The Private Messaging app lets you send email-like messages to other users. Its interface is similar to an email client. Messages are aggregated by thread, with the most recent message displayed. You can mark messages as read or unread or delete them.
The Private Messaging app must be installed from Marketplace. Once installed, the app must be added to a user’s private Dashboard page. Now that you know where you can get the app and where to place it, you’re probably eager to write messages. This is covered next.
Composing Messages
Once the app is added to a user’s Dashboard page, click the New Message button to compose a new message. Just like email, you can enter a subject, a message body, and add attachments. In the To field, an autocomplete recipient list of users appears that lets you select who to send your message to. You can select any number of users.
Figure 1: The Private Messaging Interface functions just like an email client for use within a Portal instance.
By default, all users are available in this list. You can filter the available list of users by configuring the app. This is covered next.
Configuring System Settings
You can filter the set of available users in the To field’s autocomplete recipient list by social connection, status, or site membership. This configuration, however, must be done by an administrator who has access to the Private Messaging portlet’s system settings.
To access the Private Messaging portlet’s system settings, open the Control Panel, navigate to Configuration → System Settings, and click Private Messaging Service under the Other tab.
The following settings filter the autocomplete recipient list of users for the Private Messaging portlet:
Autocomplete recipient type: Filters the scope of users that appear in the
autocomplete recipient list of the message’s To field. Note that although this
setting restricts the autocomplete recipient list of users, you can still send a
private message to a user if you know his or her user name. The default value is
all. Possible values are listed below:
all: displays all users across your installation in the autocomplete recipient list.connection: displays only social connections in the autocomplete recipient list.site: displays only fellow site members in the autocomplete recipient list.
Autocomplete recipient site excludes: Sets specific sites to exclude from
the autocomplete recipient list when Autocomplete recipient type is set to
site. This is especially useful if you have a default site that all users
belong to, but you still want to filter the autocomplete recipient user list
by site. That site is then ignored when determining the users that are available
in the autocomplete recipient list.