Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board vs. Notion

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Score 10.0 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…
$1,950
per year per installation
Notion
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Notion aims to present users with an all-in-one workspace — for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, from Notion Labs in San Francisco.
$5
per month per user
Pricing
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Editions & Modules
Social Squared Discussion Board
From $1950
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Plus (includes Charts / Data Viewer)
From $2500
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
POA
per year per installation
Personal Pro
$48
per year per user
Team
$96
per year per user
Enterprise
Custom
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. 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
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Notion
8.4
22 Ratings
7% above category average
Task Management00 Ratings9.320 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings9.213 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings7.614 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings6.612 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings9.418 Ratings
Search00 Ratings7.721 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.716 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Notion
8.6
20 Ratings
7% above category average
Chat00 Ratings7.87 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings8.016 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings8.011 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings9.717 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.88 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Notion
8.4
21 Ratings
4% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings9.112 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings7.515 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings7.111 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.321 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings7.913 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings9.213 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings9.911 Ratings
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Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Likelihood to Recommend
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(27 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardNotion
Likelihood to Recommend
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Notion Labs, Inc
Notion is good for a plethora of use cases. The templates that it offers give just a few established pages for common uses but these are some of my favorites:
  • Kanban board: we use it a lot in my company to manage tasks and meetings
  • Note taking: whether in a professional or academic environment, Notion is well suited to take notes of everything regardless.
  • Software documentation: the "code" component to insert code snippets is perfect for creating tutorials and documentation for software development.
  • Finance control: I use the "my finances" template to have a proper following of my monthly transactions, which allowed me to be more responsible with my money.
  • Inventory management: Since I own multiple peripherals and general equipment, being able to have a portable inventory of all of it that includes their original value, warranty length and current state has been perfect to know when clean, maintain or straight up replace everything.
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Pros
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Notion Labs, Inc
  • Team Collaboration. In Notion's software is the ability to see precisely who is working on a project and where. This eliminates any confusion when on calls or when working on the same project simultaneously. It is easy to tag co-workers to precise moments and build conversation streams.
  • Text Coding. When transitioning text from our Notion ideation and drafting boards to our website backends, the coding holds on all of the text.
  • Organization. Whether it's utilizing a "pin board" set up or nestling pages within pages, it is possible to keep everything organized and easy to find for every member of your team.
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Cons
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Notion Labs, Inc
  • The increase in integrations with third parties will always promote the adoption of the platform in companies.
  • Personalization with logos and corporate colors sometimes makes the difference when selecting a tool in a corporation.
  • Having multiple functionalities for working in manufacturing companies and with devices developed by third parties encourages other companies to select Notion as their flagship tool to offer implementation packages under alliances that favor its use.
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Alternatives Considered
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Notion Labs, Inc
Trello only has the Kanban board feature and is great for task management, while Notion has a vast array of features, is easier to use, and has a more visually-appealing interface. I choose to use Notion over Trello due to its increased versatility and greater customization capabilities.
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Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Notion Labs, Inc
  • In just a short amount of time, the majority of my course draft has been transferred into an interactive online course, always live
  • Sufficient control over page structure gives a clean look, with sufficient means to add some personal touches
  • After a learning period, I could concentrate on the content rather than the tech
  • A huge motivational drive to learn more about no-code platforms (enthusiastic learner!)
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ScreenShots

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.