How to Create a Room (Gruppe)¶

The New Helmholtz Matrix Service and this Documentation Are in a Ramp-up Phase

Please contact us if you encounter any errors.
Helmholtz members are also invited to give us some structured feedback here.
From time to time, you may see a red “Offline” notification message. This is because during ramp-up phase of the service, we may need to deploy changes to the server without prior announcement. Don’t reload, your messages will be sent with few seconds delay.

The Mattermost Wording was: Channel.

To make sure you are in the right space, click on the selected space on the left side. (If you need to create a space, see How-to create spaces.)
Click pencil symbol at the top
Choose # New room
Enter Name
Optional: Enter Topic
- Hint: If you want to use markdown formatting for your topic description, better leave this field empty for now and add the topic later, due to a bug in element.
choose who can see the room: Visible to spaces | Ask to join | Private Room | Public Room
- You can find the description of the selected option below the field.
- Ask to join option is only available via browser version or if you added app configuration, see How-to configure Element client
Select whether the room should be encrypted (recommended, even required for confidential or data-protected chats).
Show advanced:
- If you select this option, you will not be able to chat with external partners (outside Helmholtz).
Create room

Modify Default Settings¶

Click i on the header
Click Settings
General:
- modify Logo, Room Name, Topic
Security & Privacy:
- Who can read history? Choose your preferred option.
Roles & Permissions: You can manage authorisation level of the space users.
- Consider to set the permission for “Invite users” from Default to Admin, else any new member can invite further users.

You can move a room to another space:

Choose the destination space on the left side. This is the space where the room has to be later.
Enter the Space Home view (right-click on the space)
Click Add on the left side
Click # Add existing room
Select the room that you want to move
Click Add

Experimental

The following description is not thoroughly tested so far. Handle with care. We are thankful for feedback.

In case you want to let in a large number of defined users (e.g. from a whole center or department) to a room, but do not want to:

There is an experimental workflow for admins:

Set the room in Security & Privacy settings to Anyone
- Do not “Publish this room in helmholtz.cloud’s room directoy”!
- Set a random String as “Local Addresses”, e.g. # ajqd1i1dEdnQP1j:helmholtz.cloud.
- Save.
- This room can now be entered via the the just defined random string (and the original static (!) internal room ID).
- It should not be possible to find or enter the room via room search without knowing any of the defined (random) Local Addresses.
Copy the URL of the room which now contains the just-defined string and share it to your desired group (e.g. via intranet), telling users to join this room via this URL until a defined deadline.
Users knowing this URL can join without further request or approval.
After the deadline, you can set the room to Invite only again, and / or delete the local address with the random string.
You can repeat the procedure with a new random string anytime later.

Step-by-step introduction to rooms (and many other topics) is provided by TU Dresden: Matrix an der TU Dresden > Rooms DE / EN.