Creating groups (private rooms)

CHAT 10-040

What you need to know

In Matrix you can create groups for courses and departments, for example, and thus organise chat communication on a project, and/or topic-specific basis. These groups are private rooms by default. This means that only people who are invited can join the group.
To create a public room, follow the Helpcard 10-050.

What you have to do

  1. Creating a private room

    • On the left side, next to Rooms, click on the plus icon "Add room" (see Fig. 1.1).

    • Select the "New room" option.

    • You can join public spaces via "Explore public spaces".

    • Give the room a name and click "Create room".

    • The private room is created and you are in the chat window of the room.

    • The room is initially listed as "Empty room" on the left in the bar under "Rooms". After refreshing the view, you will find the room in the list with the name you have given it.

  2. Configuring room settings

    • Click on the info icon in the upper right corner (see Fig. 2.1).

    • The room information opens.

    • Open the room settings in the room information (see Fig. 2.2).

    • In the room settings you can now set various configurations.

    • Security: to increase security, you could enable "Never send encrypted messages from this session to unverified sessions in this room" to prevent you from contacting a person with an unclear identity.
      You can also set who is allowed to read the previous chat history and at what time.

      Your room is already encrypted by default and can be entered as a private room only by invited persons.

    • We recommend leaving the default settings for "Roles and permissions". This is where you define which rights room administrators, moderators and the default role have.
      You assign your role permissions to individual persons (see Step 4) at another point.

    • Under "Notifications" you can store an individual tone.

    • Close the room settings again.

  3. Inviting people to the room
    There are two ways to invite people into a room.

    • Option 1 (with the chat history still empty): Click "Invite to this room" in the chat window (see Fig. 3.1.)

    • Option 2: Open the room information (as described in Step 2). Click on "XX people" in the room options and there on "Invite to this room" (see Fig. 3.2).

    • Find your contact, select him/her and click "Invite".

    • If you do not find a person in the search, this person has not yet logged in to Matrix for the first time.

    • We recommend you to inform the contact about the invitation.

    • 3.1
    • 3.2

  4. Tip: You can also address a person directly in a group using @username.

Problems or questions?