Reference14r1:Concept App Service Messages
The App Service Messages provides the persistent storage of Chat messages as available with the premium chat and a mico blogging tool, which can be used for organization internal collaboration. The micro blogging tool uses the following concepts:
- Messages
- Text posted by a user into a topic
- Discussions
- Replies may be posted to a message. The original message and all replies to it or replies to other replies form a discussion
- Topics
- All messages are posted to a topic. Topics are used to define who has access to the messages/posts and provide some structuring for the messages. A typical use of topics is to define a topic for a department or a project.
- Tags
- Tags can be attached to Messages in the form of hashtags within the text. Tags can be used to define channels
- Likes
- A message post can be marked as liked by a user
- Notifys
- A user maybe notified with a posted message, by adding @<user> to the text
- Channels
- Are used as discussion rooms for a given subject. A channel filters messages based on topic or tags. If no topic is defined , messages with the right tags are filtered from all topics. Multiple tags may be defined. Messages have to contain all the defined tags. If messages are posted within a channel all the tags are attached automticalls to assign the message to the channel.
- Message Stream
- The message stream displays the messages of the currently selected channel
- Feed
- The message feed displays the likes and notifys for the user
- Unread Indication
- A message which is not yet read is marked as unread. A message can be indicated as read by a single click on the text. The same message may appear in different channels and the feed. If marked as read in one context, it is displayed as read everywhere.
- Follow
- Following a user or a channel can be set. A message which from a channel/user which is followed shows up in the feed
Messages can be used by other Apps as a platform. It provides an Api to post messages and also allows the integration of a Messages window into an App.
Apps
The App Service Messages provides Apps, which can be used by App Objects of the PBX.
innovaphone-connect
This App is the micro blogging user Interface
Topics
Each App within the PBX defines a topic within messages, named as the App Object. This way each App has its private topic within Messages, so that a channels maybe defined esspecially for messages from this App. The access to these topics is defined by the access to the Apps. In addition subtopics to these topics may be defined. These subtopics can be configured within the Messages App. For each subtopic it can be defined seperatly which users or groups of users have access. The groups defined in the PBX are used for this purpose.
Tags
Tags can be attached to messages for search and filter purpioses. The user can assign tags in the form of hashtags within the message text. Tags are valid accross topics. There are mechanisms to filter messages based on tags
Notifications
For a message user notifications may be set. These notifications are used to display these messages in the notifications area of the messages UI and E-Mail notifications are created for the notifications. The can add notifications within the message text with an @<user-id> notation.
Likes
User can add likes to messages. The likes are displayed in the notification area of the UI
E-Mail Notifications
An email connector can be configured within the messages app, which is used to send emails to notify a user of a new message. There are several conditions under which a notification is sent:
- Notify
- If a user is notified within the message with @<user> an email notification is sent as well
- Reply
- A message posted as reply to a message from the user results in a email notification. This happens for any posts to a discussion, the user has posted to regardless if the reply was to a message of the user directly or any other message of the discussion
Full text search
For all words in the message bodies an index is built, so that words or sequences of words may be found efficiently.
For a search for multiple words two modes are implemented. If the search entry is set in quotes, the exact sequence of the word must appear in the message for a message otherwise just all the words must be present.
Connect App UI concepts
The Connect UI consists of two major parts. On the left side there is the main navigation, which covers the search, channel selection and the feed. On the right is the stream. The stream can either show the content of a channel, or a single discussion, entered from the search or the feed.
The Stream
The middle part of the UI is the main message stream. It displays the messages from the selected channel or from a specific discussion. It is used to post messages. When messages are posted tags are assigned automatically so that the message fits to the selected channel or the message is added to the selected discussion. Unread messages are marked. A click from the user is needed to mark a message as read. A message marked as read in the context of one channel it appears as read in all matching channels.
The display of messages is organized in discussions. Initially only the first message of a discussion is displayed. By click on the respective control, the discussion is expanded, so that all messages of the discussion are displayed.
Messages within a discussion are always displayed in their chronological order.
Messages can be posted as response to other messages. When a response is posted it is always displayed at the end of the discussion, even if it was a response to an early message of the discussion. To identfy to which message the response was posted a control is provided at a displayed message to hide all messages of the discussion except the messages to which this message was a response.