SharePoint Discussion Column

I recently had the opportunity to try out SharePoint Discussion Column and was impressed with the functionality that it provided. This custom column allows users to record their discussions when they are editing an item, and then those records can be listed in chronological order. The discussion contents and discussants' names can also be included, making it easy to keep track of the conversation.

One of the biggest benefits of SharePoint Discussion Column is that it eliminates the need to choose "create version each time you edit an item in the list" when you want to select the "Append Changes to Existing Text" option of Rich text column. This is a huge time saver and makes it easy to append comments and discussion without the risk of replacing others.

However, SharePoint's out-of-the-box Multiple lines of text column has a couple of defects. First, you must enable version creation when item edited, which isn't always the best solution. Second, every time you edit the item, a new record is produced in the record history of this column, regardless of whether the input content is empty or not. This can quickly become frustrating for users who have to wade through a lot of empty records.

Overall, I found SharePoint Discussion Column to be a valuable addition to my software toolkit. It's easy to use, provides a lot of useful features, and eliminates the need for workarounds that can slow down productivity. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a better way to manage discussions and keep track of changes in their SharePoint environment.