Rocket.Chat 3.8: new features, improvements and more!

Another month, another release! To be released soon, Rocket.Chat 3.8 counts on a lot of new features and improvements. So if you don't like spoilers, don't keep on reading! We listed our new features and improvements on our upcoming release below.  Make sure you check it out and know what to expect!

*To read the full release, click here.

New features

APPS: New Scheduler API (#19290)

A long-waited feature is now here! Our new scheduler API allows users to schedule jobs or tasks to be done in the future. The API allows developers to develop the scheduler feature in many ways (i.e. via slash command /remind).

OAuth groups to channels mapping (#18146 by @arminfelder)

It’s now possible to map which value from the OAuth authentication should map to which channels. There are also new settings, such as to enable/disable this behavior and a mapping setting.

Reaction view (#18272)

React to messages without a worry: we now have a new UI to view reactions! Previously, when a lot of reactions were made to a message, things got a little confusing and it could be a little hard to tell which user reacted which way. With this release, the reaction box is a kind of modal, so users can see more detail in a better-looking interface.

Whitelisting bad words (#17120 by @aryankoul)

With the “bad words” filter enabled, the user will find a predefined list of bad words that are going to be whitelisted when used. Previously, the user was only allowed to add more words to that list, but not to exclude any. With this release, the user can now exclude some words from the “bad words” list.

Apps: Add new typing bridge method (Typing-Indicator) (#19228)

A new API for the Apps Engine team or developers to be able to fake a user typing. That way, if you’re developing/integrating a bot, you can send a “typing” indicator to the room you’re interacting with, creating a “fake” a user typing.

Enterprise: Micro services (#19000)

Another long-waited feature in this release! This is the first step of our microservices roadmap, to be improved in the upcoming releases: we hope to count on documentation and battle-tested versions of the microservices in the next versions of Rocket.Chat. However, if you have an Enterprise license you can already run it on your server.

Hundreds of files of code were changed to make this improvement happen! Rocket.Chat now can run both as a monolithic application for the community version and be able to run as multiple services on Enterprise version, sharing all the logic already existent.

Overall, this version is focused on making the single processes stable. The next one will be about making sure that microservices are running on perfection, distributed correctly and documented.

Admin option to reset users’ 2FA (#19341)

Admins can reset the 2FA of other users if they have the permission edit-other-user-totp and the Accounts > Two Factor Authentication > Enforce password fallback setting is enabled.

In our past release, we added an option for the admins to reset the E2E Encryption key of other users. The option we’re adding now behaves in the same way, but it’s meant to reset the 2FA.One thing to mention is that it’s necessary to have a permission to edit other users’ TOTP, and the enforce password fallback should be enabled as well. Basically, to reset other user’s 2FA, you need to have your own 2FA working. This is important due to security reasons: if someone somehow logs into your account, they’ll need your password to change this admin option.

Apps prometheus metrics (#19320)

If you have prometheus installed, you can now see metrics about how apps are running: how many are running, how many failed, etc. That’s important to the admins, so they can monitor their apps behavior and fix eventual problems.

feat(CAS): Adding option to enable/disable user creation from CAS auth (#17154 by @jgribonvald)

Previously, when authenticating a user’s CAS, if the user didn’t exist, it was automatically created - which may not be the desired response to this action. Fortunately, now you can choose! The user creation can now be disabled, and CAS authentication can be made without creating a new account in case the user is nonexistent.

Apps: Remove TS compiler (#18687)

Improvements

Display channel avatar on the Header (#19132 by @ba-9 & @bhavayAnand9)

The channel avatar now appears on the top of the channel page, just like direct messages and groups.

New sidebar layout (#19089)

We released a new sidebar built from scratch, with layout adjustments and performance improvements. You’ll notice a few size changes in some assets, changes on the presence of icons and a few other updates. Last but not least, the new sidebar was completely rewritten in React and is now much faster, reducing the CPU usage of the application.

Another great improvement is that the user status is now represented by shapes and colors, so colorblind users can also understand them. It goes like this:

• Offline: grey circle outline
• Busy: red circle with a white dash (-)
• Online: full green circle
• Away: yellow circle with clock pointers

APPS: Apps list page on servers without internet connection (#19088)

An improvement on the behavior of our apps list page! With this change, if the user accesses our Marketplace with no internet connection, a more correct error message will show up, saying we weren’t able to communicate with the marketplace.

? Bug fixes

• "Export Messages" only works for global roles (#19264)
• 2FA required rendering blank page (#19364)
• Adding missing custom fields translation in my account's profile (#19179)
• Admin not working on IE11 (#19348)
• Anonymous users are counted on the server statistics and engagement dashboard (#19263)
• Broken user info when a user don't have an email address (#19339)
• Don't send room name on notification (#19247)
• Error preventing from removing users without a role (#19204 by @RohitKumar-200)
• Error when editing priority and required description (#19170)
• Integrations history page not reacting to changes. (#19114)
• Invalid attachments on User Data downloads (#19203)
• IRC Bridge not working (#19009)
• LDAP Sync Error Dup Key (#19337)
• Livechat Appearance label and reset button (#19171)
• Message actions on top of text (#19316)
• Missing "Bio" in user's profile view (#18821) (#19166)
• Non admin cannot add custom avatar to group (#18960 by @FelipeParreira)
  Allow non-admins to change room avatar.
• Omnichannel - typo error label at current chats page (#19379)
• Omnichannel auditing required field (#19201)
• Omnichannel: triggers page not rendering. (#19134)
• Performance issues when using new Oplog implementation (#19181)
  A missing configuration was not limiting the new oplog tailing to pool the database frequently even when no data was available, leading to both node and mongodb process been consuming high CPU even with low usage. This case was happening for installations using mmapv1 database engine or when no admin access was granted to the database user, both preventing the usage of the new Change Streams implementation and fallbacking to our custom oplog implementation in replacement to the Meteor's one what was able to be disabled and use the native implementation via the environmental variable USE_NATIVE_OPLOG=true.
• Push notifications with lower priority for Android devices (#19061 by @ceefour)
  fix(push): Set push notification priority to 'high' for FCM
• Remove requirements to tag description and department (#19169)
• SAML login undefined error message (#18649 by @galshiff)
  Fixed the SAML login undefined error message
• Selecting the same department for multiple units (#19168)
• Server Errors on new Client Connections (#19266)
• Setting values being showed up in logs when using log level for debug (#18239)
• Thread List showing wrong items (#19351)
• Thread view in a channel user haven't joined (#19008) (#19172)
• Use etag on user info (#19349)
• UserCard Roles Description (#19200)
• VisitorAutoComplete component (#19133)
• Wrong avatar urls when using providers (#18929)