Contacts List explained

How can I manage the contacts lists of my users?
Each user has a contacts list – a list of people he can communicate with.Contacts lists are symmetric. This means if user John can see and communicate with Boris, Boris will also be able to see and communicate with John.

Each user contacts list has two parts:

Static contacts – these are assigned individually for each user.
Dynamic contacts – these are dynamically built based on the groups’ membership and group rules.

When a user signs in, he gets both parts as one single contacts list.

A. Static contacts

Static contacts do not depend on rules set for dynamic contacts.

Go to Web Control Panel – Users – Users tab.
Click on a user
Go to “Contacts list” tab
Each user listed here is in the static contacts list of the user you selected on step 2.

B. Dynamic contacts

Dynamic contacts are dynamically built at the time a user logs in. Dynamic contacts consider rules set for the entire IM network, for groups and group memberships.

Dynamic contacts are inclusive, i.e. if groups “Any-to-Any” returns users John and Monica, then groups “One-to-Any” return Boris and Steve, the final dynamic contacts list will have: John, Monica, Boris and Steve.

That’s why “Any-to-Any for the entire IM network” and “One-to-Any for the entire IM network” should be used with caution. They override all other rules.

1. Groups

1.1. Any-to-Any for a group

If you have “Any-To-Any contacts” for a group checked, all members of this group will see each other. If you add members to the group, they will automatically see the other members. If you remove someone, he will automatically loose the other group members from his contacts list.

Access:
Go to Web Control Panel – Users – Groups tab. Click on a group.

1.2. One-to-Any for a group

If you add someone to “One-To-Any contacts” for a group, he will see all group members (they will see him as well). The users you add to “One-To-Any contacts” may not be members of the same group. If you add members to the group, “One-To-Any” users will see them automatically. If you remove members from the group, “One-To-Any” users will loose them from their contact lists.

Access:
Go to Web Control Panel – Users – Groups tab. Click on a group. Go to “One-to-Any Relations” tab.
Go to Web Control Panel – Users – Users tab. Click on a user. Go to “One-to-Any Relations” tab.

2. Any-to-Any for the entire IM network

If you have “Any-to-Any contacts” checked for the entire IM network, this means all users in your IM network will see all other users. You can leave static contacts empty. You can also leave the other dynamic contacts empty.

We suggest having this option enabled only for small IM networks and only if you want to make sure everyone can see and communicate with everyone else.

NOTE: If “Any-to-Any” for the entire IM network is enabled, there is no need to create individual static contact lists, nor there is a need to set rules for the groups.

Access:
Go to Web Control Panel – Settings – Options tab

3. One-to-Any for the entire IM network

If you add someone to “One-To-Any Network Relations”, he will see all users (they will see him as well).

This option is useful if your users have limited access to the others (you have set rules with groups and memberships) and you want a limited number of users to see all users in your IM network.

Access:
Go to Web Control Panel – Users – “One-To-Any Network Relations” tab