Modify default channel for new users

hugogogo · April 19, 2021, 10:57am

Hi every body !

i would like to create a team for my association, but i don’t find it very intuitive that when you arrive you only have the two default channels and you don’t know what’s going on, especially if you never used this kind of service before, like mattermost or slack or discord

So i wonder if it’s possible to add more default channels for new users, that would automatically appear when they enter the team ?

I didn’t find this option, maybe it’s not possible ?

I this case, would it be possible to add a personnal message when you connect the first time : for the moment you get a message from the system " you have join the team .", but maybe it could be a short text that explain the basics of mattermost (join this channel, read this pin message, etc…) ?

thx for your work and your help !

amy.blais · April 19, 2021, 12:45pm

This Welcome plugin may help: GitHub - mattermost/mattermost-plugin-welcomebot

hugogogo · April 19, 2021, 1:24pm

thx by your answer i understand that it’s not possible by default in mattermost unfortunately i’m not using my own mattermost, so i will see if the guys are willing to implements this plugin

brentdurst · May 5, 2022, 11:58pm

hello, is there also a way to modify the default config file to add channels and categories to the default. is it as simple as modifying one file or would multiple files need to be updated? if this is possible can you confirm which file is the template for loading the defaults when new teams are created? i want to try modifying it.

thank you

satoshinotdead · August 16, 2022, 9:11pm

What about changing the default screen that we get entering to Workspaces?

We know that we can create a new ones but in day-by-day basis we don´t need that all the time.

Reminder the last board used could be too much useful.

agriesser · August 17, 2022, 4:47am

@hugogogo this assumption is right, for now, it’s not possible to do that directly in Mattermost without any “external” help. The external help could be the welcomebot plugin as well as some API calls or mmctl commands to help you organize your team, but they will also require some additional permissions in order for you to add people to channels. What is your permission level on the server you’re working with?

@brentdurst You mean server side? There is none, unfortunately. The default channels per team cannot be modified by now, there’s also no such thing as “team templates” or the like. It’s currently hardcoded, although while looking at the code, there seems to be an experimental setting to specify the list of default channels for new users that join, but I could not make that work for me so far.

github.com

mattermost/mattermost-server/blob/master/app/teams/utils.go#L14


      
          package teams
          
          
import (
          	"strings"
          
          
	"github.com/mattermost/mattermost-server/v6/model"
          )
          
          
// By default the list will be (not necessarily in this order):
          //	['town-square', 'off-topic']
          // However, if TeamSettings.ExperimentalDefaultChannels contains a list of channels then that list will replace
          // 'off-topic' and be included in the return results in addition to 'town-square'. For example:
          //	['town-square', 'game-of-thrones', 'wow']
          //
          func (ts *TeamService) DefaultChannelNames() []string {
          	names := []string{"town-square"}
          
          
	if len(ts.config().TeamSettings.ExperimentalDefaultChannels) == 0 {
          		names = append(names, "off-topic")
          	} else {
          		seenChannels := map[string]bool{"town-square": true}

The setting is still available in config.json, and I tried to populate it to no avail so far:

  "TeamSettings": {
[...]
    "ExperimentalDefaultChannels": ["off-topic", "defaultchannel1"]
},

Maybe you have more luck with this option, I’ll do some more testing in the meantime.

@satoshinotdead What default screen do you mean? Can you maybe provide a screenshot for more details? Unfortunately, I do not understand what you mean with the other two sentences - can you maybe try to rephrase them? Thanks!

satoshinotdead · August 24, 2022, 7:57pm

Well, last used board instead that screen could be more useful for our day by day basis:

agriesser · August 25, 2022, 3:32am

The latest version of the focalboard plugin (7.2.0) seems to support that, I just compared the behaviour on my local system (Boards 7.1.0) and the community server (Boards 7.2.0) and it behaves differently there, so when you switch back to boards, it will automatically open the last used board.