Rocket.Chat, the world's largest open source communications platform, announced the launch of Rocket.Chat 6.0 (SIX) featuring core updates focused on areas such as security, scalability, and accessibility. Widely adopted by security-centered verticals such as Government and Defense, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Education, enabling seamless collaboration between colleagues, partners, customers, and communities while staying away from data breaches is a top priority for the 12 million users of Rocket.Chat. In this regard, updates to the most recent version released also enable workspaces to strengthen security by regularly patching new vulnerabilities.
“Operational security is a constantly shifting sand dune where new attack vectors that hackers are exploring are always emerging,” says Christopher Skelly, Chief Product Officer of Rocket.Chat. He is endorsed by a research from CheckPoint Research, the leading cyber threat intelligence - one of their reports reveals Global cyberattacks increased by 38% in 2022. “We don't wait for a vulnerability to pose a significant risk for us to act on it. Our current internal and external vulnerability analysis program ensures that each new version of Rocket.Chat brings all the security patches to address any vulnerability identified in the most recent cycle of investigations. SIX addressed over 10 potential vulnerabilities that have been identified by our team and our tremendous community of contributors and security experts. Our goal is always to identify any emerging vulnerability well before any party that may seek new exploits"
Apart from the security updates, the enhancements and brand-new features are grouped into six categories. Among other releases, the announcements includes:
Enterprise Security & Compliance
- Additional layer of security with two-factor authentication for the cloud portal allowing users to safely access corporate information from any device without putting the data at risk;
- Ability to export conversations and attachments for supporting audit processes. The feature enables admins to present the findings to the leadership team, gather insights to craft upcoming plans and devise appropriate strategies. Such actions are essential to prevent accidental changes, carry out root cause analysis and thwart further malicious actions.
High Scalability Architecture
- The option to scale Rocket.Chat environment either with microservices or by deploying multiple instances of Rocket.Chat. This makes it possible for workspaces to manage large volumes of users and adapt to changing business needs.
Enhanced Team Productivity
- A visual component that provides visibility into case prioritization criteria, displaying the priority indicator icon for each conversation. The Conversation Priority Indicator will positively impact customer service metrics such as response and resolution SLAs and enable better agent experience in terms of managing chat queues.
- The ability to enable read receipts for every conversation, so users can now see when a message has been opened and read by the recipient. This is especially relevant to Rocket.Chat’s use cases, as some messages from its core industries, are critical and time-sensitive in nature, for example, receiving mission-critical alerts from air traffic controllers or communicating life and death information about patients in hospitals. In such scenarios where proof of delivery is critical, the new feature indicates that the message has been delivered and assimilated by the recipient.
Interoperable & Extensible
- Matrix Federation was launched in the past major version to enable organizations to collaborate securely and seamlessly with external parties irrespective of the platform they use within the Matrix network. It breaks down the communication silos and empowers users to have reliable and secure communication beyond company borders, which fosters productivity and efficiency. The company is now introducing new functionalities in Rocket.Chat 6.0 that will provide more flexibility and control over federation-related events for the workspace administrators.
- WhatsApp Cloud, an API solution hosted by Meta will allow workspaces to eliminate the need for a third-party service (brokers) to enable WhatsApp Business integration. This API is a perfect fit for organizations seeking to scale, as the faster message throughput offers better support for larger operations, and the cost is not influenced by how many agents the workspace has.
- Without writing any code, the new Zapier app makes it possible to connect 5000+ apps, transfer data between them, and automate workflows, saving users time and boosting their efficiency. The possibilities include Jira, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google Workspace suite of apps, and many more. Once the zap is created, the app regularly checks trigger for new data and automatically performs the action for the workspace.
- GitHub app promises to make developers’ jobs exponentially easier. Bringing GitHub into Rocket.Chat developers will be able to subscribe to repositories and receive notifications in Rocket.Chat to never miss an important event; raise issues at the click of a button by using issue templates, among many other facilities.
- Thanks to cross-platform messaging, Rocket.Chat users can now chat with anyone using Microsoft Teams, without having to leave Rocket.Chat or migrate to Teams. This integration supports rich interactions that include DMs, emojis, embedded graphics, links, and files; messaging options such as editing and deleting, plus the ability to create discussions and group chat.
Customizable & Embeddable
- Color themes are an important capability that increases the accessibility for the visually impaired. Rocket.Chat now supports light mode and dark mode. The dark mode could be especially beneficial for users with low vision and light sensitivity.
Premium Support & Professional Services
- New cloud hosting options were designed to give workspaces more flexibility and choice when it comes to hosting a Rocket.Chat environment. With the new Standard, Premium, and Dedicated Private Cloud options, workspaces can now choose the hosting solution that best fits your needs, budget, and technical expertise.
In addition to these core releases, Rocket.Chat SIX includes changes to the scalability capabilities of Community Workspaces. The new version represents a significant milestone in the company's commitment to providing free and flexible collaboration possibilities worldwide while also serving as a secure and sovereign option for enterprise customers with large-scale requirements.
“As we delve into the future of digital collaboration, it becomes clear that data sovereignty, security, and interoperability are where we're headed. Organizations now understand the importance of being in complete control — owning their conversations, ensuring compliance and data security, and having the flexibility to fit their technology of choice into their existing business ecosystem, today and into the future. With SIX we are now a step closer to achieving our mission of building the world’s most secure and sovereign collaboration platform.” says Gabriel Engel, CEO and founder of Rocket.Chat.
To check all the enhancements, visit rocket.chat/six
About Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is the world's largest open-source collaboration platform. Built for organizations that need more control over their communications, it enables collaboration between colleagues, partners, customers, communities, and even platforms without compromises on data ownership, customization, or integrations. Tens of millions of users in over 150 countries and organizations such as Deutsche Bahn, the U.S. Navy, and Credit Suisse trust Rocket.Chat every day to keep their communications completely private and secure.
