We are Programatically creating a Discussion List Post/Topic (using JavaScript) based on an entry in a custom list. The idea is to synchronize this Discussion List with Outlook. That does happen correctly, but I cannot reply to these correctly from Outlook. Here is what I have observed:
Click Here to see the image (I don't have enough Points to post an Image yet ... Sorry!!!)
When I add the Topic "6" or "11" in the Discussion List they do get added properly and the field Subject (Internal Name = "Title") shows the correct value. Behind the scenes a hidden field "Title" (Internal Name = LinkTitle") also gets updated with some unique value, which seems based on the internal ID of the list item. Every discussion topic is a Folder internally - and this folder name actually the "Title" field (which is hidden, not in the default view).
So to access the discussion topic "6" in my first highlight from the above image, I would need to go to the URL .../Lists/Discussion_Board/4_000 instead of the URL .../Lists/Discussion_Board/6
All of this is fine and I can work with this. I can even sync this discussion board with outlook so that my SharePoint Application can get users to collaborate directly from Outlook. But now if users try to reply to the topics in Outlook, it gets screwed up - putting the reply in another topic. All the replies from outlook go only to this newly created duplicate topic. See my second highlight in the above image.
The "Title" field shows the reason why they were duplicated. Looks like Outlook needs that to be the same as the "Subject". Or maybe Outlook is just incorrectly updating the reply to the wrong URL .../Lists/Discussion_Board/6.
So, I create a discussion post programmatically creating one type of URL notation ("Title" field value) which is correct, but Outlook posts replies using a different type or URL Notation which is wrong - and this causes duplication which will confuse end-users.
This puts me against the wall - my requirement is to have a discussion populated automatically, and have the option for users to post to it using Outlook as well. I am new to SharePoint development so I could have missed a step somewhere.
Any suggestions or recommendations?
PS: Have posted the same question on the Microsoft TechNet forum. Click here to see it.
