Mattermost 5.3: Enhanced search on desktop and mobile, plugin hackathon highlights and more

Mattermost 5.3 has several new features that will help your team get more done in less time:

• Search date filters – now it’s even easier to find the Mattermost messages you’re looking for thanks to a new search filter that lets you track down information from a specific date or time period
• IdAttribute setting for SAML – new users with the same email address as a deactivated user can now use Mattermost without being able to access the old user’s message history
• Several new plugins – we recently hosted a successful virtual hackathon with members of our community to hack our newly revamped plugin framework, building several plugins over a two-day period

Try these new features by downloading Mattermost 5.3 today. Since it includes security updates, upgrading is recommended.

Thanks for all community contributions this month and in particular our 5.3 MVP, SmartHoneyBee, for his help with community support. Thank you, Bee!

Search Mattermost messages by date

Looking for a message sent or received during a specific time period?

Now you can find it much faster thanks to a new search filter that pulls up results from a specific date or before or after a certain date.

The feature works on desktop, web and mobile.

For more information, check this out.

IdAttribute setting for SAML

New users provisioned with the same email address as a deactivated user can now access Mattermost without being able to read the old user’s messages thanks to a new feature that enables you to utilize an ID attribute instead of an email attribute for authorization.

Let’s say you’ve deactivated an employee named Jane Smith whose username was jsmith and email address was [email protected]. Six months later, you hire another Jane Smith and give her the same username and email address.

In the past, the new Jane Smith would be able to access the old Jane Smith’s message history. By setting up the new Jane Smith’s account by ID attribute instead of email address, that’s no longer the case.

The setting also allows SAML users to change their email addresses without losing access to their accounts (e.g., when someone gets married and changes their last name).

To learn more about the new feature, head over here.

What we built during our plugin hackathon

On August 16 and 17, we hosted a virtual hackathon with our core committers and members of our open source community to use our recently improved plugin architecture.

Here are some of the plugins we built:

• RSS feed, which pulls new content from preselected outlets into Mattermost
• Welcome bot, which automatically welcomes new Mattermost users
• Matterpoll, which enables users to vote on polls directly in the Mattermost interface
• /remind, which automatically sends reminders to you after a set time period
• Crosspost, which enables you to link up multiple Mattermost servers in a single channel
• Auto-translator, which uses Amazon Translate to automatically convert foreign languages into English in the Mattermost user interface

We’re also working on a rich text editor plugin and a plugin that automatically converts times to the Mattermost user’s local timezone. Both are being prepared for a future release.  

For more, check out Mattermost CTO Corey Hulen’s recap of the hackathon. To start building your own plugins, watch this short video guide.

Thank you to our contributors

aeomin, amyblais, ArchRoller, asaadmahmood, chikei, cometkim, comharris, coreyhulen, cpanato, crspeller, csduarte, dcherniv, der-test, DHaussermann, dmitrysamuylovpharo, DSchalla, enahum, esethna, grundleborg, gvengel, Hanzei, hmhealey, it33, jasonblais, jespino, Jessica-c53, JustinReynolds-MM, jwilander, kaakaa, kayazeren, lfbrock, lieut-data, lindalumitchell, lindy65, lisakycho, meilon, MerlinDMC, michaelkochub, mkraft, mlongo4290, n1aba, pichouk, pjgrizel, pradeepmurugesan, robert843, rodcorsi, rononline, rqtaylor, ryoon, R-Wang97, saturninoabril, sjstyle, sudheerDev, thePanz, ThiefMaster, uhlhosting, wget, wiersgallak, yuya-oc

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