Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

August 2022

Element Web/Desktop 1.11.4 - A security update, deferred DMs and more

Hey everyone! We’ve got a new release for you, and it has security fixes so please make sure you upgrade. We’ll disclose the details of the issue down the line, but stress that this update is important. Over the weekend we received a report from Val Lorentz (thank you!) that it was possible to create a situation where Element wouldn’t show all of the user’s rooms or Spaces, causing minor (temporary) corruption and Denial of Service (DoS).

Community Open Call August 2022 - Apps Engine, Demo.App, Chuck Norris App and more!

Rocket.Chat’s App.Engine is a framework that allows developers to create self-contained apps that are capable of interacting with its host system. These apps can deliver a variety of extended features as well as integrations with all sorts of external systems. Bot and Channel Connectors, Video Conferencing Providers, SlashCommands, Endpoints, Hooks and Events. What you can - and can’t do - with those frameworks?

Element is a leader in The Forrester Wave: Secure Communications, Q3 2022!

We’re incredibly excited to share this news! In our view, being identified as a leader in The Forrester Wave for Secure Communications (Q3 2022) is a powerful validation of the benefits Element brings to large enterprises and governments. In Forrester’s words Element is a great fit for “...organizations that prioritize flexibility, federation, and data sovereignty”. We are always having conversations with our customers about these three benefits.

Why Slack's free plan change is causing an exodus

On July 18, 2022, Slack announced that starting September 1, search history for organizations on Slack’s Free plan will be limited to just the past 90 days of message history. At first blush, this might look like a minor policy tweak. But it is in fact a dramatic change that makes Slack’s free plan untenable for many organizations, including ones that have been happily using Slack’s free plan for years.

10 Best Ways of Balancing Cybersecurity and Employee Productivity

It's no secret that cybersecurity threats are becoming more and more prevalent, and companies are starting to take notice. But while it's important to make sure your company is taking the necessary steps to protect itself from potential cyber attacks, it's also important to make sure you're not making it too difficult for employees to do their jobs. After all, if employees are spending all their time trying to wade through complicated security measures, they're not going to be very productive.

Best Practices for Managing Teams with Different Backgrounds

No matter the domain, managing teams, is one of the challenging and crucial duties for every manager. A manager will be recruited for more than just managing the Company's finances, profit, and loss; managing the team and groups is also a necessary duty. The most significant error made by small to large businesses is choosing employees for promotions or hiring based on their knowledge of the sector rather than their people management skills.

Open source collaboration software: benefits and 5 recommendations

In today’s hybrid work culture, teams need the support of a powerful collaboration tool to function efficiently. And though ample options are available in the market, open source collaboration software is gaining more popularity than ever. Why? This type of software promises better collaboration for security- and compliance-oriented teams.

Top 7 open source messaging platforms for secure communication

For remote teams, connectivity and productivity might be two faces of the same coin. Working from the office isn't a prerequisite anymore, as the global workforce has shifted to a remote workplace. Reliance on internal communication has increased more than ever, with a wide range of communication tools such as email, phone calls, and social networking used daily. Long email threads and social media chats are no longer appropriate for business teams.

The ultimate list of 18 most secure messaging apps

The most secure messaging apps are becoming a priority for more and more companies. They want to enable both best communication experience to their employees and ensure the highest level of security. Why? Because organizations know how beneficial team collaboration is. At the same time, they know that their reputation and business success depend on keeping their customers and internal data private.

The Best Apps For Internet Calling

As a byproduct of the rapidly evolving digital world, we discovered the best apps for internet calling that don't require contact numbers made up of country codes. The days of utilizing a phone with a standard contact number to call people are long gone. All you need is a device with an internet connection to initiate the calls.

The 14 best online collaboration apps of 2022

The collaboration apps market boomed in 2020. With the abrupt switch to digital workplaces and remote work, organizations realized they need to support their employees’ work with the proper technology. That’s why today, we’re bringing you a list of the best team collaboration apps to try in 2022 - if you haven’t already.

6 Steps to Choosing Best Mediums of Communication for Your Business

A known fact would be that effective communication is the strengthening base for any successful organization. However, it might be difficult to see through the best communication channel or medium to send your message across. Digging into the knowledge of various mediums of communication and their uses can help you identify which one suits your objective the best.

13 Best Zoom Alternatives for Virtual Meetings and Webinars in 2022

Users search for virtual meetings and webinars’ tools in the name of Zoom alternatives expecting the same capabilities in the tools they are seeking - that is, the impact of Zoom on worldwide users. In other words, "Zoom" as a brand name has become synonymous with online meetings. If internet stories are to be believed, there was a significant surge in the use of Zoom for remote work, distance education, and online social contacts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why Are We Okay with Notification Interruptions from Slack?

The daily bombardment of alerts dinging, beeping, and ringing from all those applications we use is enough to drive someone completely crazy. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we allow ourselves to be interrupted by Slack in a way we wouldn’t from any other platform. Even though it seems completely counterintuitive, and despite the sheer amount of daily notifications (because we still can get a bunch of notifications from Slack alone), we love and use Slack—a lot.

9 extremely secure collaboration tools for your business in 2022

The pandemic saw a massive shift in the way teams work together. With remote work becoming the new normal, secure collaboration tools became crucial in helping teams collaborate seamlessly despite being spread across different cities or even different continents. But why does the word "secure" hold the utmost importance here? While remote work offers the flexibility of working from anywhere and using any device, it can pose a great threat to an organization's data.

How to strengthen your customer communication in 2022

The way businesses communicate with their customers is constantly evolving, and it's essential to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to providing the best possible experience. A business that can communicate effectively with its customers is more likely to build a strong relationship and earn repeat business. Knowing what steps to take to improve customer communication can be difficult, but we've compiled the best tips that will help you strengthen your customer communication this year.

How to Create and Manage Virtual Teams and What Challenges They May Face

Many organizations have moved to hybrid work – this means employees are establishing a new method of collaborating and communicating. Virtual teams undertake most of their work online rather than coming into the office and meeting with their colleagues in person. Let’s look at what makes a strong framework for virtual team members to collaborate and communicate.

How to solve the 'WhatsApp at work' problem

Workplace use of WhatsApp is an expensive habit - so expensive it’s costing five US investment banks a total of $1B in fines from the SEC 🤯! This isn’t just a Wall Street problem - it's worldwide. Germany’s financial watchdog, BaFin, is investigating senior executive use of WhatsApp at Deutsche Bank.

The Top 11 Presentation and Pitching Tools for 2022

As we move further into the 22nd century, new technologies are constantly emerging that can help with presentations and pitching. Whether you're a startup founder looking to give a TED Talk or just want to make your next work presentation more engaging, there's a tool out there for you. In this blog post, we will discuss the top 11 presentation and pitching tools for 2022. Keep reading to find out which tools made our list!

Product Roundup: The all-new Matrix Federation, video conferencing apps and more!

The momentum for the new quarter is established early in the first month, and it’s true about Q3 at Rocket.Chat. We have had a great start to the second half of this year with the launch of salient features in our 5.0 version that facilitate secure communication and seamless collaboration to help you move the needle on your business goals. At Rocket.Chat, we are always committed to empowering organizations to own their data by bringing data privacy and security into every conversation.

Audio-To-Text tools for businesses working remotely

Well-written and readable files are essential for every business — both businesses that operate online and offline. Little wonder that ninety-seven percent of business data is still documented on paper. Businesses usually have their essential information recorded in a video or audio recorder. However, transcribing those audio files into written texts is essential for most businesses' documentation process.

5 Qualities That Make an Ideal Team Player

Individuals make up teams, and the truth is that some people are better suited to contribute to excellent team performance than others. Some people may quickly offer substantial value to a team and require far less supervision and mentoring to be successful in their jobs. Patrick Lencioni outlined the characteristics of an ideal team player in his best-selling book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. It represents three virtues: humility, hunger, and smart people.

Building a Slack Integration for Your SaaS Notification System

For many organizations, Slack is the software of choice for business communication. Slack’s ubiquity in modern companies makes it one of the first notification integrations a SaaS company might want to build, possibly after email and mobile push notifications. In our experience, Slack notifications are a great way to reach business users (as Slack is mostly used in a business context) with time-sensitive alerts or action items while they’re at work.

The Importance of a Future-Proofed Multichannel Notification System

Product notifications are a mission-critical component of your product that can’t be left to chance. However, notification channels are ever-evolving, and you need to keep up in order to reach users when, where, and how they prefer to be reached. A future-proof multichannel notifications strategy helps you stay in touch with your users without coming off as intrusive, non-responsive, or antiquated.

Introducing Our New Guide: How to Build Your Open Source Productivity Stack

It’s no secret that open source software is an important part of many development teams’ daily workflows. But does that include productivity tools? Oftentimes, development workflows get shoehorned into the same productivity tools used by nontechnical teams—but these tools can be a poor fit for the needs of developers.

13 Software Tools to Improve Your Hiring Process

The hiring process is important, and when you fail to deliver and manage it properly, you might get too many wrong perceptions of your company, mostly from unsuccessful candidates. Moreover, talent acquisition is competitive, but recruiters have to be aware of ensuring applicants come away from the hiring process and have had a positive experience from the outcome. However, how exactly can software tools help you improve the hiring process? Let’s find out more in this article!