Zextras Team

Zextras Team integrates a fully fledged corporate instant messaging platform inside the Zimbra WebClient, including Group and Corporate Messaging, File Sharing, Screen Sharing and informal Video Chat capabilities.

Zextras Team is licensed on a per-user basis.

Global Admins can enable its Advanced features for any number of users up to the limit allowed by the license, and only "advanced" users count towards any licensing limit.

The total number of users who have the Advanced features active can be seen in the output of the zxsuite core getLicenseInfo command under teamChatActiveCount:

zimbra@129efa51bd95:~$ zxsuite core getLicenseInfo

This count is updated every 15 minutes.

Zimbra Chat and Zextras Team are neither compatible nor interoperable, meaning that the two products cannot coexist on any Zimbra NE infrastructure. The Zimbra Chat zimlet gets uninstalled during the installation process of the Zextras Team Zimlet package. However, Zextras Team includes all basic IM features provided by Zimbra Chat, which automatically gets enabled for all users who don’t have access to the advanced Zextras Team features. Advanced users can use all of the product’s features with other advanced users and can use 1-to-1 Instant Messaging with basic users, while Basic users can use the basic 1-to-1 features with all other users.

All users start as «Basic» users, and the «Advanced» features can be enabled by Global and Delegated admins.

The `com_zextras_Team Zimlet can be deployed from the "Core" section of the Zextras Adminictration Zimlet.

No configuration on the mailboxd side is needed after the Zimlet has been deployed and enabled.

To build URLs and links (e.g. for External Shares) Zextras Drive uses the default Zimbra settings for the domain of the account in use - the zimbraPublicServiceHostname property is used for the URL itself while the zimbraPublicServicePort property is used for the port.

Should any of the two not be set up, the system will always fall back to the zimbraServiceHostname and zimbraMailPort or zimbraMailSSLPort server-level properties.

For Video Chats and Instant Meetings, the following rules apply:

Zextras Team features can be enabled and disabled from the "Team" section of Accounts and Classes of Service in the Zimbra Administration Console.

The same options are also available via the zxsuite config command line utility:

Zextras Team features are available on all browsers officially supported by the {product-short} {web-client}, with some client-side limitations:

While likely to work, items marked as " Limited" are only supported on the browser’s two previous stable releases to the current one.

Google Chrome users must install the "Zextras Companion" extension to use the Screen Sharing feature, publicly available in the Chrome Web Store.

Firefox users must be sure to be running at least version 66 of the browser to be able to use the Screen Sharing feature.

A dedicated Zextras Team mobile app is available for both Android and iOS.

The Zextras Team UI is developed in PREACT and seamlessly integrated with the Zimbra Web Client. It is composed of two client-side components: the Quick Access Sidebar and the fully featured Team Tab.

The Quick Access Sidebar allows for quick Instant Messaging, both for 1-to-1 and group conversations. Advanced Zextras Team features such as File Sharing and Video Chat are available in the IM Pane only for users who have the Zextras Team feature set enabled either at account or COS level.

The Team Tab is the full-sized Zextras Team UI, which contains all corporate instant messaging features such as Spaces and Channels. The tab itself is available for both Basic and Advanced users, but corporate features are only available to Advanced users.

Users can easily share files via Team to Chats and Groups by dragging and dropping the files directly into the chat interface (both in the minichat and in the Teamtab) or by clicking the "paperclip" icon on the right of the message input field. Multiple files can be uploaded at once, and image files will show a preview of the file while other common filetypes will display a custom icon.

Clicking on a file within a chat window will download it to the local client using the browser’s own download interface.

Files shared via Team will be stored inside a protected root folder the sender’s Drive called Team sent files, thus counting towards the sender’s mailbox quota, and will remain available for download in the chat window for all participants until deleted from Drive by the sender.

Video Chat features are available in 1-to-1 chats, Groups, and Channels, allowing multiple people to communicate in real-time using a webcam and a headset, as well as allowing them to share their screen with all other attendees.

The WebRTC protocol is the foundation for this feature. WebRTC is a peer-to-peer auto-adaptive technology that allows clients to communicate directly without overloading the server. Call quality is automatically tweaked based on the available bandwidth, with the maximum quality being Full HD for both video and audio. When starting their first video chat, users need to grant their browser access permissions to their camera and microphone.

Instant Meetings are one-shot Video Chats that can be attended by external users as well as internal users.

To create an Instant Meeting, click on the "New" button in the Team Tab and select Instant Meeting.

Then, fill in the attendee list by entering any internal or external email address in the text box and pressing enter to add it to the list. Once all attendees are added, press "Save" to send an email notification to all participants and start the Instant Meeting.

Autocomplete in Team is split in two different categories: Internal Autocomplete and External autocomplete.

Internal autocomplete kicks in when selecting a target for 1-1 Chats, Group Chats, Spaces and Channels, while External autocomplete is only used for Instant Meeting attendees.

This can be changed by setting the teamCrossDomainSearchMode COS property to either local, extended or global using the zxsuite config [get/set/empty] CLI toolset.

The default setting inherited by all COS is local.

Presence is managed automatically in Zextras Team: whenever a user logs in, regardless of whether the Team ab has the focus, they appear as online.

As part of the user presence system, all messages get displayed with a variable number of check symbols:

The number of unread messages in any conversation, Group or Channel appears on the right side of the conversation, Group, or Channel.

Chat History for each 1-to-1 Chat, Group, and Channel is available in the very same window (e.g., enter a Channel to see all of that channel’s history) and messages delivered to offline users appear in the appropriate IM conversation, Group or Channel.

Since WebRTC is a peer-to-peer protocol, all users in a video chat must be able to reach each other’s client for the connections to get established.

Should this not be possible, because of NAT rules on the network or because of a Service Provider’s policy, using a TURN server ensures proper communication between all peers. Zextras Team is designed to allow using a STUN/TURN server out of the box by simply adding the TURN server’s URL and login information in the zimlet configuration.