Correspondence over a local network. Group chats for collaboration

Sooner or later in any corporate or large home network The question arises of what means of communication to use, how to organize effective notification of all employees and delivery of files. Of course, you can use commercial instant messaging delivery systems, deploy mail server and organize shared data repositories. But what if the network is not so large?

For this case, Network Software Solutions has developed a client-server messaging program, which is a chat. In chat you can create various channels(for example, within a department), have a private conversation without clogging up the general chat, transfer files and much more.

MyChat Server

It’s worth mentioning right away that there are two versions of the chat server: commercial and free. For small networks the free version of FREE MyChat is enough. The main differences can be viewed on the developer’s website; major limitations include the lack of integration with Active Directory and limiting the number of connections to 15 people - for the Free MyChat version.

As for installing the server, there should not be any difficulties; installation is carried out in automatic mode and does not require significant effort from the user. Setting up the application, at first glance, may seem complicated, since there are quite a lot of options. But, all settings are well categorized, for each section there is good reference material in Russian. In addition, each option has a hint about its purpose, making it much easier to find the right tool.

Server functions:

— Actually, the server itself keeps statistics of users, active time, traffic, connections, etc.;
— FTP server, used as shared storage data;
— Managing users, managing groups and access rights, assigning Administrators, operators and other servers;
— Creation of filters: filtering users by IP, filtering by MAC, anti-flood, filtering obscene expressions in chat;
— Creation of scripts to automate repeatable actions, etc.;
— Fine tuning servers (backup, logging, timers, remote control);
— Creation of advertisements;
— Web access for server administration;

MyChat client

The MyChat client is used to directly connect to the server. Allows you to connect to individual channels, register in channels, conduct private conversations, transfer files, view message boards, search for users, create alerts with various parameters. Special attention is paid to the plugins built into the program, which allows you to expand the client’s capabilities.

To summarize, MyChat is an excellent choice for small and medium-sized organizations, especially ideal for home networks. If it were not for the limitation of 15 connections, the program could be safely used in large corporate networks. The MyChat interface is available in three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and English. License Free versions provides for non-commercial use. To get the free version of MyChat, you need to go to the developer’s website and fill out a simple form.

Free client-server chat for organizing full communication in a small office, supporting up to 20 active users.

I work in a small office where almost each of the 8 employees who have a computer is in a separate office. When someone needs something, we usually either call each other on the phone, or just walk from office to office. This, unfortunately, is not always convenient. Therefore, I, as the chief technical specialist, have repeatedly made attempts to optimize this aspect of the work process. And it seems that I will succeed :)

And will help me with this free version a fairly well-known chat for local networks in RuNet MyChat Free Edition.

Key Features

The program allows you to deploy a full-fledged local chat with the following features:

• support up to 20 active compounds on the server;
• exchange of text messages and files;
• voice and video communication;
• implementation of local FTP (file) and SMTP (mail) server;
• flexible configuration of public and local chat rooms;
• Chat availability for all platforms, including a good web interface;
• ability to access the server via the Internet.

And this is not all the chat options! It also has a built-in system for announcements, distribution of tasks and tracking their completion. And, if this is not enough, then it can be integrated with almost any software solutions, which are used in your office (although this will already require basic programming skills and working with APIs).

Comparison with the paid version

The only thing that clouds the situation is that we are, after all, talking about a free version, which has certain limitations:

That's all the differences. The only serious limitation of the free version of MyChat is that no more than 20 clients can connect to the server. For small offices like mine, this is quite enough. Large offices will have to pay an extra $40 for every additional 10 connections.

Server installation and configuration

For MyChat to work in your local network, you first need to install a server program on one of your computers. There will be no difficulties with this. You just need to run the MyChat Server.exe file from the downloaded archive and follow the installer prompts:

After installation, the server is already running and you can already connect to it. And a window with statistics appears in front of us. This displays information about the operation of the server itself, clients connected to it, and running services. By default, only the SMTP sending protocol did not work for me email. In principle, I was not particularly interested in it, but if desired, everything can be customized. Actually, we have nothing else to do in the statistics window, so let’s move on to the settings. To do this, press the button "Administration":

Managing the server (as well as performing some other tasks) in MyChat occurs through the web interface, so a browser window will open in front of you with the local host address (http://127.0.0.1/admin):

A small pop-up window will inform us that we can use the localhost address for further quick login to the server control panel and will give us a temporary login with a password ("admin | admin"). For security reasons, it is these data for logging into the server admin that you need to change first. To do this in the left side menu looking for section "USERS" and open the item in it "List of users". Here, select the “admin” account and click the button "Change" and change the name, password, and also, if desired, other parameters:

Actually, that's all presets You can finish it. If you wish, in the future you can add additional password to log into the server, configure the anti-flood and swearing filters, add additional chat rooms, etc. But to begin with, what you have already done will be enough. All the main functionality of the server is available to us and we can start communicating by installing the client program on our own or someone else’s computer (although you can get by with the web version of the chat if you don’t want to install anything).

Connecting clients

Installing the MyChat client is not much more difficult than installing the server. Here you will not need to enter any data at all. In fact, the entire installation comes down to just selecting the interface language and clicking the “Next” buttons. In addition, you don’t have to install anything by downloading the portable version of the client from the official website. When you launch it for the first time, you will see a special step-by-step wizard that will allow you to connect to the newly created server step by step:

In the first step, we need to decide on the option to connect to the server:

There are only 4 of them:

1. Automatically find a server on my local network- allows you to automatically scan the network and detect an active MyChat server in it. The item is selected by default and is the most in a simple way connections.
2. I know the server address and will enter it manually- allows you to enter the server address yourself. Suitable, for example, if the client that needs to be connected is located on another local network or you need to create a connection via the Internet.
3. I have a settings file received from the administrator- opens a dialog for selecting a file with settings, which can be created by the server owner for simplified connection of clients. The configuration file already contains both the server address and the necessary access passwords, which allows you to minimize actions on the client side.
4. I want to connect to the developers server on the Internet- implements quick communication with developers through their server on the Internet.

For easy connection Within a local network, the first option, selected by default, is usually suitable. If we leave the choice on it, then in the next step we will be offered a list of detected servers:

For some reason, at this stage I saw two identical servers. Without further ado, I chose the first one. By the way, in this step we will see the first mention that we want to connect to the unregistered version of the server. But these are minor things.

The last step is registering on the server:

Here we will see a traditional form in which you must enter your login, password (twice), email address and security question with the answer to recover your password if it is lost. After that, click the “Finish” button and complete the connection stage.

Client interface

If everything went well, we will see the interface of the MyChat client itself:

For those who have ever used exchange programs instant messages, like ICQ or QIP, appearance MyChat messenger will be largely familiar. Upper part The window is reserved for traditional menu and toolbars (we'll talk about some of them later). On the left side there is a list of contacts and online users. The central part of the window is reserved directly for the field for displaying chat correspondence and entering your own remarks.

Please also note that above the text entry field there is a panel with buttons and drop-down lists. With their help, you can insert emoticons (including animated ones) into messages, attach files, add quick phrases (up to 10 pieces) and activate the text formatting panel (the button on the right above the "Send" button).

Also take a look at the row of tabs below the input field. By default, you have access to a tab with a list of all public conferences open on the server and a tab with general chat"main", which can be written to by all users connected to the server. If you want to chat with one of the users in private mode, click on his name in the left list and you will see another tab with the name of the contact you selected:

In private mode, the left panel does not display a list of contacts, but information about the profile of the user you have selected. There are also audio, video and screen sharing buttons. True, all these functions only work on Windows 7 and older. Otherwise, everything is the same as in the general chat.

Additional features

As I said just above, in MyChat not only setting up the server, but also most of the functions are available through the web interface. It has its own online chat client, the ability to create forums, a message board, and even some kind of CRM! Let's talk about some of these possibilities.

Online chat client

The MyChat server can be called a kind of “thing in itself”. Despite the fact that it is more convenient to communicate with its help through a special client, nevertheless, it is possible not to install anything! For basic text correspondence The web version of the client will be quite sufficient!

To open it, you need to know the exact IP address of the computer on your local network on which the server is installed. If you don’t know it or have forgotten it, you can always look it up in the client settings (or ask the administrator who installed the server :)). Enter the address in search bar browser and get to this page:

Here we see links to download clients for almost all popular operating systems. And on the right, at the very edge of the row, there is a button "Web", which opens the web interface we need. Click it, enter your login password in the form that appears (or register as a new user) and find yourself in something like this:

The workspace here is divided into three main columns. On the left is a menu that allows you to switch between conferences, as well as access additional Kanban and Notice Board tools. Looking ahead, I will say that Kanban is the analogue of CRM that I mentioned earlier, but the Bulletin Board is a kind of analogue of a mailing list that can only be created by a server administrator, therefore to a simple user There's no point in going there.

The right column is analogous to the left column of the client program. This displays information about users in the current chat room or information about a specific interlocutor in private mode. Typically, under the avatar there are buttons for audio call, video call and screen sharing, but for some reason they did not work for me (perhaps you need to do some additional settings server).

The central column is dedicated directly to the chat. True, there are much fewer possibilities here than in the client program. Of the entire arsenal, only the function of sending files is available to us. There's not even a button to insert emojis, let alone format text or add quick phrases. However, if you just need to quickly discuss something, the available capabilities are quite sufficient and you do not need to waste time installing and connecting the client.

Kanban

The strange name caught my attention even when I first launched the client program, which had a similar button on the toolbar. According to Wikipedia, Kanban is one of the principles effective organization labor, implying an equal distribution of the load among all participants in any production process with clear control of the time allotted for completing a particular task. By the way, the word itself is Japanese and literally means “signboard,” and the technique was developed by the Japanese automobile company Toyota back in 1959!

In MyChat, Kanban is implemented quite well and has flexible settings. When you first run Kanban, you will see an empty space with a single button "Create a project". If you click it, a window with a number of parameters will open. You can set a title and description for the project, specify deadlines for its completion, and also break the final task into logical stages. By default, 4 classic Kanban stages are created ("Task", "In Progress", "Checking" and "Done"), however, if you wish, you can remove the standard ones and add your own:

After creating the project, “signs” with tasks and sidebar to monitor the progress of planned work. We select the desired project from the list, add tasks for it, describe their essence and assign performers. As the task is completed, it can be transferred to next stage execution until it is completed completely and within the specified time frame:

There are no restrictions on the number of tasks in a project (as well as the projects themselves). Therefore, you can assign tasks to different employees at the same time and track their completion without constraining your convenience.

Advantages and disadvantages of the program

• minimum server settings;
• rich functionality and choice of communication tools;
• availability of clients for almost all operating systems;
• possibility of data transfer and file storage (FTP server);
• a lot of additional features.

Flaws:

• support for no more than 20 active clients;
• storing correspondence history only for the past month.

Conclusions

Before finding MyChat, I tried several similar chat programs for the local network. However, none of them had such a rich set of functions and at the same time was not so easy to install and configure. Almost immediately after installation, the chat server is ready to work.

You, as an administrator, can create your own accounts for the necessary users, and then organize their connection using configuration files, which minimizes actions on the client side. In addition, clients can be distributed in the form of already configured portable versions or even simply given a link to access the web version of the chat.

I think even the most inexperienced users will find this solution convenient. So far, the experience of using MyChat in my case can be called positive. Almost everything works as it should and does not cause any particular difficulties. Therefore, with a clear conscience, I can authoritatively recommend a program for organizing communication and exchanging files in small offices and government agencies.

P.S. Permission is granted to freely copy and quote this article, provided that open credit is given. active link to the source and preservation of the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny.

Start

To my oh-so-surprised face, my colleagues explained that this is how it happened historically (some link), and in general everyone understands that this is a little strange, but no one plans to change anything. After all, iChat (its full name is Intranet Chat - Wikipedia) has so many advantages:

• stands on our server and does not rustle
• everything is free (The author of the program released latest version in 2002, free)
• “has an aesthetic and uncomplicated interface” (thanks for the quote, Wikipedia)
• has all the necessary functions - personal chats and “bulletin board”

• no history - restart your computer, and if yesterday your colleague Vasya sent you someone’s e-mail, go read the logs in a text file
• you can’t transfer files - welcome to a corporate ftp exchanger, shared folders on a disk, or personal clouds (I personally use my OneDrive account if necessary)
• It’s impossible to chat normally from an external network (it’s only possible to write to colleagues normally if you connect via VPN or RDP)
• You can’t write to someone who is now offline - if a colleague is working from home today, or left early, or it’s after hours - remember your message until better times
• to follow up, the client is only available for Windows since version 98 - no iPhones or online 24 hours a day
• Naturally, there is no normal highlighting of anything: code, links (okay, there is highlighting, but you can’t click on them), hypertext

So why not just use Skype/Whatsapp/Telegram/Viber/ICQ?

And secondly, I have classmates, acquaintances, and my entire contact list in my telegram, and it is impossible to properly separate my colleagues from everyone else. And I can only find out that a colleague is on Telegram by asking him himself. Sometimes I don’t even know that I have a new colleague until I see someone I don’t know at the computer in another office. In short, chaos.

Then I asked our department head if it was possible to take a newer and still more technically advanced program from Apple, so that everyone would not suffer from bullshit and could calmly chat in one place. “There is no such program,” came the answer. No way, I thought, and said that there definitely is, it can’t help but be. “Then find it, and we’ll see.” Ok, now is the digital age, everything is Googled, it’s not difficult to find something sane, I thought. I was a little wrong.

Chat requirements from the organization

• free or one-time payment for an amount below 5,000 wooden (“it’s free now, so I don’t want to pay, and even 3k every month” - approximately this is the attitude towards paying for chat in the organization, and I too am toad pressured to pay at prices that American companies offer to other American and not-so-American companies)
• installation on your server, if not necessary, is at least very desirable
• Russian language support (the English version is guaranteed to be used only by the development department, and then only with a stretch)

Chat requirements from me

• cross-platform. So that I could finally, while sitting at lunch, or in transport, or on vacation, write something to someone from my phone, and even find out what someone wrote to me. And so that my colleague, who has Linux, doesn’t make a sad face every time he hears the word “chat”.
• tailored for communication in companies. So that I have a chat where there is All my colleagues and only my colleagues
• live active project. So that bugs, like insects frozen in amber, do not hang in the product until the end of time
• file transfer. Well, why should I upload this picture to shared folder, if I can just throw it through chat!
• normal notification/unread sync. So that it’s not like in Skype, you catch a message, and then within 24 hours you find a notification about it on each of your devices.

In the footsteps of Aychat

One of best options, which I managed to find - chat “Commfort”. The name intrigued me, but in reality everything turned out to be not so comfortable.

The cost of comfort for my organization of about 30-40 people: 16 thousand rubles.

The product has attractive features, but its interface is intimidating and does not inspire confidence in its quality. And for the price, we can’t climb with it.

Unfortunately, after several hours of Googling, I was unable to find an option that met my criteria. If it does exist, I would be grateful for the link.

These hipster slacks of yours

Well, slack means slack, there can’t be so much hype out of nothing. A quick examination of the patient showed the presence of new gadgets, some channels with hashtags and an unusual interface. And the desire to be on the cutting edge of technology was, of course, strong, but the interface of our overseas friend has no translations into other languages ​​at all, and only Apple (which, as you know, can do everything, but doesn’t want everything) can install it on its server. Well, it's a bit of a fail.

Oh, and there's also hipchat. It's like slack, but hipchat. And there is also no translation, and there is also no way to put it to yourself. But for hipsters. And for robots.

But I would like ours

Although it very quickly became clear that this option was not suitable due to its complexity (there are sections, in sections there are topics, and only in topics there are chats in which you can write something) and, how can I say this without Englishisms... okay, where without them, the User Experience in it is generally sad. And yes, only in English.

This is what a patient with an unclear name looks like

But it’s already closer, and maybe there really is something suitable in the OpenSource world! I searched the search bar a little more and found Mattermost and Rocket chat. The latter eventually received the People's Choice Award named after me, and entered our home as a new member of the software ecosystem. And why, because he has translations, translations!

This is what it all looks like

Briefly, the goodies and badges of Rocket Chat

• There is a translation into Russian. Yes, it is not complete, but almost, and if something happens, you can translate the necessary things into your language. Translations are hosted on the portal lingohub.com, specially made for this purpose. The author of this post, to his credit (and modesty), has translated 60% of what has not yet been translated, and is not going to stop.
• You can install it on your Linux server with one line (really, just one, and it works).
• There are clients for all platforms except Windows Phone: (poor, poor WP! (I myself am a former Lumia owner)
• There is a web version, you can quickly log in from any device and, for example, transfer a log file from a client’s computer, send a stack trace, or simply write to a colleague
• Separately, you can configure all notifications: from which chats you should be shown notifications and from which not; individual settings notifications for mobile and desktop devices
• Eat file server, you can upload files
• Free
• Actively being developed, new features are being cut, bugs are being fixed

• Bugs. Where would our loved ones be without them? They are. In some places, when you click somewhere, nothing happens, in other places, on the contrary, something happens that you don’t expect at all. But I must say that there are not many of them, and in general the situation is about the same as Xiaomi: cheap and with bugs, but overall it will work.
• The desktop client is on an electronic device, which in itself may not be a minus, but still not very cool.
• The mobile client is practically a copy of the desktop one, connected via WebView (probably). It is not fast or responsive on a smartphone.
• There is no list of all users anywhere in the interface. I don’t know about you, but in a corporate chat I want to see a list of all my colleagues. Because I don’t know the names of some of my colleagues, and I don’t even know about the existence of some.
• Mmm, what else is there. Yes, there is no "On Vacation" status. So I went on vacation, set the status to “on vacation” and everything was fine.

Today there is two main ways organizing a corporate chat. First of which is to use the most common IM clients in our country: ICQ,QIP, Skype etc. Its main advantage is ease of implementation and low cost. Indeed, it’s impossible to come up with something simpler: all employees need to do is install the client and add each other to their contacts. Using these systems is generally free.

However, this solution has a number of serious disadvantages. Firstly, they lack many very useful features. In particular, in all systems (with the exception of Skype) there are no group chats, message read confirmation functions, etc. Secondly, IM chats completely unmanageable across the organization. Each employee has own account, with whom he is free to do whatever he wants. This raises the problem of monitoring employee correspondence, accessing the message archive, creating “corporate” numbers, etc.

Thirdly, usage IM clients– potential threat information security companies. And this is not only about technical points(for example, the risk of downloading infected files, clicking on dangerous links, etc.), which can be successfully combated. IM chats are one of the main leak channels confidential information, which, among other things, is quite difficult to control by DLP systems. This is especially true with Skype, which transmits traffic in encrypted form. In addition, there is always a risk that an employee will lose control of their ICQ account. Having obtained it, the attacker will be able to communicate with the company’s clients, implementing certain fraudulent schemes with the aim of deceiving them. Which, in the end, will have an extremely negative impact on the reputation and business of the company.

Second The way to organize a chat for the office is to use special software. And although this is a slightly more expensive method, it eliminates all the above disadvantages. Well, additional features that can be actively used in business processes, increasing their efficiency, quickly pay for the implementation costs. Naturally, this requires that the software implements all required functions. Therefore, you should approach the choice of a program for organizing a corporate chat with the utmost care: the more functionality the product has, the more widely it can be used. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to another aspect - namely, the possibilities of implementation and administration. Integration with Active Directory, remote management, and the ability to scale the solution can significantly simplify the management of corporate chat, and therefore reduce the cost of owning it.

An example of a solution that meets all the requirements is the MyChat product from Network Software Solutions. This is with client-server architecture. This means that to ensure the operation of the product, a special server is used, which takes on communication and other functions. The client-server approach is optimal for organizing corporate chat in both small and large networks. It is characterized by good controllability, wide capabilities and low load on network channels.

In terms of functions intended for end users, program MyChat there is something to brag about. You need to start with presence of two modes of communication: personal and group. With the first one everything is very simple. Two users can chat with each other in much the same way as in ICQ. Group communication is implemented in the form of channels - special “groups”, to which either everyone or only certain employees of the organization can connect. In this case, channels can be created by the administrator and always exist, or opened by the users themselves (who have rights to do so) if necessary. This flexibility is very convenient in practice. For example, you can create one common channel for communication between all office employees and separate channels for correspondence within each department.

During communication, users can use big set various functions . Among them, we can note the possibility of using text formatting and emoticons, arbitrary pictures and links in messages, transferring files both directly and through the chat server, saving correspondence history, ignore lists, filters (anti-mat, anti-flood), etc. In fact, in MyChat Everything necessary for full and comfortable communication between employees has been implemented.

Naturally, it is impossible to imagine an office chat without a contact book. IN MyChat there are even two of them. The first contains full list all users registered in the system. Moreover, they can be divided into departments, highlighting a boss in each group. This is especially true for large companies, where employees from different departments may not know each other. The second contact book is personal. Each user has his own. You can add all the people with whom you need to communicate frequently.

In addition, the office chat in question implements a whole a number of additional features. The first one is notification system. With its help, you can send a certain message to all or only some users and ask them to confirm that they have read it. This allows you to send orders for information, notifications about meetings, etc. Moreover, employees will no longer be able to say that they did not see or read the message.

Second additional opportunity – built-in FTP server. His presence in the office chat may seem strange. However, in fact, this is very convenient, especially if the company has not yet deployed own FTP server. What does it give? Firstly, storage for recording files, both general, accessible to all users, and personal. Secondly, it can be used to exchange documents (for example, on an FTP server you can save documents for a user who is in at the moment offline). Thirdly, an FTP server is required for automatic update chat clients (we'll talk more about this a little later).

The following additional option is bulletin board. You can “hang” an ad on it, which will be visible to all users during a specified period of time. You can also note the account manager, which provides convenient use clients on those computers on which different employees can work.

Many functions in MyChat is intended to increase the convenience of its deployment and administration. The more capabilities a system has in this regard, the more convenient it is to manage. This means the lower the total cost of chat ownership. Distinctive feature MyChat is the possibility of using in networks, including distributed ones, the most different scales, starting from a few to thousands and even tens of thousands of clients located in different cities or even countries. This is provided by a whole range of administration functions.

You need to start with how to install client programs. They can be installed either manually or automatically using group policies Active Directory. The same can be said about updating clients. However, in MyChat there is a more convenient implementation of this process. This office chat has an automatic update feature. When using it, the client is updated independently at the command of the user, who is given a corresponding notification (in this case, the built-in FTP server is used, where the administrator must first download the distribution kit new version). Implemented in , which can make life very easy for the company’s IT department.

Another very important feature the office chat in question is own script engine. What is it for? This engine allows you to write arbitrary scripts that are used to automate various processes and integrate chat with other corporate software tools. Here you can also note the ability to connect various plugins. For example, a plugin for remote control user computers. Combined with some other features MyChat(sending screenshots, MyChat Actions technology, etc.) this allows you to organize effective technical support users.

The developers of the security program paid a lot of attention. All traffic transmitted in the system is encrypted, making it useless to intercept it. This allows you to safely connect remote users via the Internet. You can also note the presence of a very flexible system for setting user access rights to chat features. They are installed by group, and the administrator can allow or deny almost any operation. This allows you to configure office chat exactly as needed in each specific case.

A distinctive feature of the MyChat program is active use web technologies. This product comes with its own web server which can be used to manage this office chat. This method of administration perfectly complements the traditional local console. It allows you to manage the chat server remotely from your work computer or even from home via the Internet.

Group chat for teamwork. You can create a separate chat for each topic. Each team member receives notifications only about those messages that are addressed specifically to him. There is integration with a large number external services. Powerful search through message history. There are clients for Android and iOS.

Social intranet. Contains microblogs, tasks, file storage (with version control), calendar, photo galleries, messenger, extranet, CRM, marketing, business processes, time tracking, profiles, reports. Eat mobile version. There is a free version.

Group chat for Office 365. Allows you to create groups/rooms for projects or departments, communicate, and share files with colleagues. There are bots for notifications and responses to requests. Close integration with Microsoft applications - Skype, Word, SharePoint, OneNote, Power BI, Planner.

Group chat for teams in G Suite. Allows you to exchange messages and files, as well as conduct video conferences. Integrated with other G Suite services, including Google Drive, Docs, Sheets and others.

Client-server messenger for local network. Integrates with Active Directory, multilevel list contacts, bulletin board, mass notification system, conferences, SSL traffic encryption, offline message and file transfer, flexible user rights management system, file and folder transfer. Built-in Kanban boards for projects

Group messenger for discussing ideas, public access to files and receiving instant feedback from the team. Free version for an unlimited number of users