Product Roundup: What’s new in Rocket.Chat 6.8

Accessibility is not just a mere add-on, but a defining facet of Rocket.Chat. In order to ensure no one is left behind in the digital dialogue, we’ve made our platform easier to use and more accessible in this latest version. We firmly believe that communication shouldn't discriminate; it should be made accessible to everyone, taking into account differing technical competencies and physical capabilities. 

As we move into the second quarter of the year, we keep up the pace. With this latest version of Rocket.Chat, we are introducing significant enhancements for inclusive, customized and effective communication.

Enhancing accessibility for diverse user needs — Simplified navigation, improved usability 

We’re excited to roll out a new update that improves message navigation with keyboard controls, so you won’t have to rely solely on your mouse. This makes for quicker navigation, less effort and a simplified user experience for all users, not just those with particular accessibility needs.

This latest update also delivers on our promise to prioritize compatibility with screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. We’ve extended this compatibility beyond messages to various components of our platform, including the sidebar, message toolbar, user card, chat room headers, and video conference popups. This ensures users with diverse visual abilities can quickly and easily maneuver through the platform. 

We've also redesigned the process of creating and editing rooms to make it more intuitive for all users. The connection bar has been revamped for color compliance, providing AA standards on dark and light themes, and AAA on high contrast ones. The message toolbar render time has been refined, announcements for favorite actions have been introduced, and messages will now be read logically from the most recent to the oldest. 

Furthermore, every room’s contextual bar, which can now be resized, is presented as a dialog for improved navigability. We've also made the tooltip information on internal and external links clearer for users with varied accessibility needs.

With these features, the result is a platform that is easier to navigate, more user-friendly, and efficient. These features promote inclusivity and ensure that everyone can access and benefit from the platform. 

Auto-adjust your department’s business hours for daylight savings

Customer or citizen support is fundamental to every operation. But during peak business hours, little glitches can pose significant obstacles, limiting the public's access to support teams. 

Moreover, if your operations aren't fully automated with bots, handling queries outside working hours can not only burden your team and customers, but also potentially lead to legal complexities in certain sectors. 

To alleviate these issues, we've come up with a solution  — automatically update your department’s working hours to factor in daylight saving time changes across different time zones. 

This means there is no need to manually change your functioning hours to account for daylight savings. You can facilitate uninterrupted communication, regardless of your location. This enhancement is available for all Community and Premium users. 

Enhancements

1. We have added a couple of new enhancements to our LDAP integration to ensure the system accurately reflects the user status, making it more efficient and reliable: 

Auto-disable users: Our system can now automatically disable any users that no longer appear during the LDAP background sync. This resolves the issue of users who, though being removed from an LDAP group, are not being removed from the corresponding teams on Rocket.Chat.

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Reactivate users: This option allows for re-enabling users that reappear during the LDAP background sync. This ensures user access is promptly restored, minimizing downtime of waiting for a manual reactivation.

2. Inquiries can now be forwarded to departments, regardless of the agent availability. You can automatically assign these to agents once they’re online. With this enhancement, inquiries can be efficiently managed especially when interacting with departments that are offline. 

3. You can now create custom fields in your messages to create endless personalization possibilities. Introducing customFields; a flexible property adaptable to your unique requirements. This can be added to the message object and the content will be verified by a JSON schema from your admin panel. For instance, you can set priority to specific messages — high, urgent, normal. This is accessible via an API and can be configured within the Workspace settings. 

Resolved issues

1. The issue wherein a user resetting their end-to-end encryption (E2EE) key on one device could still access the history on another device without needing to input the new encryption key has been resolved. Now, resetting the E2EE key enforces logout from all other devices, as the old key becomes inactive.
    
2. In this latest update, we have ensured that the Security tab under User Settings is always visible, making it easier for users to change their passwords whether or not they've enabled features like two-factor authentication (2FA) or E2EE. Previously, users could only find the password change option if one of these features was turned on, which was confusing. Now, the Security tab adjusts dynamically, showing only the settings that are relevant to each user's specific setup. 
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3. Moving forward, new message exports won't replace the previous one created on the same day, when they're uploaded to Amazon S3.
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4. Custom OAuth user roles will start syncing from the first login after the user account is created.

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 updating 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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