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Questions and Answers

Summary

This is an application that supports Questions & Answers through a web part that can be used directly on a Modern SharePoint Site without the need for Yammer or a backing Microsoft Team site. It relies on a backing SharePoint list that is hidden and a provisioned Site Page that hosts a pre-configured version of the questions web part.

Compatibility

⚠️ Important
Every SPFx version is only compatible with specific version(s) of Node.js. In order to be able to build this sample, please ensure that the version of Node on your workstation matches one of the versions listed in this section. This sample will not work on a different version of Node.
Refer to https://aka.ms/spfx-matrix for more information on SPFx compatibility.

Applies to

Prerequisites

Office 365 subscription with SharePoint Online
SharePoint Framework development environment set up

Contributors

Bo George (@bo_george), Mike Homol (@homol)

Version history

Version	Date	Comments
1.0	September 13, 2020	Initial release
2.0	March, 22, 2021	Version 2.0 with new features and new editor based on TinyMCE. This change has new list schema dependencies so you will need remove and re-add the app if you installed version 1.0. See below for more on what's new in 2.o

Minimal Path to Awesome

Clone this repository
in the command line run:
- npm install
- gulp serve

This sample can also be opened with VS Code Remote Development. Visit https://aka.ms/spfx-devcontainer for further instructions.

Slightly Longer Path to More Awesome

To really get the full experience go to the workbench on a SharePoint Site [Your site url]/_layouts/15/workbench.aspx and that's where the magic will happen but this requires that you deploy and activate features to provision the required SharePoint assets

Run one of the following custom commands to clean, build, bundle and package the solution.
- If you want to be able to debug using your local code using gulp serve gulp package
Navigate to the output questions-application.sppkg (found in the /sharepoint/solution folder)
Upload it to an application catalog (either a tenant or site collection one)
In your site collection go to Site Contents and click New > App
Find and add the Questions Application App
- wait for it to finish installing and activating features on the Site Contents page
Go to a site page like home, edit the page and find and add the Questions web part
- If you deployed a shippable (SharePoint Online) version you don't need to do anything else
- If you deployed a debug (http://localhost:4321) version you'll need to ensure gulp serve is running

Features in Version 1

Below is intended to provide “notable” details on different features. Notable meaning, they may be different than a typical expectation or require clarification. For all features see “Features based Questions Role” to understand if they are available for a specific role.

Questions

Feature	Details
Search for a Question	After 3 characters are entered in the search box the list of questions will filter based on matching somewhere in the question title
Show List of Questions by All, Answered or Open	Allows a user when viewing the list of Questions to only show those that are answered or not answered (open) in addition to seeing all.
View a Question and Replies
Ask a Question	Title and details are required to Post
Edit a Question	Title and details are required to Post. Available on Gear icon.
Delete a question	Deletes the question (and replies when done by moderator). Available on Gear icon.
Follow/Unfollow a Question	Filled envelop if followed & empty envelop if not followed for the current user. Used to drive email notification on questions.
Like/Unlike a Question	Filled thumbs if liked & empty thumbs if not. Count should be for all likes on the Question but not including replies.

Replies

Feature	Details
Reply to a Question or Reply
Edit a Reply
Delete a Reply	Deletes the reply (and replies when done by moderator). Available on Gear icon.
Like/Unlike a Reply	Filled thumbs if liked & empty thumbs if not.
Mark/Unmark a Reply as Helpful	Filled star if liked & empty star if not. Count should be for all helpful items on the Reply but not including replies
Mark/Unmark a Reply as Correct Answer	When marked as correct answer a banner will show with “CORRECT ANSWER”. Copy of reply is promoted just below question so that long thread doesn’t have to be viewed for the answer. Unmarking will remove the banner and the copy of reply promoted to the to of the thread. Available on Gear icon.

User Roles Overview

The Questions web part relies on the standard SharePoint Groups and the permissions they are granted.

Questions Role	SharePoint Group	Details
Moderator	Site owners	Users in this group are treated as moderators of Questions with additional capabilities and notifications than others outlined below.
Contributor	Site members	Users in this group are treated as “typical” users and considered contributors to questions by default.
Viewer	Site visitors	By default, users in this group can only view questions and replies.
Contributor	Site visitors	Within the web part there is a toggle that allows a Site owner to grant visitors the same capabilities as a site member on questions. When set to ‘Yes’ site visitors are considered contributors to questions.

Features based Questions Role

The table below shows what features and capabilities a user can perform for each role. Where a feature is dynamic (such as questions entered by others or me) separate line items call out the different behaviors.

Feature	Moderator	Contributor	Viewer
Questions
Search for a Question	Yes	Yes	Yes
View a list of Questions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Show List of Questions by All, Answered or Open	Yes	Yes	Yes
View a Question and Replies	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ask a Question	Yes	Yes	No
Edit a Question - Entered by me	Yes	Yes	No
Edit a Question - Entered by others	No	No	No
Delete a question - Entered by me with no replies	Yes	Yes	No
Delete a question - Entered by me with replies	Yes	No	No
Delete a question - Entered by others with no replies	Yes	No	No
Delete a question - Entered by others with replies	Yes	No	No
Follow/Unfollow a Question	Yes	Yes	No
Like/Unlike a Question	Yes	Yes	No
Replies
Reply to a Question or Reply	Yes	Yes	No
Edit a Reply - Entered by me	Yes	Yes	No
Edit a Reply - Entered by others	No	No	No
Delete a Reply - Entered by me with no replies	Yes	Yes	No
Delete a Reply - Entered by me with replies	Yes	No	No
Delete a Reply - Entered by others with no replies	Yes	No	No
Delete a Reply - Entered by others with replies	Yes	No	No
Like/Unlike a Reply	Yes	Yes	No
Mark/Unmark a Reply as Helpful	Yes	Yes	No
Mark/Unmark a Reply as Correct Answer - Question entered by me	Yes	Yes	No
Mark/Unmark a Reply as Correct Answer - Question entered by others	Yes	No	No

Summary of Features added in Version 2

Upgraded editor to support:
- use TinyMCE standalone as a replacement for primereact
- embedding of images in questions, conversations and replies
- at mention users within editor
Introduced "Conversations" which are behave like Questions without the ability to:
- Mark a reply as Helpful
- Mark a reply as the correct answer
Add ability to categorize questions which:
- allows a single site to have questions on many different topics and filter them as necessary
Make the Questions list visible and searchable
- added extension which intercepts list item url and redirects to the appropriate questions or conversations page with threaded replies
Bug fixes with dates

Disclaimer

THIS CODE IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

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