Using vBulletin Forum software on the company Intranet, inside the firewall to provide a Q&A resource

[TLMD]

Is anyone else using vBulletin for this purpose?

Personally I know of 2 companies that use forum software for their intranet. I have to admit, they are not using vBulletin, but their decision (to use a forum software) was the same.

How is it working for you? What have you learned?

In general forum software provides a great possibility for flexible interactions/communication between employees. Since you are explicitly talking about "fielding questions from employees about a variety of things", this might actually be a good way to go. People can open topics, they can get answered by others... plus you can organize your "discussion platform" by creating topic-specific forums. The powerful permission system, that comes with a forum software, helps to authorize who is able to see certain content (and who is not). vB also offers to create blogs, groups and – with vB 5.1.0 – articles, so this gives you even more ways to customize the platform, depending on what you actually need.

What kinds of unanticipated problems have you run into?

All the usual problems, that come with a software in general (though they are not really unanticipated): potentially there are bugs, software needs maintenance etc.

Of course this is just general feedback of mine, but I wanted to tell you that your idea isn't that unusual. I'd recommend you to try the vB5 demo (when it is back online again) to get a feeling about how forum software "works".

[Dick in Wisconsin]

We're looking for a method of fielding questions from company employees about a variety things; the staff always has tons of questions. We think that "forum software" might be a great application for this.

Is anyone else using vBulletin for this purpose? How is it working for you? What have you learned? What kinds of unanticipated problems have you run into?

Thanks!

Dick