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Have a tough question about an Office program that you just can't find the answer to anywhere? Want to take a look and see who else might be asking the same question? Chances are, you're not the only one asking that question, and better yet, there's a good chance someone has already answered it. An Office Community is an online discussion group where you can interact with fellow Office users, get your questions answered, share ideas, and learn more about the Office products and technologies that interest you.

How do I use the Microsoft discussion groups?

When you access Office Communities from your Office program, or through Microsoft Office Online, Microsoft provides the Web-based Newsreader to make using discussion groups as easy as clicking on a Web page; you don't need to install or configure anything. When you select a discussion group, you can check out interesting posts or search the discussion group to find answers to specific questions. After you sign in to Communities, you can also answer a question, post your own questions to the group, post a suggestion for Microsoft (although not all Communities implement the feedback feature), vote on a suggestion to let Microsoft know you think it's important, sign up for notifications for a post you are interested in, and much more.

All Microsoft discussion groups are available through either the Web-based Newsreader or another Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) (NNTP: Protocol for distributing, inquiring about, retrieving, and posting news articles, using reliable stream-based transmission of news. Designed to store articles in a central database, allowing subscribers to select only those they want to retrieve.) newsreader, such as Outlook Express. Browser-based newsreaders are popular for beginners, because you don't need to install or configure anything. A Web browser is all you need to access discussion groups. Additionally, only the Web-based Newsreader offers the additional features of rating posts, building a reputation, signing up for notifications, or sending feedback to Microsoft.

Do I need to sign in to use Communities?

It isn't necessary to be signed in to Communities to search for posts, read posts, expand threads, or show specific threads in discussion groups. However, there are certain things you can do in discussion groups that require you to sign in. To add your own post, rate posts, or sign up for e-mail notifications, you are required to sign in using a Windows Live™ ID. Signing in helps ensure that you are who you say you are and that no one else can pretend to be you. Because you may build a reputation in the Community by answering questions accurately, and you build other people’s reputations when you rate their answers to your questions, it is important that others can trust that you are who you say are each time you participate in Communities.

Your identity in the Community

One of the benefits of signing in to Communities is the opportunity to share information about yourself with others in the Community and to learn about others who are posting to discussion groups and answering your questions. The information you enter about yourself in your profile, along with the information about your activity in the Community (such as how many posts you have contributed, how many of your posts were rated as "an answer" by the person who posted the question, and more) gives others a sense of your trustworthiness and a way to gauge how valuable your comments might be. The same is true when you view the profiles of others; you can get a feel for how valuable their contributions have been and how much you can trust the information they post to the Community.

If you don’t add any information about yourself to the My Profile page, others will see only statistics about what you have posted (for example, the number of posts you have authored, number of questions you have answered, and so on).

Getting answers to your questions

There are many different ways to find the answers or discussions you want. If you just want to see what types of discussions are available, you may want to browse to become familiar with the discussion groups. Or you may want to show specific threads in a discussion group, such as only answered questions.

If you are after specific information, you can search discussion groups for a post using a specific keyword.

In the Search For box, type the text you want to search for.

Select the discussion group(s) you want to search in the In list. To search across multiple discussion groups, select a discussion group category, such as Excel. By default, the current discussion group is displayed.

Click Go to start your search.

Got a suggestion? Give Microsoft feedback

Frustrated? Got a great idea? Want to see a new feature? A Microsoft Community is a public forum where you can post suggestions for a Microsoft product and see suggestions that others have made. As a community participant, you can submit your own suggestions as well as vote for suggestions others have made. Microsoft uses these votes to help prioritize features in upcoming versions.

You can start by searching for your suggestion in the appropriate discussion group to see if it has already been submitted. If your suggestion already exists, you should add your vote to it instead of posting it again.

Every month, Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes, so it is important to vote for your suggestion if it has already been posted. If you don’t see your suggestion, you may want to refine your search before posting your own suggestion to make sure a similar suggestion does not already exist.

Not all Communities implement the feedback feature. If Suggestion for Microsoft is not available when you create a new post, this feature is not implemented in the current Community.

Get notified when someone replies to a post

When you add a post to a discussion group or see a thread you’re interested in, you can choose to receive an e-mail message (notification) when someone replies to it. With notifications, you can know when information has been added to a particular thread that you are interested in without having to check the thread regularly to see if anyone has responded yet.

The following are some situations where you may want notifications to be sent to you:

You post a question to a discussion group   You can request to receive notification when someone adds a post to your question, allowing you to be notified by e-mail when there is a possible answer.

You find an interesting thread in a discussion group   When you find a thread that contains a subject that you want to known more about, you can sign up to be notified when someone adds a post to the thread.

You post a suggestion for Microsoft   You can request to be notified whenever anyone replies to your suggestion thread, or only when Microsoft replies to your suggestion thread.

By signing in to communities using a .NET Passport, the notification e-mail address you provide is safe and private. This address is stored privately by Microsoft and is not visible in any way to the Community or to any third-party groups, so you can use your real e-mail address for notifications without fear of receiving unsolicited messages (spam).

How do I know which posts are worth reading?

A helpful feature of the Web-based Newsreader is the ability to rate any post in a discussion group. Posts can be rated by anyone as "helpful" (or not helpful) and are identified as such in the Web-based Newsreader.

Also, the person who posts a question can rate any posted replies as "an answer" (or not an answer) and answers are also identified as such in the Web-based Newsreader. You can let others in the Community know whether they should bother reading a post or not by rating posts. If you find the information in a post useful, chances are that other people will too. Also, when you want to know whether a post is helpful and recommended by others, you can show only posts that have been marked as helpful (rated as helpful by others). You can also show only posts that have been rated as "an answer" by the person who posted the question.

What are Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs)?

MVPs are individuals from around the globe recognized by Microsoft for their demonstrated technical expertise and active participation in Microsoft peer-to-peer communities like discussion groups. These individuals represent a wide variety of backgrounds and professions, but they share the basic characteristics of having very strong technical skills in one or more Microsoft products or technology areas and the willingness to share that knowledge with others. MVPs are recognized for their past contributions to one or more online communities and many times are also prominent authors, developers, industry "gurus" or speakers.

Where to learn more

To learn more about using the Web-based Newsreader in Office Communities, visit Office Communities and take a look around. You can also learn more by clicking the Help link in the upper-right corner of the Web-based Newsreader.

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