Fundamentals > Collaborating with Others > Discussions > Creating Topics
  
Creating Topics
A topic acts as a content heading to help you organize comments according to subject matter. Topics can only be created at the top level (you cannot create a topic within a topic), and do not include attachments. Depending on the preferences set by your administrator, some discussions might include default topics.
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When creating a topic, The Discussions table view can be set to either the Tree View or the Table View. However, topics you create are only visible from the Tree View. For more information, see Changing the Table View.
1. Click the new topic icon on the Discussions table toolbar.
The New Topic window opens.
2. Under the Set Attributes step, enter a name for the topic in the Name field.
3. Select the Subscribe checkbox to receive an email notification whenever a new comment is added to the topic.
4. From the Participants table, click the add participant icon to add participants to the discussion topic. Participants can view and contribute to topics from the My Discussions table, but do not receive email updates when a new comment is added.
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As creator of the topic, you are automatically added as a participant. Additional participants must have access to the object or context to view and contribute the discussion topic.
Users who are not participants can still view and contribute to a discussion, but comments do not appear in their My Discussions table.
While adding participants, you must select the entire group of users. You cannot add group users individually.
5. Click Finish to create the topic, or click Next to write the first comment under the topic:
a. Under the Add Comment step, provide a brief title for your comment in the Subject field. If you leave this field blank, the title No Subject appears above your comment.
b. Write your comment in the Message field. Enter up to 4,000 characters.
c. Select the Subscribe checkbox to receive an email notification whenever a new comment is added in reply to your comment. Click Next.
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If you subscribed to the topic in the previous step, selecting this option results in duplicate notifications when another user replies to your comment.
d. Under the Add Attachments step, click Browse to select up to five local files to upload and post with your comment. Click Next.
e. Under the Add Links step, use the following fields to link to a website or to an object within Windchill:
Link Name—Enter a name for the link.
If you leave this field blank, the full URL path is displayed in your comment.
URL—Enter a path to the link destination.
To link to a website, enter the web address into the URL field.
To link to a Windchill object, click the find icon to open the URL window. Use the search fields provided to locate the object to which you want to link.
f. Click Finish or Apply to create the topic and post your comment.
Click Save Draft to save your comment without posting it. The topic is still created and visible to others, but your comment is visible only to you. For more information, see Posting Draft Comments.
Click a topic name in the Discussions or My Discussions table to view the topic and its associated comments in a new window.
Click the edit topic icon next to a topic to change its name and add or remove participants. For more information, see Editing Topics.