Managed Online Discussion Forum

Encourage members, clients and colleagues to keep in touch and share ideas with you and each other through your own on-line discussion forum.

Key benefits

• On-line discussions support off-line networking and learning by helping to maintain momentum and providing a platform for both informal and formal mind-share.
• Implementation is relatively quick and straightforward and eliminates the need for in-house technical development.
• "Look and feel" and content are highly customisable and can be tailored to meet specific requirements.
• Access can be optionally password-protected to assure exclusivity for group members.
• Users can be easily updated on-line, ensuring ongoing accuracy of records.
• New postings can be automatically emailed to all registered users with a direct link to the on-line forum to post a reply.

Cost-savings may be gained through:

• Reducing both in-house development and support costs
• Outsourcing of database administration.

Service Description

The Coaching & Mentoring Network's on-line discussion forum service may be used to support any types of discussion. Fully customisable, you choose the topics and the layout and we do the rest!

Managed services

The Coaching & Mentoring Network offers various levels of managed support, according to your requirements and based on the following elements.

Hosting service

The software is hosted on the Coaching & Mentoring Network's web server but accessed seamlessly through your website. Users will not be aware that they are accessing a third-party site. Access to the service may be password-protected if required.

The software remains in the ownership of the Coaching & Mentoring Network who also provide all technical support.

The on-line discussion forum is highly customisable and will be integrated with your website "look and feel". Colour schemes, title graphics, page icons and navigation buttons can all be replaced with your own designs.

The Coaching & Mentoring Network provides a password-protected on-line interface for the entry, management and removal of user records. This allows you to manage and maintain the database internally.

Facilitation services

1. User administration. The Coaching & Mentoring Network can take responsibility for the addition, editing and deletion of users, including any difficulties gaining access to the forum (for instance forgotten passwords).
2. Discussion facilitation. The Network can provide a "low-profile" facilitation service, including prompting discussions which are not progressing, advising of inappropriate behaviour, re-focusing discussions which have become side-tracked or excessively dominated by personal views, closing old or outdated discussions and starting new threads where required. Prompting usually takes the form of questioning rather than detailed information input.

To try it for yourself, register free for our own on-line Discussion Forum.