Feature Incorporated: 3rd party integrations with privacy

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dancorcoran
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Feature Incorporated: 3rd party integrations with privacy

Post by dancorcoran »

Integration with zoom, google docs, and other applications via url's is very desirable if it can be made private (crew must login first). For example making a crew zoom meeting in crew manager is desirable, but currently exposes the password protected link for all eternity.

Integration both at the site level and the event level is desired

Site Level ideas
* Approach 1a: The entire Links option is blank inside except to ask crew to login to access links.
* Approach 1b: As a bonus, add a Files option, functioning the same way as Links just another name
* Approach 2: Within the links option be able to mark the start and end of a list of links that require crew or skipper to first login, and absent that login, replace it with a message < content here hidden until crew login>
* Option: Allow the skipper to put a different link for when the crew is logged out (like a google doc that is read only) and the crew is logged in (link to the same google drive or google doc with edit privledges)

Event Level ideas:
* Within the even description option to mark the start and end of text (which may or may not contain links) that can only be seen if crew can login. If crew is not logged in, place a note in it's place reminding crew to login to see that portion of the message.
* Additionally have something specific for zoom meetings, where the link disspears once the event date passes.

Other options
* Is it possible to place a dropbox link so that crew can upload photos to my dropbox?

Discord / GChat / Teams / Slack (site based) - create an integration where crew-manager offers a link to jump into the chat of one of these products.

Discord / GChat / Teams / Slack (site based) - create an integration where crew-manager shows all chats posted in one of these products when looking at an event from crew-manager. Skipper setup required

Discord / GChat / Teams / Slack (event based) - create an integration where crew-manager shows all chats posted in one of these products when looking at an event from crew-manager. Skipper setup required

Fast Comment - in crew menu, provide event comment option that allows someone to click, see all up coming events, choose one, see all existing comments and leave the cursor sitting on a box to leave a new comment if they desire.
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Re: 3rd party integrations with privacy

Post by admin »

Dan,

Lot's to chew on here and I need to think about details.

One concept to address the private links is to create a button that gets added to the editing tool bar. The button would surround the content with [private]your content here[/private]. It would detect if a person is logged in to display the content and if not logged in displays something like "Log in to see content". This should work on events, posts and pages. It should support anything that could be inserted inside the [private] tags (text links, pictures, etc.).

A consideration for the [private] tags is on calendar sync. Anyone may add the boat calendar to their own calendar. This means there are two choices on what is displayed inside the [private] tags on the calendar. The calendar integration is based on the Google/Microsoft/Apple standards and does not support user authentication for calendars made public. Thus, the following implementation options would need to be considered.
1. Keep everything inside the [private] tag private. Pros - does not display private content to someone not authorized to see it. Cons - those who use the calendar sync and want to click a private link (e.g. Zoom meeting) do not have that link saved in their calendar.

2. Disclose everything inside the [private] tag for calendars. Pros - those who use the calendar sync and want to click a private link (e.g. Zoom meeting) have that link saved in their calendar and may easily click on it. Cons - may display private content to someone not authorized to see it.

Question on the forcing the Zoom link to disappear after a set time - what happens if someone clicks on a Zoom link after the meeting has ended? Is this a problem? Some things can be automated and some things can rely on common sense. If the link is protected with the [private] tag, is it really a problem that it is visible to your crew after the meeting is over?

On the Fast Comment suggestion. The following may support this already.

1. There is a Recent Comments box displayed in the right margin (Desktops) or below (Phones) showing the 5 most recent comment posters with link to open when clicked.

2. The current method to address the list:
  • Crew logs in
  • Mouse over Crew and click on Regatta Registration Status
  • Complete current season list displayed with the option to use the category and tag filters to narrow down the list
  • Click on the desired event to leave a comment
  • All comments for that event are displayed at the bottom with a box for the crew member to add a comment
3. For Discord / GChat / Teams / Slack - can you provide any references for a publicly available API that permits integration these into 3rd party apps? You mention having it displaying chat related to an event. Do these products have a way of differentiating separate event chats? If not, there is no way Crew Manager can do that. If the 3rd party product didn't support differentiation, only the generic 3rd party chat could be displayed. It still isn't a trivial task.

Now that you have edited the Strider links page, you have the ability to drop in whatever URL you want to jump to the 3rd party chat. I suggest you try that with your crew and let me know how it works.

The timeline for the [private] tag/button could be near term after I complete fixing the crew import bug you reported.
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dancorcoran
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Re: 3rd party integrations with privacy

Post by dancorcoran »

Bill,

1. Keep everything inside the [private] tag private. Pros - does not display private content to someone not authorized to see it. Cons - those who use the calendar sync and want to click a private link (e.g. Zoom meeting) do not have that link saved in their calendar.
>> I would go with this option.

Question on the forcing the Zoom link to disappear after a set time - what happens if someone clicks on a Zoom link after the meeting has ended? Is this a problem? Some things can be automated and some things can rely on common sense. If the link is protected with the [private] tag, is it really a problem that it is visible to your crew after the meeting is over?
>> The link persists, and if someone is savvy, they can use it to enjoy free zoom meetings.

On the Fast Comment suggestion. The following may support this already.

1. There is a Recent Comments box displayed in the right margin (Desktops) or below (Phones) showing the 5 most recent comment posters with link to open when clicked.
> yes, the user is set if the desired event is listed there.

2. The current method to address the list:
Crew logs in
Mouse over Crew and click on Regatta Registration Status
Complete current season list displayed with the option to use the category and tag filters to narrow down the list
Click on the desired event to leave a comment
All comments for that event are displayed at the bottom with a box for the crew member to add a comment
> Yes, this is the situations I was suggesting could be made fast.

3. For Discord / GChat / Teams / Slack - can you provide any references for a publicly available API that permits integration these into 3rd party apps? You mention having it displaying chat related to an event. Do these products have a way of differentiating separate event chats? If not, there is no way Crew Manager can do that. If the 3rd party product didn't support differentiation, only the generic 3rd party chat could be displayed. It still isn't a trivial task.
> Discord - It is true that the discord admin (me) would need to setup individual events as text channels in my discord server
> At the moment I am hoping to use something more powerful, like something approaching the capability of teams. Maybe gchat (which sounds like it may become available without subscription as hangouts goes away). Problem with teams, is that I have to buy a subscription at $6/month per user for full capability (or) have users as guests with limited functionality. Discord is free, but has no google docs integration. If the google docs integration happens at crew-manager and people chat on discord that could be workable, ideally gchat is made available and anyone with a google account easily jumps between chat and google docs.

Now that you have edited the Strider links page, you have the ability to drop in whatever URL you want to jump to the 3rd party chat. I suggest you try that with your crew and let me know how it works.
> yes, I will give a try

The timeline for the [private] tag/button could be near term after I complete fixing the crew import bug you reported.
> awesome
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Re: 3rd party integrations with privacy

Post by admin »

Dan & I spoke this afternoon to go over the requests and have agreed on the following:

1. The [private] tag approach will be implemented so that [private] content will be available on calendars that are synced. Web crawlers will not be able to read private content. Private content will be visible only for people who are logged in. A test was setup to allow Dan to use the [private] tags on the Strider site, which he has successfully done.

2. Zoom links inside [private] tags are only disclosed to people who are logged in. Dan indicated that there was a Zoom option that allowed subscribers to generate a link that was always active is clicked, not limited to a meeting time window. It was felt that the only people who saw these links were those authorized to see them. Thus making a Crew Manager "expire" a link automatically was not needed.

3. A conversation on event comments and post comments was mixed with the chat discussion. What we determined during the call was that crew scheduled on an event were notified via email automatically (and text message for those who enabled it in their profile) when comments were posted on events. When a comment was made on a post, similar notifications were provided to those in the All Posts group. Based on this, no changes were needed to the comments as displayed on Crew Manager. The 5 most recent comment topics are displayed in the sidebar widget and the bottom of the respective posts and events.

4. Dan is already using the Strider Links page to provide [private] links for some documents in a Google drive for the crew. He will do similarly with some chat tools and will report back on what 3rd party chat applications might integrate with Crew Manager. Currently he is ok with the SMS text messaging interface provided in Crew Manager to initiate selected group chats.

The remaining action needed is to incorporate a button for the private tag on the editing toolbar, and update the software to display the private content for synced calendars and front page posts for those logged in. Once this is done, the feature will be documented and made available for all Crew Manager subscribers.
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Re: Feature Incorporated: 3rd party integrations with privacy

Post by admin »

The private content feature has been incorporated. This feature is available for posts, pages and calendar events.

There are three screens shown below.
  • The first is an editing screen with an annotated tool bar and text entry area.
  • The second shows the protected content viewed by someone who is not logged in.
  • The third shows the same protected content view as seen by somebody logged in.
Attachments
hidden-content-private-tags.png
hidden-content-private-tags.png (238.12 KiB) Viewed 6682 times
protected-content-not-logged-in.png
protected-content-not-logged-in.png (469.89 KiB) Viewed 6682 times
protected-content-logged-in.png
protected-content-logged-in.png (403.14 KiB) Viewed 6682 times
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