How to close a discussion and why

[JL23]

This instruction was valid from 2012 to 2016, the new process can be found here: https://blogs.sap.com/2017/08/15/what-to-do-with-my-answered-questions/

Nevertheless I am still the opinion that it is worth to keep this blog for historic reasons 

 

Quick answer for those who don’t want to read the whole blog:

Find your discussion e.g. from top right of the forum by clicking “Browse” then “Content”



 

In the next screen click “Authored” on the left to get all the content that you created yourself shown in the middle of the screen.



 

Then click the subject line of your discussion to open it. (via right mouse click and context menu you can open it in an extra window)

 

If you got a correct answer, then scroll to the answer and click the "Correct Answer" button.



 

Only one answer can be the correct answer!

But you can click the “Helpful answer” button in many answers. Same goes for the “Like” .

 

 

 

If you got no answer or no correct answer and want close this discussion, then you can just click the hyperlink for “assumed answered” which is located directly beneath your subject line




 

 

 

 

 

 

Why  closing a discussion?

 

The why is explained in our forum rules and some really wonderful blogs and discussions, hence I just quote it here with a link to the origin

 

From our rules of engagement: The Rules of Engagement

 

Good Community Netiquette and Behavior

Be Responsive - If your question or problem was answered then please mark the helpful and correct answers as such.  Mark the discussion as “Answered” so that other members can find their answers more easily

 

From  rob.burbank

Step 8(a) – You have your Answer: now what?

Congratulations – you have done everything right and the forum has helped. So post a follow up thanking those that helped. If more than one answer helped, but did not provide the end solution, mention that and also what the solution turned out to be.

Mark helpful answers. Generally, if someone has taken the time to try to help you, press the "like". Helpful answers should be noted and if someone has solved your problem, mark it as such. This gives the responders points and encourages people to help.

Step 8(b) – You got or did not get answers but ended up solving the problem on your own: now what?

Let the forum know that by posting a follow up that includes the solution you found. You may think of the forum just as a place to ask questions but it is really a place where people can exchange ideas. Someone else may come along with the same problem that you had.

 

 

 

Why did I write this blog?

On March 22 we had 35 discussions in the MM forum, and 0 got closed. On March 21 it were 30 discussions but only  5 were marked answered. On March 20, 33 discussion 8 closed. March 13 , only 8 of 39 closed.

 

It looks like that the one or other user does not know how to close his/her discussion technically, because there are questions from users who don’t know how to close their own discussions and had posted this as a question:

http://scn.sap.com/thread/1828929 (How to close questions does not have any reply?)

2673 views as of today

 

Ironically, here the user got several answers but did close the question with "assumed answered",  as if it was unanswered.

 

But I see as well  frequently questions from contributors, like these:

“Is your questions solved? “, “Was the answer helpful? “, “Kindly confirm if this is resolved”

 

An example here:



 

We then can see 2 replies:



 

And the discussion still has the label: “This question is Not Answered.”

Isn't that contradictory?

 

Clicking the button for answer can do wonders.

 

It turns the question mark into a check mark and makes a discussion visible as answered:

 



 

It adds the label This question has been Answered. directly in the question.

And it embeds the correct answer directly in the question:

 



 

 

 

And it adds a green bar at the right to the correct answer in the discussion



 

So all people who read the discussion when searching the forum for answers can immediately see which answers helped and which one was the correct answer and do not need to add a reply their selves with this kind of question (where I actually think that this user was just looking for the green bar and had not even read all replies and not tried the given suggestions, otherwise he would not have asked this):

 



 

 

And if all those readers who found a solution from existing discussions click the LIKE icon



then this can also help other readers to identify valuable replies.

 

 

Now to the end: How to close a discussion:

Please read the blog from the beginning :smile: