The Welcome Plan

[mwild1]

A popular request from admins is the ability to set the welcome message that is sent to users after account creation.

Known issues with the current welcome message flow:

• It's not translated (currently no server strings are translated, this is something we want to fix in general)
• Its handling in clients is not great, e.g. it pops up during the setup flow, potentially confusing people. It definitely confuses the automated tests (due to variations in timing).
• It conflicts with the Android app's default behaviour of opening the "Start a conversation" screen after setup.
• It comes from the server JID, which is weird
• It bounces confusing delivery errors if replied to
• It has no avatar
• The email address in the message may not be the email address admins want people to use for support
• It gets sent again after a password reset (Resetting the password will resend the welcome message #30)

The current goals of the welcome message are:

• Give the user a friendly greeting, let them know they successfully registered on the server.
• Give them a sample conversation/message to see how the app works
• Provide an out-of-band contact method to reach the admin (for support, etc.)

People have requested:

• Translation to the user's own language
• The ability to override the advertised email address
• The ability to share additional information (...what information exactly?)

Why not just make the welcome message fully editable by the admin:

• Due to some of the issues above, the welcome message may be removed in the future.
• It is not the best way to convey some kinds of information, especially information that the user may want to recall easily in the future (contact info, etc. could be built into the app).
• Even if the message stays, we may want to update it from release to release, e.g. we have discussed adding an automatically-generated sign-in link for the web portal.

Next steps

We need to identify the kinds of information that Snikket itself needs to convey to people when they register a new account, and what kinds information an admin may want to additionally convey to the users. For each type of information, we need to figure out the best place for it. We then need to put effort into improving or removing the current welcome message.

[singpolyma]

I've mentioned this before, but one other "known issue" I would say with current welcome message is that the admin gets it when they connect for the first time, and it tells them they can contact themselves for help... definitely confusing to receive a message from yourself :)

[gitbq]

Is it possible to deactivate this welcome message, or at least have the option to not include it when creating the invitation?