Can groups be controlled as to which other users they can message?

Spark Spark Support
1

Hi,

We are a school and have some staff using Spark for recording IT faults and requesting password changes etc

Our English department are running some activities next week for the students and want student Spark accounts set up - which I have done.

However, we have some concerns that some of the little kiddywinkies will start messaging other members of staff who may be teaching/not wish to be disturbed. There is also the question of confidential comments accidentally being sent to the wrong contact.

I have all the student accounts set up in a group of their own and wondered if we could ‘lock’ the group down somehow so they can only message other contacts in their own group please?

We are running Spark 2.5.8 and Openfire 3.5.2.

Thanks!

2

you can install Packet filter plugin and create rule that block messgaes based on group membership.

In Packet Plugin section of this forum there is an “beta” version plugin with regex expression support.

3

You may want to upgrade server and client to recent versions. The new client has support for privacy lists that allow to block presence information and also the ability to receive messages can be suppressed. For the support scenario you may want to take a look into Fastpath for the Support use case.

Basically, the IT support team can prevent visibility and supress any messages from students. Sending wronf stuff to wrong pepole is a common problem. You hav ethe same with eMail.

The packet filter might be an option, but I think it will be based on the user ID and not the group. That makes any server based solution very difficult to maintain.

Another option would be a hidden second Openfire for your students and for your staff. That would basically shield you staff from the students completely. Actually, that would be my preference.