selected will reveal a number of place holders which can be added in your discussion topics to bring across and display participant information. You can use these variables to address individuals in your topics or, as shown in the example below, add some participant information to a survey to identify the individual who completed each survey by clicking a link from the discussion board. 
6. To add an Image select the Add Image button under the Images section. Select the browse button and your computer's file explorer window will be displayed. Locate and select the required image.
   
   Please note: The image must either be in the format of jpeg, gif or png.
   
   
7. Add a short image label. This is the name of the image as it will be displayed to the participants.
   
   
8. To add a video select the Add video button under the Video section. Select the browse button and your computer's file explorer window will be displayed. Locate and select the required image.
   
   Please note: The video must either be in the format of MP4, MPG4 or FLV format. Files must not be larger than 50mb.
   
   
9. Add a short video label. This is the name of the video as it will be displayed to the participants. On selecting the video thumb nail created the video will start to play in the topic.
   
   
10. To add a file select the browse button and your computer's file explorer window will be displayed. Locate and select the required file.
    
    Please note: You can currently upload Pdf, Excel, Word and PowerPoint files to your plan topic. The file will be presented as an icon for the file type you have uploaded, and when clicked in the discussion board will download the selected file to the participants desktop or mobile device. 
    
    
11. To add an instant poll select the Add a poll  button. Enter you questions and enter the answer options you wish to present.  
    
    Please note: The poll is created by copying the poll from the topic when the board topic is posted (this ensures you can reuse the plan without affecting the current board results. The effect of this is that you can add a poll to a plan topic before it's posted on the board, but not once the topic has been posted.
    
    
12. Select the Create plan item button to add the item to the plan OR Cancel to be returned to the current view. Once saved the Plan item will now be displayed under the plans table on the right.
    
    
13. From the plan topic table, for each plan item, you can now perform the following actions View, Edit, Copy and Delete.