View source for Support/Live Chat/Node.js

== What?  ==

This page outlines the work being done to implement a server that will work with an AJAX-based Live Chat frontend. The goal is to eventually replace the existing Java-based Live Chat system. 

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== Repository  ==

The project has been codenamed "Inko" (Parakeet in Japanese). The repository for the new code is hosted on GitHub, at [http://github.com/endtwist/inko http://github.com/endtwist/inko]. 

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== API  ==

See: http://wiki.github.com/endtwist/inko/web-api

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== Roadmap  ==

*June 10: Authentication 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Find existing Django session ID in cookie 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Extract Django session data from database 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Create new "chat session" ID cookie 
***Use modified Session library from Express to store data (in memory?) 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Retrieve chat permissions from database 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Add authentication check (against stored session) to each page load 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Automatically authenticate user upon first load of chat system, if logged in. Otherwise, redirect them to the login.

*June 17: Basic Messaging 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Build "Message" object that will contain all of the important message data and serialize it into a json object 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Create a "Room" object that will allow both 1-on-1 and multi-user conversations to be initialized. 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Guests should only be allowed in one room at a time? 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' How to hash room names/keep them private? 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' /message -&gt; allow users to create new Message objects with data 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Add filtering for messages that will strip any potentially-harmful data (&lt;tags&gt;, etc.) 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Add CSRF verification. 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' /listen -&gt; add listener for new Message objects using long polling

*June 24: Watchers 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Allow authorized users (check perms) to join 1-on-1 rooms 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Messages in rooms should be broadcast to all users 
**'''<sup>[ ]</sup>''' Watchers should not be allowed to speak in rooms 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Add ability to pass conversations to other users 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Agent interface as reference implementation

*July 1: Non-Authenticated Guests 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Allow guests that are ''not'' authenticated to join the support queue. 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Setting and updating a user's status 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Agent-Agent private chat

*July 6 - 10: Summit 2010!

*July 15: Guest Interface
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Guest interface as reference implementation 
**'''<sup>[√]</sup>''' Chat queue status (queue positioning/time estimate)

*July 22: Logging & Group Chat Permissions
**'''<sup>[ ]</sup>''' Add ability to kick users from chatrooms. Ban?
**'''<sup>[ ]</sup>''' Message/conversation data needs to be logged somewhere

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=== Notes  ===

*Agents must be approved before they can pick questions from the chat queue.&nbsp; This is currently the "Live Chat helpers" group on sumo 
*Also, room monitors have permission to watch any chat room, open/close the queue, and set other helpers' limits.

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== Features currently used in Live Chat XMPP server  ==

=== Core chat features  ===

*Automatic scrollback log when users join a conference 
*Individual status for each signed in user. (Online/Away/etc) 
*Private messaging between conference members 
*Storage of all logs, along with metadata, in a database for later access 
*Wiki formatting and links 
*Individual messages up to 30KB each 
*Chat sessions up to 2MB each 
*Notification when another user is typing 
*Join/part notifications 
*Topic for each room 
*Ability to invite other users into a conference 
*Up to 50 users chatting at a time in up to 50 conferences, with up to 600 combined messages per minute 
*Access control for users in conferences 
**Permission to join 
**Permission to invite 
**Permission to kick 
**Permission to set the topic

=== Chat queue features  ===

*Ability for up to 50 people to be waiting in queues at once 
*Fair dispatching of requests to available helpers, based on specific criteria 
*Ability of helpers to set their chat limit 
*Access levels to determine who can receive questions from the queue 
*"Room monitoring" ability that allows privileged users to join or monitor any chat in progress 
*Metadata associated with each room entered by the user being helped, including question/OS/version/useragent/plugins/etc (AAQ) 
*Tag data associated with each room, either entered by helpers or automatically detected 
*Integration with CSAT surveys to track which chats are successful 
*Integration with support forum for users who need to follow up 
*Ability for a monitoring helper to take over a conversation 
*Ability for privileged users to open/close the chat queue 
*Automatic chat queue status based on number of people signed in and the number of people waiting. (Must automatically close when the queue is "full") 
*Give people waiting in queue updates on their current queue position

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== Staging ==

* Software requirements are outlined in the repo: [http://github.com/endtwist/inko http://github.com/endtwist/inko]
* The server needs to daemonize itself.
** PID should go into /var/run/
** Log file should go into /var/log/
*** It would be best to rotate logs with logrotate.
* Restarting the server occurs how?