Is there a way to use suggested topics on the Ask a Question button?

Question

When using the ask a question button you are presented with this pop up:

image2016-6-22 10:55:43.png

Is there a way that the topics box can generate suggestions?

So that the questions coming in are all notifying the correct people.

Thanks,

Joe

image2016-6-22 10:55:43.png

TomC · Accepted Answer

Hi Joe,  There are some ways that Questions can help generate suggestions for topics:

1.) You can set specified topics as 'featured'. Do that in the Topics page (I believe you need admin rights to set those).

2.) Popular topics are auto-generated and displayed.

See examples of both of those in the below screenshot:

QuestionsAsk.jpg

Additionally, as your topics grow, topic suggestions come up as one types in the topics box. Sometimes similar topics are created by various people, so periodic 'gardening' by a person or team to rationalize topics can keep things organized somewhat. Questions obviously is a crowd-sourced thing so there is a bit of the herding cats aspect when it comes to topics creation when hundreds or thousands of people engage with it, but generally it works. Featured topics are a good consideration if you have a few topics du jour that you want to drive questions to, such as large ongoing projects that you want to invite questions on.

3. There are also 'suggestions as you type' in the topics box, once there are topics to pull from (as your Questions instance grows, this will naturally occur). The number of questions per topic - which you can see adjacent to the topic suggestions - can sometimes be a guide to the user as to which topic(s) to choose or not choose, especially if two or 'close'.  In this case, I'd go with the top option with 10 questions vs the near 'sap-portal-training' with 0 questions which likely has fewer or no 'watchers'. (indeed, this screenshot suggests there are a few topics to investigate and perhaps delete, i.e. the topics with no questions).

QuestionsSuggest.jpg