Discussing in Chat

eXo Chat is an instant messaging application that allows users to sync up and take action quickly. Tightly integrated since eXo Platform 4, eXo Chat empowers the real-time collaboration among teams and individuals.

Here is summary of what eXo Chat brings:

• Discussions: Create quick conversation with your contacts, from group to specific person.

• Status: Don’t want to be interrupted, or not in the mood for a chat? Simply change your status from the Chat menu or directly in the chat window.

• Favorites: Add or remove your contacts to/from the favorites list with one click.

• Collaboration: Leverage collaboration with a set of actions (creating an event/task, sharing a link/file, asking a question or raising your hand), directly within eXo Chat.

• Notifications: Follow notifications sent to you in real time, read and answer messages immediately or later when you are free.

• Recording: Save your discussions from the beginning to the end that can be exported to a wiki page or sent to emails.

In this chapter:

Setting your status

Mini chat window

Creating/Editing a group chat

Sending an instant message

Receiving an instant message

Actions on a sent message

Recording a discussion

Collabrative actions

Desktop notifications

Organizing your Contacts

Chat messages history

Using eXo Chat on Mobile

Setting your status

By setting your status, you will let your contacts know if you are available to chat or not. Your selected status is shown next to your name.

• From the top navigation bar, click to open the Chat menu, then select one status.

  

• If you are in the Chat window, click your current status icon under your name, and select one from the drop-down menu.

  

Status	Description
Available	You are online and available to talk or get instant messages from another. When you use eXo Chat for the first time, your status is available by default.
Do not disturb	You are online but don’t want to be disturbed. Another can still send instant messages and call you.
Away	You are online, and another can talk to you, but you will not reply for now.
Invisible	You appear to be offline, but another can send messages to you.

Mini chat drawer

When you receive an instant message in eXo Chat, an icon showing the number of messages received appears next to the chat icon . Clicking on that icon opens the chat drawer listing all your discussions. Discussions with unread messages appear the first in the list with a badge containing the number of unread messages.

• Clicking on your avatar allows you to change your status

  

• Allows you to filter discussions using a keyword

  

• Allows you to open the chat application in an another browser tab

• A cross icon to close the drawer

• The number of unread messages of the discussion

When you click on a discussion, it opens to display the messages.

• Allows you to back to the discussion’s list

• Allows you to start a video call with your interlocuter (not available for groups chats)

• Allows you to open the discussion in the chat application in an another browser tab

• A cross icon to close the drawer

Note

• The chat drawer could also be opened by:

  • Clicking on chat button on the user profile.

  • Clicking on chat button on user and spaces popovers:

  

• The chat drawer behaves on mobile devices the same as for web:

  

Creating/Editing a group chat

By creating a group chat, you can share work, knowledge and plans with your colleagues more efficiently. In eXo Chat, the “group chat” denotes discussion among space/team members. Your spaces (that you are owner or member) are auto-listed into the Spaces pane.

Creating a new chat room

1. From the top navigation bar, click –> Open Chat to open the chat window.

2. In the left pane, at the header section select to create a new chat room.

3. Enter the first letters from usernames you want to invite to the room. A suggestion list appears to facilitate the selection. This suggestion list proposes your connections at first level $ followed by other usernames sorted in alphabetical order. You can also remove a chosen username by clicking on near his name.

4. Click Save to finish.

5. The room is created and a message is displayed indicating the members added.

Editing a chat room

For the chat room that you have created , you have right to change its name and add/remove members as follows:

• Select Rooms filter as follows:

  

• Select the room you want to edit.

• Click on the more actions button .

• Select “Edit room” button.

An edit chat room form appears in which you can make these actions:

• Rrename the chat room.

• Add more members (Same way as on creating a new chat room).

• Remove members by clicking the corresponding .

Note

The list that appears after clicking on contains the list of actions that you can make on the chat room.

Only the chat room creator is able to edit the room.

Chat room user list

For chat rooms, a collapsible panel contains the list of the chat room members.

• The side panel indicates the total number of members of the room, it displays a number next to “Participants”.

• In the side panel, people avatars are displayed combined with their presence badge.

• People avatars are sorted by presence, then alphabetic order. The order used for presence is : Available, Away, Do not disturb, Offline

• All users are displayed by default. To display only online users, you need to filter them .

Sending an instant message

1. Find the contact you want to send message from your lists. The chat conversation is opened in the right pane.

2. Type your message into the input box, then hit the Enter key.

Also, you can make your messages more lively by:

Adding emotions

The selected emotions will be displayed on the chat zone.

Receiving an instant message

If someone sends messages to you, you will see the number of newly received ones on the Chat menu:

or, next to the contacts in the left lists:

To check them, simply hover cursor over the Chat icon.

Click one message to see the full content in the mini chat. Alternatively, if you are in the chat window, click the contact that you see the icon of unread messages.

Actions on a sent message

Hover cursor near the chat text to show “More actions” button .

Note that Edit and Delete actions are only shown for your own chat texts. For ones of another, you only can Save notes and Quote.

Saving notes

Click Save notes to save your discussion as a note. There are 2 options: Send meeting notes and Save as wiki that is similar to Recording.

Editing

Click Edit message and make changes in the Edit message form.

After clicking Save, your new content will be updated on the chat zone with a pen icon () on the right.

Deleting

Click Delete to remove your sent message from the thread. A confirmation popup appears:

When you click on “Confirm” button, an information message is displayed in place of the deleted message with a pen icon on the right.

Quoting

Click Quote to append one message in the input box.

On the chat zone, the quoted message will look like below.

Recording a discussion

1. Click on the top header of the chat window to start recording.

The is now changed into , and the record starts. The information message will be shown on the chat zone.

2. Click to stop the meeting and save notes at any time with 2 options:

• If you select Save notes, the notes will be sent to your email. One information message is shown on the chat zone.

  

• If you select Save as wiki, one wiki page link is displayed.

  

  By clicking the wiki page link, you will be redirected to Wiki Home where the wiki page containing the notes is displayed as a child page.

Leave Chat room

When you are no more interested in a chat room discussion where you were invited by the room creator, you can leave this room by following these simple steps:

1. Open the chat room you want to leave.

2. Click on the dropdown button to display the list of choices.

3. Click on Leave room button , a popup is displayed:

4. Confirm the chat room leave by clicking on Yes button.

If you click on No button, nothing happens and you still being a member in the chat room.

Note

• The room creator does not have the Leave room button to prevent having orphan rooms.

• The Leave room button is not available on spaces chat rooms. To leave a space’s chat room, you should leave the space itself.

• Leaving a chat room deletes it from your chat rooms list and you will no longer have access to the discussion.

• When you leave a chat room, a message “$First Last Name left the room” will appear to all the chat room members:

Note

When you leave a space, you automatically leave its chat room, but no message is displayed.

• If the chat room creator send you again an invitation to join the room, you will be able again to see old discussions.

Collaborative actions

During a conversation, some collaborative actions are available on icon in the left of the message input box.

After clicking on collaboration actions button, it turns to which enables you to close the collaborative actions window.

Adding an event

1. Select Add Event from the list of collaborative actions.

   

2. Fill in the form fields, including the event title, dates and time, location.

3. If you choose wrong dates, for example, when the end date To precedes the start date From, an error message is displayed indicating that the dates are erroneous.

If you do not fill in all the needed fields, an error message appears indicating to fill in the whole form.

4. Click Post button. The newly created event will be displayed on the discussion area with a calendar icon in the right corner.

   

Assigning a task

Note

This action is available only when the Tasks add-on is available.

1. Select Assign Task from the list of collaborative actions.

2. Fill in the form fields including the task title, assignee, and due date.

3. Click Post button. The newly created task will be displayed in the discussion area with a task icon in the corner.

Sharing a link

1. Select Share Link from the list of collaborative actions.

2. Enter a valid URL, then click Share. The shared link is displayed in discussion area with an icon in the corner.

Uploading a file

1. Select Upload File from the list of collaborative actions.

2. Drag and drop the file into the DROP YOUR FILE HERE area, or click Select Manually to select a file from your computer.

3. The uploaded file is displayed on the discussion area with the upload icon in the right corner .

Note

When the file does not have a thumbnail icon, it will be displayed as a clickable label allowing to open the file in preview mode.

Asking a question

1. Select Ask a Question from the list of collaborative actions.

2. Enter your question into the field, then click Ask to submit your question. The question is displayed on the discussion area with .

Raising hand

1. Select Raise Hand from the list of collaborative actions.

2. Enter your idea in the text field, then click Raise your hand. Your idea is displayed on the discussion area. In the right corner of the Raising hand message, a hand icon is dislayed.

Desktop notifications

Users don’t stay all the time on the chat page, that’s why eXo Platform has added desktop notifications to alert users on a new message received in the chat, even when the browser window is minimized or hidden by another one.

A desktop notification is a small popup displayed to the user to alert him on a new message received in the chat.

Desktop notifications are sent only if you gave the permission to recieve notifications through the web browser. You are requested to give your permission the first time you access to chat application.

In case of a one to one chat room, the desktop notification contains:

• the avatar of the user who sent the chat message,

• the display name of the user who sent the chat message,

• the beginning of the message,

• a link at the bottom indicating the website from where the notification is coming from.

In case of a group chat (room or space), the desktop notification contains:

• the avatar of the group in which the chat message was sent,

• the name of the chat group,

• the name of the user who sent the message followed by the beginning of the message,

• a link at the bottom indicating the website from where the notification is coming from.

When you receive the notification, clicking on it redirects you to the corresponding conversation in the Chat application.

Global Notification Settings

Desktop notifications complement other ways to draw your attention to new messages like the on-site counter and the bips. You can enable or disable these channels through the Preferences screen.

• You can enable/disable a notification channel by changing the position of the toggle on/off. By default, all the notification channels are enabled.

• A Close button allows to dismiss the Preferences screen. The chat application displays the previously displayed room’s conversation.

• It is also possible to enable or disable notifications for Do Not Disturb chat status in the Preferences screen. By default, it is set to off.

• If you enable notifications for Do Not Disturb status, this means that whatever your chat status is, you will receive notifications.

  Tip

  You don’t need to save the settings, they are immediately saved and applied.

In addition to the preferences that could be set for global chat notifications, it is also possible to parameter notifications for each room. For that purpose, follow these steps:

• Filter to select the “Rooms” list

• Select the room that you want to parameter it’s notifications. You can select either one to one chat room or a group chat room.

• Click on to display actions that you can do on that room.

• Select Notifications from the list.

A screen appears enabling you to set the chat room notifications settings:

• Normal: When you want to receive notifications for the chat room.

• Silence: When you don’t want to receive notifications for the chat room.

• Alert on: When you want to receive notifications for the chat room if an another user send a message containing a keyword.

Organizing your contacts

When your contacts list becomes so long, it will be difficult to control all. Here are some tips commonly used to keep your contacts list well-organized and easy to find.

Sort discussions by messages status

You can sort your discussions by selecting one of these messages statuses:

• Recent: sorts discussions starting by the most recent one.

• Unread: sorts discussions starting by the ones that contain unread messages and by the most recent received.

Mark as read

When you have many messages in your discussions that you are not interested to deep on them, you can simply mark them as read:

This action will remove all the numbers of unread messages near the corresponding discussions.

Adding to favorites

To find quickly a contact or group chat you often chat with, hover over one and click to save as a favorite.

The star will move to “yellow” color to distinguish favorites contacts:

To remove one contact from your favorites, hover over the contact and select .

You can also click on then select “Add to favorites”:

After clicking on it, it turns to “Remove from favorites”:

Filter by discussions category

You can select a discussion category:

• All: lists all your discussions.

• People: to list only one-to-one discussions.

• Rooms: to list only rooms discussions.

• Spaces: to list only space discussions.

• Favorites: to list the favorite contacts/group discussions.

Using search bar

• If you want to find a contact discussion or a chat room discussion, type some letters following in the search bar. The discussions will be filtered accordingly.

  

• No matter whether you remember the beginning of a group name, the first name or the last name of someone, the search will always return the best match.

  

Tip

A clear icon appears when you type at least one letter on the search bar. This clear icon allows you to clear your filter by only one click. You can also clear your filter by clicking on the escape button of your keyboard.

Chat messages history

Discussing in eXo Chat by Sending and recieving instant messages induces to register the chat messages history which could be easily accessible later through the chat room.

To visualize old chat messages, all you need to do is to scroll up the chat window, a loading icon appears the time to load up to 200 old message. When the loading icon disapears this means that the 200 messages was loaded and you can read them.

Note

The number of loaded chat messages is set by default to 200, it could be configurable in exo.properties.

Using eXo Chat on Mobile

Tip

eXo Chat on mobile has the same features as for the desktop version.

To open eXo Chat in a mobile device, you just need to click on the chat icon in the top navigation of eXo Platform.

When you click on the Chat button, a new chat room view is displayed containing last discussions sorted by the most recent updated (received or sent).

The discussion contains:

• the timestamp of the last message received or sent.

• the user avatar in a circular form.

• the number of unread messages received.

• the availability icon on the avatar’s bottom right corner.

• the favorite star icon(to display only when the contact is selected as favorite and displayed just after the discussion label: user full name, space name or room).

It is also possible to add a chat room via a mobile device, simply click on the icon to get the room creation form:

To manage a created room or to make an action on a room in which you are a member, you need to click on the button to get the list of the feasible actions on that chat room:

Note

A back button allows you to return to the list of your chat rooms.

To view the list of participants in a defined chat room, after making the last action, select Show participants:

You can filter them to show only online users:

Clicking on opens this screen:

which allows you either to change eXo Chat notification settings by clicking on or back to intranet homepage by clicking on:

Clicking on allows you to choose the notification channel for a defined chat room (either one to one chat room or group chat room). More details in Chat notifications section.

You can also update your status via the eXo Chat mobile application, you just need to click on the current status to display the list of possible chat statuses. Select the desired status that will instantly change.

Same as for desktop version, it is possible to filter your discussions on mobile, simply by clicking the filter icon :

Filtering options are:

• Sort by discussion status: recent or Unread.

• Filter by discussion category: All, people, rooms, spaces, favorites.

It is also possible to mark your discussions as read by ticking the option Mark all as read.

Note

You should click on “Save” to conserve your filter criterias. If you click on Cancel , no of your selections will be considered.

Searching discussions on mobile is also feasible. You just need to click the icon, then type your keyword to filter your discussions in accordance to it: