Hi,how is it possible to setup a Discussion Board in which the person that initially started the discussion is notified automatically when someone responds to his/her discussion?The first issue here is, that I don't see an option to have an automatic Email notification setup for a user. I think SharePoint only provides a method to let users setup their Notifications. I need something, so that for the user which started the discussion the Email notification is setup automatically.The second problem I have with Email notifications is, that if a user creates a notification rule that says notify me, as soon as someone else changes an item created by me, that by SharePoint responses are not recognized as "changes".How can I solve these issues? Are there third-party tools that might provide a solution?

You may create a workflow for your Discussion Board with SharePoint Designer 2007(SPD) to send email to the one who created the discussion whenever message is created or changed. 1. Open your SharePoint site in SPD, click File->New->Workflow; 2. Specify the name of your discussion (suppose it is “discussion”) board to attach the workflow to; uncheck allow workflow to start manually and check both start workflow when item is created and changed; click next; 3. Click Conditions->compare discussion field, and set the condition to be: If Content Type equals Message. (The discussion board contains two content type: discussion and message. Since SPD workflow cannot be associated specific content type, you may put a condition before send email activity so that email only send out to discussion creator by changing of message); 4. Click Actions->Send an Email->this message; 5. In the “Define Email message” dialog, click the button to the right of “To” address box, this would bring out “Select Users” dialog; 6. In the left list box of “Select Users” dialog, double click “workflow lookup …”, “Define Workflow lookup ” dialog would appear; 7. In the “Source” field of “Define Workflow lookup” dialog, choose the list name of your discussion board (“discussion”); 8. In the “Field” field of “Define Workflow lookup” dialog, choose “Created By”; 9. In the second “Field” field of “Define Workflow lookup” dialog, choose “Discussion:ID”; 10. In the “Value” field of “Define Workflow lookup” dialog, click “fx” button to is right, another “Define Workflow lookup” dialog would appear; choose “current item” and “Parent Folder ID” and click OK, then the “Value” field of the first “Define Workflow lookup” dialog would be “Discussion:Parent Folder ID”;click OK to save the “Define workflow lookup” dialog; 11. Click OK to save the “Select Users” dialog; the “To” field of the “Define E-mail message” dialog would be “discussion:Created by”; In short, step 4-10 means to send an email to the creator of the discussion for the current message; 12. You can further define the “Subject” and “Body” part of the email; 13. Click finish to save the workflow. For more about define workflow lookup dialog, see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102378301033.aspx

It seems a little short sigted that an automatic alert feature isn't included in a SharePoint discussion list.

some idea about SharePoint 2010 discussion alerts: https://skydrive.live.com/?id=6F40FB61D28CF147!910&cid=6f40fb61d28cf147&#!/view.aspx?cid=6F40FB61D28CF147&resid=6F40FB61D28CF147%21910 update: about how the messages are related to discussion: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=6F40FB61D28CF147&id=6F40FB61D28CF147%21615#!/view.aspx?cid=6F40FB61D28CF147&resid=6F40FB61D28CF147%21911

some idea about SharePoint 2010 discussion alerts: https://skydrive.live.com/?id=6F40FB61D28CF147!910&cid=6f40fb61d28cf147&#!/view.aspx?cid=6F40FB61D28CF147&resid=6F40FB61D28CF147%21910