Custom settings for Bitrix24 chat access and file sharing

It is known that the vast majority of Bitrix24 users most often use the possibility of communication within the system. Standard chat allows you to exchange all possible types of information relevant today: text, audio, video recordings, make internal calls and organize video conferences, as well as exchange various files. These features are available to absolutely all users of the Portal by default. But not all companies benefit from such openness: depending on operational processes, it is sometimes necessary to limit the possibility of communication. For example, this is necessary when you have interns who you do not fully trust, or when users of the Portal are simultaneously contractors from competing companies. Be that as it may, requests from customers about limiting various chat options are received very often, and today we will tell about one such case.

The essence of the task is from the customer

So, one of our clients needed a custom Bitrix24 upgrade to be able to manage chat functionality and file sharing. Please note that this can only be done in the on-premise  edition of Bitrix24, where there is access to the admin panel and the source code. It is impossible for the owners of cloud services to implement such opportunities, since everything necessary is under the control of the vendor Bitrix24 and is supplied to end customers "as is".

The difficulty of the task was the need to make the process manageable. Certain users had to lose the ability to communicate with colleagues in all possible ways and share files with them on Bitrix24.Drive. That is, it is quite easy to take and simply "cut off" some specific functionality in Bitrix24 for users. However, the team in the company can change, employees can appear and disappear. Thus, we had to create a completely new functionality not provided in Bitrix24, which allows administrators to manage rights in the chat regardless of the composition of the team. And this involved the development of new logic and the search for optimal solutions.

Solution from Avivi

As our customers already know, nothing is impossible for the Avivi team when it comes to Bitrix24. We offered the client the best solution that fully met the technical task and was easy to use.

Thus, the management of capabilities is displayed in a separate new item of the left menu “Permission Call and File”. The link leads to a separate page in Bitrix24, created using standard system styles, so as not to disorient the employee. All portal users are displayed here, each of which can be assigned rights separately.

Simple switches are provided for intra-system calls and file sharing: "Allowed" and "Prohibited". Text chat has additional options for selection, as the specifics of the customer's business processes require it. So, in addition to permission and prohibition, you can also choose the role of supervisor, when the right of communication is granted to the manager with all subordinates of his department. With whom exactly - depends on the structure of the company and the place of a specific person in it. As you can see, everything is simple, convenient and clear. By the way, the new functionality does not interfere with the kernel, and therefore is resistant to system updates.

How does an ordinary user see it?

In practice, it is difficult to notice specific changes, but that is until you want to contact one of your colleagues. If your rights are restricted to the administrator, then in the dialogue window with a specific colleague, you will not find buttons for calls and attaching files. You may even be able to type a text message and hit send, but the system will never deliver it to the recipient. At the same time, you can see employees in the list of contacts - there was no task to hide them, but if necessary, our developers will be able to implement such a thing.

As for files on Bitrix24.Drive, it's even easier here: with a restriction on file sharing, you simply won't see the users you want to give access to. The option to create a public or private link will not work either. So sharing files from Drive will not work in any case, although you can work with them yourself in normal mode.

Our solution works in a web application (in a browser) and in a desktop application. Unfortunately, the Bitrix24 mobile application has its own characteristics and does not respect the rules of customization, so it is impossible to remove the icons. But they are not working, so it will not be possible to write, call or send a file from a smartphone either. Our customers were completely satisfied with the results, and if you need a similar solution with some differences, we will be happy to discuss them with you personally!