Mattermost 4.9: Muted channels, team icons, Global Relay and more

Spring is in the air and we couldn’t be more excited to announce the release of Mattermost 4.9!

Here are some highlights you and your team will love:

• Reclaim time and enjoy fewer distractions with muted channels
• Display the names of colleagues whichever way helps you find and recognize them fastest by adjusting the teammate name display setting
• Customize your employees’ Mattermost display with team icons so users can toggle between teams more easily
• Increase compliance and archive your data with automatic exporting to Global Relay in Enterprise E20 as a premium governance add-on
• Our mobile app is even more user-friendly thanks to several performance improvements added to our new release.

Try these new features by downloading Mattermost 4.9 today.

We also have a few other updates to share:

• We’ve begun the process of rolling out advanced permissions in Enterprise E10 and E20. For a preview of what’s to come, check out our detailed plans below.
• Interested in upgrading Mattermost less frequently? Learn about our Extended Support Release on our forum.
• If you haven’t done it yet, you need to migrate from APIv3 to APIv4. Several months ago, we announced the deprecation of APIv3 and our move to APIv4. Here’s another reminder that all endpoints for APIv3 will be removed with the Summer 2018 launch of Mattermost 5.0.

Thanks for all community contributions this month and in particular our 4.9 MVP, Christian Hoff, who submitted three pull requests for the integration of team icons, bringing his lifetime contributions up to five. Great work Christian!

Increase Productivity with Muted Channels

Experience fewer distractions so you can focus on your work more intently with our new muted channel feature that blocks desktop, push and email notifications when it’s enabled.

Channels can now be muted and unmuted with the simple /mute slash command. You can also unmute a channel by clicking the bell icon in the channel header.

When a channel is muted, it will appear less opaque at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar section, thereby deprioritizing that channel and reducing sidebar distractions.

Users won’t miss mentions because unread mention jewels still appear; they’re just less opaque.

Enhanced Teammate Name Display Settings

Back by popular demand from our customers and community!

End users now have more control over how their teammates’ names appear on the Mattermost interface thanks to their ability to adjust teammate name display settings. This feature allows users to determine which setting—usernames, nicknames or first and last names—helps them locate and recognize their colleagues fastest.

Admins still have control over the default settings, but users can now change display names if they’re inclined to.

Customize Mattermost with Team Icons

Teams can now add their own icons to the team sidebar, building a more personalized Mattermost experience and making it easier to toggle between teams.

The new feature, which is accessible via the Team Settings modal under the Team Description setting, works similarly to the profile picture setting.

Automated Global Relay Compliance Export (Enterprise E20 Governance Add-on)

Enterprise E20 customers that need to archive their messages to comply with internal policies and regulatory statutes can now automatically export data to Global Relay. (Actiance support was added in Mattermost 4.5.)

Now, organizations that use E20 and Global Relay can ensure they meet compliance requirements without having to waste time exporting data manually.

The feature, which works with our data retention feature, is currently a beta release.

Mobile App Enhancements

We recently released the 1.7.0 version of our mobile app which provides a slew of productivity benefits to on-the-go end users. Here are some highlights:

• Files and images from other apps can be shared as attached files in Mattermost
• Tables created using Markdown formatting can now be viewed in the app
• Permalinks now open in the app instead of launching a new browser window
• Announcements banners are now displayed in the app
• The app launches faster thanks to several performance improvements

Are there any features you’d like to see in a future version of our app? Please let us know!

Coming Soon: Advanced Permissions (Enterprise E10 and E20)

We’ve had several requests from customers for more granular control over permissions. After months of evaluating the best approach, we’re happy to announce we’ve implemented the first phase of the rollout.

Right now, users shouldn’t notice any changes because we’ve only updated the backend in this release.

In the coming months, we’ll be introducing more specific permissions based on customers’ requests and implementing them in the user interface. Some planned highlights include:

• The ability to have a different set of policy settings for different teams so that teams don’t have to use the same permissions settings.
• Custom permissions settings for each channel, including the ability to set any channel to read-only.
• Custom roles, which allow specific users to be granted additional permissions.

We plan to roll out the next phase of advanced permissions with the scheduled Summer 2018 release of Mattermost 5.0.

Interested in an Extended Support Release?

We release a new version of Mattermost on the 16th of each month.

Some of our customers have recently expressed interest in upgrading less frequently. In response to this feedback, we’re considering whether we should release an Extended Support Release version of Mattermost, which would be supported with security backports for up to a year.

Is this something that interests you? Let us know over on our forum.

Reminder about APIv3 Deprecation

APIv4 recently replaced APIv3, which is no longer supported.

We’re planning to remove all APIv3 endpoints with the Summer 2018 launch of Mattermost 5.0 (some other features will be deprecated then, too). In the meantime, we continue improving APIv4, which makes our extensibility more flexible and simpler than ever before.

If someone on your team has created or installed integrations over the last two years, you need to move from APIv3 to APIv4 if you haven’t yet. Need some help on migration? Check out our docs.

Thank You to Our Contributors

amyblais, AndersonWebStudio, asaadmahmood, ccbrown, chclaus, chumbalum, cjohannsen81, CoolMoeDee, coreyhulen, cpanato, crspeller, csduarte, dmeza, enahum, esethna, gajananpp, GitHubJasper, gnufede, grundleborg, hmhealey, icelander, it33, james-mm, jasonblais, jespino, jwilander, kaakaa, koxen, letsila, lieut-data, lindalumitchell, lindy65, mkraft, moonmeister, MusikPolice, panditsavitags, philippe-granet, pichouk, qichengzx, Rudloff, R-Wang97, saturninoabril, stanchan, stephenkiers, sudheerDev, svelle, tejasbubane, thePanz, timconner, tomo667a, Vorlif, yuya-oc

Install or Upgrade Mattermost

New to Mattermost? Download it and try it for free.

Need help updating to the latest version of Mattermost? Head over here.

For more help on configuring Mattermost, check out our administrator’s guide.

Enterprise E10 and E20

Mattermost Enterprise E10 and E20 are commercial versions of Mattermost designed for today’s leading organizations. For more information on features and pricing, check this out.

Need some help configuring everything? Grab a subscription today and enjoy upgrade and installation support from Mattermost, Inc.