Suggestion Box in Sharepoint

Hi again ...
I am currently building a Suggestion Box and thought it would be good to share how i went about building it.
remember that when cost and time are a factor ... this comes to mind "KEEP IT SIMPLE" ..
Steps that were undertaken(High Level) :
1. Build an input form for capturing suggestions.
2. Build and configure SharePoint Lists that houses the Suggestion and Configuration lists.
3. Build Workflow for Suggestion list to notify users when a status changes.
4. Add a new Context Menu to the list item in order to "Send a Mail" for manual submission of suggestions to the different departments.

Four parts will be presented shortly ...

PART 1
Basically build a webpart or use sharepoint form controls that can accept user input and write this to the Suggestion Box List.
if you dont know how to build a webpart please leave a  comment and i will provide a detailed description.

PART 2
you are going to build 2 list, one for the suggestions and another list for the configuration items.
SuggestionList => create you fields and make sure "IMPORTANT" that you make enable versioning on the Suggest follow up field. what this means is that people involved in implementing this suggestion can provide feedback. and enabling this will show a nice AUDIT trail for users to follow.
SuggestionConfigurationList=>basically I add routing information to this list a "title" and "Email" so when a suggestion comes in i know who to route  the information to.  also makes a lot of sense from a maintenance point of view, users can now change routing information at will.

PART 3
this is very simple and using SP Designer when you are trading off between cost and time.
all this workflow needs to do is send an Email whenever an item in the Suggestion list has been modified ....
so all you need to do is create the workflow and attach it to a list and voila...

PART 4
this was very simple as well ...
this will explain hot to edit the context menu http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd587215(office.11).aspx
you want to create a feature and use the Url Action in the "Elements.xml" to open up an Outlook window and pre-populate the body with the ITEM Url.
this will explain how to create a feature http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms475286.aspx
the important thing here is how you make the outlook window appear and add the URL to the list item.
using the mailto properties was how i did it ... BRILLIANT ... simple quick and Easy ....
this is the code <UrlAction Url="javascript:self.location('mailto:%20?body={build the url here}')"; and voila!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Another important question is "Who will see the link" ... 
and for this i used the "Rights"  property of the CustomActions Element.
so now only "Site Admins" can view the link instead of everyone ...... :)



Ultra simple and Easy ..!!!!!!!!!!
until next time ... take care ...
Bradley Chetty