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Flock vs. Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Flock

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AFlock is a collaborative business messaging application, designed to compete with Slack. The app is presented as a fast and reliable means of communication, and is available in a free edition for teams of up to twenty members.

    $0

    for teams of 1-20 members

    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

    Score9.1 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Social Squared is a SharePoint Discussion Board App that can be deployed across SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Social Squared improves productivity and efficiency by providing structured discussion forums for employee and student discussions. For Microsoft SharePoint Social Squared is a SharePoint discussion board application where users can post questions within relevant forums and receive answers to their questions from subject matter experts. The…

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Pricing
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Editions & Modules
    Starter
    $0
    for teams of 1-20 members
    Pro
    $6
    per month per user (ideal for teams of 20-100 users)
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    for organizations of 100+ members
    Social Squared Discussion Board
    From $2200
    per year per installation
    Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year per installation
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual pricing.Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Considered Both Products
    Titan.Mail
    No answer on this topic
    Lightning Tools
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Flock and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Flock
    7.8
    13 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Task Management8.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gantt Charts6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling8.810 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation8.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access9.213 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Search6.811 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Visual planning tools6.48 Ratings00 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Flock and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Flock
    8.4
    13 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Chat9.613 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Notifications9.313 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Discussions9.213 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Surveys8.19 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase6.77 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook6.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Flock and Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Feature
    Flock
    7.1
    12 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Versioning7.28 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Video files6.310 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Audio files6.310 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Document collaboration8.112 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Access control7.39 Ratings9.11 Ratings
    Advanced security features6.49 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device sync8.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Small Businesses
    Superhuman Docs
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (13 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (7 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FlockLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Titan.Mail
    Flock is very well suited in scenarios where individuals must communicate via chat. It also works great when teams need to communicate via group chat messages. File and document sharing is another area where Flocks works well. Channels are used for discussions on specific topics or organization-wide announcements. Flock may be less appropriate when you use it for voice and video calls. Where.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    Their customer service it top notch and always responsive. I struggled in the beginning a little bit because I'm not tech savvy and we had to add it to our SharePoint site but they helped me along the way and even had share screen meetings with me to assist!!
    Read full review
    Pros
    Titan.Mail
    • Networked phones are a thing of past now. We don’t have to stop what we are doing to receive phone calls currently because Flock can do that
    • It is now easy to send messages to many people at the same time, all we need to do is to add all the contants in the chat and select all to send a message
    • This software has an in-built to-do-list which allows us to assign tasks to different people or users and then supervise each independently
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • Organizing Data
    • Opens up discussion, whether publicly or anonymously
    • Easy to setup
    Read full review
    Cons
    Titan.Mail
    • A tool is only good if people use it. Some of the artists I work with found it too complex (though I don't think they really gave it a good shot).
    • We used it heavily for about six months and it didn't hit too many other big negative points.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • I would love to be able to assign various people as administrators of different topics (this may be an option now but a couple years ago it wasn't)
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Titan.Mail
    We would likely to renew use of Flock for our organization since it meets most of the requirements of team collboration and communication for a small group like us. Most of our Flock users like it's features and use it extensively for day-to-day work. We are quite optimistic about it's future updates.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Titan.Mail
    It is good to give what an app deserves, Flock is very efficient and effective app to manage the all day to day activities and communicate across all team members, create groups, share files, send reminders schedule reminders for each group or persons and share notes.Pin files and search any messages from anyone with advanced filters. It's a great app.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    Our employees really like the fact that they can find things easily with the search feature and add questions and comments as they see fit.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Titan.Mail
    We've only needed customer support a few times with Flock (mainly concerning app integration and security), and they've always been timely and helpful, which are the only things I truly need from support. The response rate was still rapid, and there's plenty of support available online as well for Flock.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Titan.Mail
    Flock as mentioned takes the best of all these apps and improves upon them. Flock's UI was exactly what we were looking for and Flock doesn't overcharge small teams for search functional or messaging. It just offers a great product at a great price combined with great support. Their chat ticket system works almost immediately.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Titan.Mail
    • Organizing notes manually has been drastically reduced. Flock folders and chats are perfect for keeping each file separate.
    • We have not missed one calendar event with Flocks integration of our Google Calendar.
    • Being able to cut out or $99/month case management software has saved a ton of money each month.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • We signed up for a 3 year contract and hope to do another 3yr contract when this one is up. :)
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Flock Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot

    Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board Screenshots

    Screenshot of MODERN, RESPONSIVE SHAREPOINT DISCUSSION BOARD
Discussion Forums can be created for a variety of different reasons. This example is a Forum Group for the Microsoft 365 technologies such as Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. Forums are then created within the Forum Groups for more specific discussions. Under the SharePoint Forum Group, there is a Forum for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online. Anyone looking to ask a question regarding SharePoint 2019 for example would be able to post their question under SharePoint On-Premises rather than SharePoint Online. This also allows subject matter experts to focus more on the questions that they can respond to and provide value.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT DISCUSS BOARD – TOPICS VIEW
When navigating into a forum, the topics and discussions that are taking place are shown. Any new topics that not yet read will be highlighted. It also displays whether topics have been answered, their average ratings, how many views and posts are within the topic, and also provides the ability to subscribe to the forum to be notified of new posts within it.Screenshot of READING DISCUSSIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Social Squared offers a threaded discussion view with the ability to provide feedback to other users.

Posts can be rated, voted upon, or liked by users in order to give feedback to the user creating or responding to a post. Additionally, replies can be marked as answered or marked as featured, which gives readers of forums assurance that the response they are reading is validated to be the correct answer.

Users also receive feedback through the earning of badges. The more users post or mark posts as answered, the more points are rewarded. This makes it easy to spot subject matter experts.Screenshot of SUGGESTED TAGS
Social Squared provides a rich text editor for creating and replying to topics. The Rich Text toolbar provides functionality such as inserting images, YouTube videos, Stream Videos, Formatted Code Inserts, as well as font formatting.

While typing, suggestions on how to tag a post appear. Selecting an existing tag will provide consistency in the tags used making it easier for other users to discover the post.Screenshot of SOCIAL SQUARED TAG CLOUD VIEW
The Social Squared Tag Cloud view makes it easy to navigate to posts within a specific category even if they span multiple forums. The more a tag appears in different posts, the more prominent it will be in the tag cloud. Users can navigate to posts with the tag in one click.Screenshot of DISCUSSION BOARD WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS TAB
Social Squared is a Discussion Board App for Microsoft Teams Tab’s and Microsoft Teams Personal Apps. Social Squared provides information workers the ability to post questions within relevant forums, and receive answers from their team. The Discussion Board layout for posts makes it easier to find answers to questions that may have already been asked before. Through features such as “Mark as Answered”, “Forum Moderation”, “Post Rating”, “Post Likes”, “Post Voting”, users will be assured that the answers they are reading are validated.