Reference15r1:Concept App Connect

FIXME: This article is still in progress and not finished not yet finished!

The Connect app is a microblogging tool, which can be used for organization internal collaboration and is part of the App Service Messages.

Applies To

• innovaphone PBX from version 15r1

Features

• Post Messages, Reply to Messages
• Integrated Chat
• File Attachments
• Emojis
• Visibility of Messages organized in Zones
• Feed for Messages addressed to you
• Badge Counts for Feed and Chat
• Private Zone
• Search in Messages, with many filter Options
• Like Posts
• Hashtags
• Definition of Channels, based on Zones and hashtags
• Follow (users, Zones, Hashtags, Discussions, Channels)
• Direct/private Posts
• Address Groups or all Users
• Notifications via email or Push Notifications
• Integrated Help
• Translations, automatically or based on Messages
• Welcome Messages
• User Management (set inactive, anonymize, …)
• Different Roles (user, moderator, administrator)
• UC Integration (Presence, initiate calls, initiate Chats)

Requirements

• innovaphone AppPlatform with a running Messages app and valid ntp settings
• innovaphone myApps
• Connect app license for each PBX user, who should use connect

Apps

innovaphone-connect

This App is the social intranet user interface, which can be used by App Objects of the PBX and is provided by the messages app service.
Since 15r1 the premium chat feature is now fully included into connect.

Connect App UI concepts

The Connect UI consists of two major parts. On the left side there is the main navigation, which covers feed, your personal home area, search, chat and more. 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.

Feed

In your feed, you will see messages that are specific to you. These can be @ mentions or comments on posts that you follow or to which you have replied.

The feed is seperated into thre lists:

• Inbox
• Noted
• Checked

Inbox: all pending notifications for you.
Noted: all notifications you marked as noted.
Checked: all previously checked notifications

If you click on a notification in your feed, in the stream the message in the corresponding thread will be opened.
Also you have three symbols under each notification:

• star - the noticitation is marked as noted, so you can check it later
• speech bubble with checkmark - all notifications in your feed from the same thread, will be marked as checked
• checked - the particular notification will be marked as checked

Home

Here you can customize your personal home area with pinned channels, zones and hashtags.
If there are new and unread meessages inside a pinned channel, zone or followed hashtag since your last visit, a number will be displayed, which indicate unread messages.
Due to performance reasons, it can happen, that a dot-symbol is shown. If you click on a channel/hashtag/zone, the exact number of unread messages will be displayed.

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.

Chat

The newly integrated persistent chat feature. The old separate chat app won't be developed any further and new features and fixes will only be integrated in the connect chat.

If you're having problems with chat after install, make sure that the "Impersonation" option is activated at the connect app object. You find the option at the "App" tab and then at "Grant access to APIs".

To open chat in connect via the old chat icon, enter the app name, which should use app at the corresponding field on the PBX.

General information

Instant Messaging is a standard functionality of the innovaphone PBX. The messages are sent using instant messages calls with standard SIP method or proprietary H.323/H.450 facilities. The connect app provides a user interface for chat. The PBX itself only provides the instant messaging calls and forwarding of the messages. No storing of the messages is provided.

To add additional functionality to chat like storing of chats, group chats or file attachments, the PBX provides an API with the Messages App Object, so that this functionality can be added by an additional App Service. Access to this functionality is also provided to the connect app by an API. Chat can detect the presence of this API. The use of this API must be enabled by a license.

For more technical details, see here.

Chat Features

If the user has a chat license, additional features are available, which need the external Messages service:

Storing of Chats

No need to the destination of a chat to be online. The message can be sent and read asynchronously

Badge Count

A badge count is displayed for unread messages. To clear the badge count, the chats containing new messages must be opened

Group Chats

Groups can be defined and messages sent to these groups. The own chat groups can be seen in the burger menu at "Chat Groups"

File Attachments

• File attachments can be added to chat messages. Sending of attachments can be prevented using the option "Chat no Attachments".:
  
• When an attachment is downloaded, the user gets feedback that the download has been started and cannot start it again for 5 seconds. This prevents the user from clicking on it again and again because he might think it won't work.
  
• If the attachment is a video (at the moment recognized by the file name extension .mp4, .avi, .mov, or .wmf), the videocam be played directly in connect and doesn't have to be downloaded first.

The Badge Count

The badge count on the chat tab inside connect is used to indicate the number of unread incoming chat messages. A chat message is considered read if the chat discussion is already open and the input field for a new message has the focus when the chat message arrives or if the chat discussion is opened. If a discussion inside the chat tab is opened, all messages of this discussion are considered read. If the chat tab is opened, but the discussion with unread messages is not opened, the badge count will not be reset to make sure this message is not overlooked. These rules result in the following sequences, when a chat message arrives:

Chat tab closed

The chat tab is loaded (if connect is set as default chat app) and a badge count is set. When the chat tab in connect is opened, a badge count is displayed at the respective discussion. The badge count is cleared when the chat tab and the respective discussion inside the chat app is opened.

The chat tab is opened with a different discussion

A badge count is set at the chat tab and at the respective discussion. The badge count is cleared when the discussion is opened.

The chat tab is opened with the same discussion, but message input does not have focus

Badge Count is set at the chat tab and at the discussion. The badge count is reset as soon as the message input gets the focus

The chat tab is opened with the same discussion and message input has focus

No badge count is set

Chat message is read on a different device

Badge count is reset on chat tab and on the respective discussion

More

Channels

Lists all available channels. These can be selected and pinned on the home screen.
Also new channels can be created.

Channel customizing

A Channel can be customized with a name, banner and a description. The image for the banner should be at least 1412 x 68 pixels in size so that it does not look pixelated on Full HD screens (preferably even twice as large for higher resolutions).

But beware: The banner images are currently automatically cropped or duplicated depending on the available screen space (no matter how large the image is), which means that images are cut off (depending on the device on which the user sees the image). This is why color gradients or graphic seamless patterns work best. Text, photos of people or objects are therefore not recommended. However, landscape images (such as typical Windows backgrounds) seems to be fine.

Zones

Each App within the PBX defines a zone within messages, named as the App Object. This way, each App has its private zone within Messages, so that a channel maybe defined especially for messages from this App. The access to these zones is defined by the access to the Apps. In addition, subzones to these zones may be defined. These subzones can be configured within the Messages App. For each subzone, it can be defined separately 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 purposes. The user can assign tags in the form of hashtags within the message text. Tags are valid across zones. There are mechanisms to filter messages based on tags

User

List of all available connect user.

Groups

List of all available connect groups, which are active groups inside the PBX.

Following

List of hashtags, which the user follows and therefore get notifications in his feed.

Noted

All overall messages you marked as noted (not including noted messages in your 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 in 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 identify 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.

Tooltips

In the top right corner is a question mark (?) visible. If clicked, question marks appear all over the UI. If you click on one of them, a tooltip with an explanation appears of what these sections are for.

To deactivate the tooltips, just click on the question mark in the upper right corner again.

myApps Assistant App

The myApps Assistant App can be integrated inside connect, to access a remote large language model (LLM).
For more information, see the corresponding concept article

Direct/Group Messages

To address a user directly, simply write a message a add an @<username>. You will also get a list of users you can address to select from, after just writing an @. If you've selected the user, just press enter. After the message is sent, the user will get a notification in his feed, and by clicking on that, connect will directly jump to that specific message.
Important:So that a user can be tagged, the user has to open the Connect app at least once.

To address a whole group of users, you have to write @@ and then select the listed group. The list of groups is the list of groups, which exist inside the PBX. The groups need the "active" option activated in the users' configuration, so it can be addressed.
After sending the message, all users who are members of the tagged group, will get a notification in their feed inside Connect.

Broadcast Messages

To address all connect users at once, simply add @@ without selecting a group.
This message will address all connect users.

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

Configuration

PBX Settings Plugin

• open the PBX Settings plugin for the Messages app
• click on "add App"
• select "Connect"
• enter an appropriate (Long)Name and SIP name ("Connect" and "connect" for example)
• choose the config templates, which should distribute the app to the user, as well as grant administrator and moderator mode
• click on "OK"

The app object is now created in the PBX and automatically connected to the Messages app instance.

Important: If the app object for connect was created manually, make sure, to activate the following options in the App tab: Websocket, PbxSignal, PbxApi and Impersonation (for Chat)

Connect Admin-Mode

A user who has access to the admin mode of connect has the ability to set additional options in the burger menu:

• Manage users
• Manage groups
• Zones
• Federation Domains
• E-Mail configuration

To get the admin access mode, a user simply needs to get the connect~admin app granted in the user object.

Connect Moderator-Mode

A user who has access to the moderator mode of connect has the ability to set additional options in the burger menu:

• Hashtags
• Welcome post
• Manage users (read only)
• Manage groups (read only)

To get the moderator mode, a user simply needs to get the connect~moderator app granted in the user object.

connect admin-service mode

Used by other apps to be able to post to connect. For example, the Projects App.

Needs to be activated at the connect app object, and the app object which should post to connect.

Options in detail

Hashtags

Hashtags can be renamed and corrected.
By doing this, all occurrences are changed. (This can lead to many feed entries, since all affected posts are edited)
You can also combine two hashtags by renaming one to the same value as the other.

connect_moderator_hashtags_overview.png/

connect_moderator_hashtags_detail.png/

Welcome post

Moderators can create automated private welcome posts with useful information for new users. These posts are sent as private messages to help users get started.

Manage users

All PBX users with configured access to the connect app can open it up.
Inside the Connct app users are created, after they accessed it once.

If users are deleted in the PBX, they also need to be deactivated in connect or else, they still can be addressed. (only possible in connect admin mode)
-> the same applies to groups. So if a group is deleted in the PBX, the group needs to be disabled in connect.

Manage groups

Groups can be defined in the PBX, which can then be used in connect to address multiple users at once. You must use @@<groupname> to do this. The user receiving such a message must be an active member of this group.

If groups are deleted in the PBX, they also need to be deactivated in connect or else, they still can be addressed. (only possible in connect admin mode)
-> the same applies to users. So if a user is deleted in the PBX, the user needs to be disabled in connect.

Zones

An administrator can define a zone that is only visible to a certain number of people. A good example of such a zone would be Human Resources or Management.

To create it, open Access Rights in the burger menu and click the + button. Configure a name and SIPid for this zone. While the name can be chosen freely, the SIPid must have a specific syntax. The SIPid must start with the Connect object name, followed by a question mark and then a short identifier.
So for a "Human Ressources" Zone, the syntax could be: connect?human-ressources
Please note that the normal rules for SIPid's apply here. A simple rule of thumb is to use only A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and . (period) and - (hyphen). However, the name must not start with a . (dot). Although it is not strictly required, we recommend not using uppercase letters.

After creating a zone, you can assign the zone to users or groups.

E-Mail configuration

For Connect to send E-Mails to tagged users/groups, you have to enter valid SMTP settings here.

Example:

Client: this entry will create a clickable link in the received mail, where after clicking, myApps will automatically open the conversation in the Connect app

App URL: This will create a web link, which jump to the conversation in your default browser

Troubleshooting

App Service Log

• App WebSocket
• Database

Related Articles

Reference15r1:Concept App Service Messages
Reference15r1:Concept Chat
Reference15r1:Apps/PbxManager/App Messages