Storing preferences on the server, is this possible?

Spark Spark Support
1

I’m about to try to install OpenFire in a call centre environment, using Spark as the client.

However, I have a few things that I would like to know how to do, and if they’re possible to even do. An easy method for each thing would be awesome.

The first thing that I would like to do is for the user preferences for Spark to be automatically set for all users, no matter where they decide to sit in the call centre. We don’t have assigned seating, so agents sit wherever there’s room and they each have their own network accounts. What I would like is for all the preferences to be set automatically when they sign on, such as running in the taskbar and havig the messages brought to the front when they receive a new message. Is this possible? How do I go about doing that?

Another thing I would like is to disable the Broadcast feature for a certain group, is this even possible? I would also like to prevent the agents from messaging each other, only allow them to message the supervisors, is this possible? From what I’ve read so far, there’s no way to prevent them from using the broadcast feature with the Spark client, but I don’t want users to be able to access MSN or Yahoo or anything like that, hence the use of the Spark client. Is there another client that I could use that would make this easier?

Right now I have 3 groups setup. One for the call centre agents, one for supervisors and managers and one for office staff that work in the HQ. I know how to setup the supervisor and HQ groups so that they only see each other and how to share the supervisor group with the agents and HQ group, but is there a way to share the agents group with the supervisors group without the agents in the agents group being able to see the agents group?

Is there also a way to lock the preferences in Spark so that agents can’t add new users to their individual spark clients?

Thanks in advance for any help, it’s greatly appreciated.

2

Hi Symal,

  1. Things you can setup are the ones you find in the Admin Console, such as names, groups belonging and so on. Some other such as aliases, autostart, autologin, etc must be configured directly in each client.

  2. You cannot disable that feature (talk each other)

Try to explain a bit better your other ideas (i’m Spanish speaker)

3
  1. Yes this can be done via group policy. Create a default setting file with a install of spark then copy the spark.properties file to each computer at login.
  2. Broadcast cannot be easily disabled in spark. It has its own broadcast function. The client control plugin does have the ability to disable that feature but I have not tested it for functionality.
  3. It is not a feature built into openfire. Some users have tried to accomplish this with the packet filter plugin. I do not know how successful that would be.
4

in addition:

As long as i remember Broadcast option disabling via Client Control not only disables that option in Spark but also makes them not to receive broadcasts.

Spark doesnt have built-in support for SMN, yahoo, etc. protocols. It only works with jabber (users can connect to available jabber servers in the Internet, if you won’t block this with a firewall). It also possible to connect to MSN, etc. via gateway, but such gateway has to be available on the server, which Spark is connecting to.

As Todd already said you should check Packet Filter plugin for your restrictions scenarios. Maybe it will be enough to just block Presence packets.