Creating a connection
We can create and accept a connection from the Connected Organizations page under the environment section.
On the add a connection button, you have two options:
Create a connection
Accept an invitation
Creating a connection
Only instances with an Enterprise license can create a connection with another server. Once the user clicks on Create a connection, they’re taken to the Connection Inner page.
Here they can enter/decide:
Organisation name
This would also be the connection name
Decide if channel invites should automatically be accepted.
If automatically accepted, choose default destination team for those channels.
This would be the default team where any channels shared would land.
Channels they want to share
Initially, the user can only share their own channels, and not see other channels that are shared, but later on, they will see two tabs:
For channels shared by the external server
Their own channels shared.
If the automatically select channel invites option is turned on, we will show the destination team dropdown.
Channel Sharing
The user can decide to share their channels by clicking on the Add channels button.
A modal opens up allowing them to choose Public channels cross team.
The user can select multiple channels.
Once the channels are selected and added, they appear in the list.
The user can decide to remove them, or add new channels.
This would use a pretty similar UI as the channels listing page in the system console.
We will not have the filters here that exist in that channels listing page.
A server cannot reshare a channel that's shared with them (so this would only show channels belonging to your server)
However, a channel originating on your server can be shared to multiple secure connections
Share code
Once done, the user can click on Save to create a connection. They get a share popup to share the code needed to accept the connection.
This code will only be shared once, and the user has to copy both of these and send them to the other org inorder for a connection to be established.
If the user closes the modal, they can regenerate another code, which renders the old code invalid.
The list should show all of the connections you’ve created or accepted, with their state and the channels being shared in total (from us, and from the other party):
It would also include the options to:
Generate a new invitation code
Edit the connection
Delete it
Creating a new connection opens up a new modal with a new invitation code and password.
Accepting a connection
Only instances with an Enterprise license can accept a connection with another server. On the other end, once the user receives the invitation code, they can go to the same page and click on Accept a connection in the Add connection dropdown.
Here the user can enter the organisation name, encrypted invitation code, and password shared by the other organisation.
Connection Inner Page
This inner page is similar to the one above. Except, it has two tabs which shows channels shared by the external org, and the your own channels shared.
The user would see the channels the other party has shared, and since by default you do not accept channel invites. The admin would have an option to accept each individual channel and choose a destination team.
The user can click on Reject to reject the channel invite, or Accept to get this modal to choose a destination team:
After which, the team would show up like this.
The save and cancel buttons only are for the top section, not for the Shared channels section where the user is sharing, accepting or removing channels.
Once accepted, the user can also change the destination team of a channel.
The Your channel list flow is going to be similar to the one mentioned previously.
Adding a channel
If the user adds a channel by staying on the external channels tab, once he has selected the channels, we will take him to his own channels tab automatically and show the added channel there.
Changing the destination team
Once a channel is accepted and added to a destination team, we do not allow users to move the destination team.
They can still move it through MM Kettle, or how they normally move any channel across teams.
New channel requests
If a channel request is send and the automatically accept channel invites option is turned off. We will send a bot message to all admins as well. They can then accept or reject the channel and choose a destination team.
Removing an accepted channel
Once a channel is accepted, each server has the option to unsync the channel from the other remote.
They can do that by clicking the remove button on the channel.
If a channel has been removed previously in a shared connection, then any party that tries to share that channel will get an error like this when sharing that channel.
This only exists per connection. The admins can still share this channel with another remote (if it hasn’t been removed from there either).
Connection list page
Here we display the connections that the user has created/accepted.
Status of the connection.
Channels shared
Options to See the invitation code, edit, and delete the connection.
The option to see the invitation code will only be there if the connection is pending.
Once the connection is made, the share code option will disappear, as we only allow users to share the code 1 to 1.
DMs with External Connection
If you are sharing a channel with a user, you can also communicate with them via DM.
Shared channels in sidebar
This is how the shared channels would appear, with the shared icon, and hovering over it displays the tooltip.
Any user in the channel that belongs to the external org would also have that icon beside is username/fullname.
Browse shared channels
Shared channels would also be visible in the browse channels modal with an icon.
Channel Members
Members from other orgs can also be seen in the channel member list (with an icon on the right), but you won’t be able to manage them.
Removing a connection
When a connection/channel is removed, we will remove all shared users from the channel list, and also remove the link icon from the LHS, header, and anywhere it appears.
System console updates
Users page
On the users page, if we show the shared users, we should remove all options on the right, such as changing their membership or reset their password, etc.
Channels list
On the channels list, we would show a list of channels that are shared with external orgs as well.
And on hover, we get a tooltip on it identifying which connections are sharing those channels.
And on click, we take the user to the first organisation that this is being shared to.
I say first because a single channel could potentially be shared to multiple organisations.
