Product Roundup: What’s new in Rocket.Chat 6.3

With the release of Rocket.Chat SIX and Rocket.Chat 6.2, the last few months have been phenomenal. This quarter shows no signs of slowing down — Rocket.Chat 6.3 is now live! From support for a global Matrix network search to the much-requested Outlook Calendar integration, as well as the introduction of the ChatGPT app and a new style for mentions, there is much to delve into.

The all-new ChatGPT app for Rocket.Chat 

Today’s fast-paced corporate climate requires good internal communication, and the ChatGPT app inside your Rocket.Chat workspace helps you transform work, communication and creativity. ChatGPT can transform internal and external company communications, improving collaboration, customer service and business operations. 

The ChatGPT app in Rocket.Chat is capable of the following:

• Answer questions: The ChatGPT bot responds to each inquiry in a thread, allowing you to manage multiple threaded conversations. Sending questions to ChatGPT in direct messaging rooms with other users unlocks more conversations and collaboration opportunities.

• Fix spelling, punctuation & grammar: ChatGPT can be used to proofread your messages. Input text into the message box, and seek ChatGPT’s help to identify and correct grammar errors in your messages, sparing you the trouble of correcting each error individually.

• Generate summaries: ChatGPT can be used to generate summaries of lengthy documents to provide an executive summary, an excerpt to share with others, or to save yourself from the hassle of perusing the entire document.

• Voice and tone editing: ChatGPT is accessible from any channel, team, or discussion, so the app is always available to help you establish the tone of your communications. You can adjust the tone of your messages based on whether you want the message to be formal or informal.

• Index conversations: ChatGPT responds to each conversation inside a thread. It indexes the conversations, and the responses within the conversation are contextually appropriate.

In a nutshell, the ChatGPT app in Rocket.Chat assists you in assimilating information, simplifying complex concepts, staying current without leaving Rocket.Chat, responding to inquiries at work by transforming business conversations, and producing summaries. The new ChatGPT app is available for Enterprise Edition users. Please refer to our technical documentation to get started with the ChatGPT app. 

Join Outlook calls from Rocket.Chat directly 

Why should you integrate? 

We are all acquainted with the experience of jumping from call to call, rummaging through emails to locate the correct dial-in link. You can now save yourself from this hassle by joining calls directly from Rocket.Chat, ensuring you join the right meeting at the right time. This integration provides a unified view of all your Outlook events, so you can organize your schedule accordingly. It’s easy to miss calendar invites when they flood your inbox. With the Outlook Calendar integration, you will receive a meeting reminder that is sent via direct message in Rocket.Chat, ensuring that you never miss an important meeting. 

On July 31, 2021, Microsoft retired Skype for Business Online and announced Microsoft Teams as the official replacement. But, Microsoft Teams does not make the cut for privacy-conscious companies. 

Skype for Business Online users rely heavily on the Outlook Calendar to organize their daily schedules. However, they are no longer obligated to leave behind their favorite tools while switching to Rocket.Chat. They can continue to utilize their preferred tools from within Rocket.Chat even after the migration. Read more on why Rocket.Chat is your on-premise alternative to Skype for Business Online.

What’s supported? 

You can now integrate Rocket.Chat with Outlook Calendar to: 

• Get a comprehensive view of all Outlook events in Rocket.Chat
• Join meetings directly from your Rocket.Chat workspaces
• Receive meeting reminders before every Outlook meeting

How to get started? 

Workspace admins can enable this integration from the Settings menu. Once enabled, the Outlook Calendar can be accessed from all rooms and channels through the kebab menu. The integration must be authenticated at a user-level to access the Outlook Calendar. Please read our technical documentation for more information. 

Please note that the Outlook Calendar integration is available only for on-premise Microsoft Exchange users. It is currently not available for Office 365 users. All Enterprise Edition users of Rocket.Chat can enable the Outlook Calendar integration to review the calendar, join meetings directly, and receive alerts before every Outlook event. 

Search and join public channels on the Matrix network

We are now introducing the ability to search for and join public channels from other home servers on the Matrix network. Users can conduct a global search for all public channels on the Matrix network and join them seamlessly and securely. The option to search for federated rooms is accessible via the Create menu or the homepage. The prerequisite is that your Rocket.Chat server must have Federation enabled.

You can choose a server and search for federated rooms within this server. You can join rooms that have the auto-join option enabled. This enables users to broaden their scope of collaboration and begin communicating with users from other nodes on the Matrix network as securely and seamlessly as possible, simply by browsing for and joining federated rooms. You can manage the server list and choose to join federated rooms from each of the Matrix network servers you have enlisted. This functionality is available only to Enterprise Edition users. Refer to our technical documentation on how to search for and join public channels on the Matrix network. 

Introducing an enhanced style for mentions 

Mentions are a reliable way of bringing attention to a message and notifying someone in Rocket.Chat. In order to enhance the user experience and facilitate seamless collaboration, we are implementing a new style of mentions across rooms and channels. 

All mentions in direct messages, rooms, discussions, and channels will now have a gray background and no ampersand symbol before the name of the user, channel or discussion. Mentions of you are highlighted in red to stand out in a sea of messages, so you won’t lose out on essential information that requires a response, acknowledgement or action. 

To notify a larger audience, you can mention an entire channel or groups of users. The generic mentions in channels will be in orange — while @all notifies all members of the channels, @here only notifies the members who are online at a given moment. Channel mentions will be displayed in blue text against a gray background. 

The mentions will adhere to the new style guidelines regardless of whether you are using the dark mode or the light mode. All users and admins have access to this feature; this feature is supported across all editions. 

Enhancements

1. The colon alone will no longer activate emoji suggestions until the second letter is entered. To use an emoji of your choosing, you must provide the emoji’s initial two letters after the colon. You will then be presented with a list of emojis that match the first two letters of what you entered, from which you can then choose. 
2. While viewing the members / users contextual menu in rooms and channels, the users will be sorted alphabetically. 
3. The login user interface will now reflect changes made to the login terms. As a part of the custom layout option, Rocket.Chat provides an option for modifying the login terms, allowing you to customize Rocket.Chat for your organization. When you modify these terms as you see fit, the login interface for all uses of your workspace will be updated accordingly. 

Resolved issues

The following bugs were fixed in Rocket.Chat 6.3: 

1. When Avatar Background Sync is enabled, the avatars will now be synced with the user's details.
2. Incomplete emails will no longer be accepted at the time of user registration. 
3. The issue of manually approved user registration getting stuck at the registration form is now fixed. 
4. The ‘Change Permissions' button will no longer be shown for Google Drive files where the permissions cannot be changed, i.e., where the user has access to view a file but cannot edit it. And, a real-time change in permissions with respect to Google Drive files will now be reflected for all files where users can either comment or edit.
5. The mismatch in the scroll position while switching channels is now fixed in the latest version of Rocket.Chat.
6. The option to initiate a video call will no longer be visible to users who don’t have the Call Management permission.
7. You can now exit the PDF preview in the desktop app without having to close the Rocket.Chat app. 
8. Users removed from a room or channel can no longer send messages and will be redirected to the homepage after getting removed from the room or channel.
9. Omnichannel Business Hours - Important improvements have been made to stabilize feature behaviour in complex environments with multiple office hours.

How to update your workspace to the latest Rocket.Chat version?
SaaS workspaces

The release happens automatically on our cloud, so no further action is required from your side. However, remember that upgrading instances might take a few weeks, so don't hesitate to contact our support team if you need to update your version sooner. 

Self-managed workspaces

Depending on the installation mode, you might need to update your server manually. Check out our documentation for instructions.

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