How to tag users in Discussion board in SharePoint 2013/2016

If you need to mention a user in discussion list in SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016 then you have landed on right place. In this article we will have a look on how to tag users in discussion board in SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint 2016.

 

What is tagging a user in SharePoint

When you reply a discussion in Site Feed and and you want to mention someone specifically then you usually type @ and then SharePoint gives you suggestings. this is called tagging a user in Site Feed. 

When we want to tag a user in discussion board then it simply does not work because SharePoint discussion board is a list. When you are replying to a discussion in SharePoint discussion board then you are creating an item int list. So how to get tagging working for discussion board?

 

Tagging a user in discussion board in SharePoint

In order for you to be able to tag a user in discussion board, you need to need to enable community site feature. So go to site settings >> Manage Site Features  and activate Community site feature.

Once you have community site feature activated, you can tag a user in discussion board if your privacy setting allows you to do this.

Go to your my site, click on  edit your profile and go to Newsfeed Settings and lets have a look on below privacy settings.

 

In order for a user to be able to tag a user in SharePoint discussion board, user must check below two checkboxes in "Activities i want to share in my news feed"

1. Tagging an Item
2. Participation in communities

These settings are specific to user profile. Check both checkboxes and save your changes.

Wait for some time and then restart your browser and open the discussion again. try replying the discussion and enter @ and see you should be able to see suggestions.

 

What happens if user who is trying to tag do not have above two checkboxes checked, Well, In that case user will get below message.

"fyi, you can only mention someone when you are sharing your community activities".