platform release , which provides a self-sufficient solution for organizing joint work of employees of enterprises and teams developing various projects. Simultaneously the Nextcloud 20 cloud platform underlying the Nextcloud Hub, which allows you to deploy cloud storage with support for synchronization and data exchange, which provides the ability to view and edit data from any device anywhere in the network (using a web interface or WebDAV). The Nextcloud server can be deployed on any hosting that supports PHP scripts and provides access to SQLite, MariaDB/MySQL or PostgreSQL. Nextcloud sources under the AGPL license.
In terms of tasks to be solved, Nextcloud Hub resembles Google Docs and Microsoft 365, but allows you to deploy a fully controlled collaboration infrastructure that operates on its own servers and is not tied to external cloud services. Nextcloud Hub combines several add-on applications over the Nextcloud cloud platform that allow you to work collaboratively with office documents, files and information for planning tasks and events. The platform also includes add-ons for email access, messaging, video conferencing and chats.
User authentication can both locally and through integration with LDAP / Active Directory, Kerberos, IMAP and Shibboleth / SAML 2.0, including using two-factor authentication, SSO (Single-sign-on) and linking new systems to an account via QR- code. Version control allows you to track changes to files, comments, sharing rules, and tags.
The main components of the Nextcloud Hub platform:
- — organization of storage, synchronization, sharing and exchange of files. Access can be made both via the Web and using client software for desktop and mobile systems. Provides advanced features such as full-text search, attaching files when posting comments, selective access control, creating password-protected download links, with external storages (FTP, CIFS/SMB, SharePoint, NFS, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.).
- - optimizes business processes by automating the execution of typical work, such as converting documents to PDF, sending messages to chats when new files are uploaded to certain directories, automatic tagging. It is possible to create your own handlers that perform actions in relation to certain events.
- collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets and presentations based on the package that supports Microsoft Office formats. Full integration of ONLYOFFICE with other platform components is provided, for example, several participants can edit one document at the same time, while discussing changes in a video chat and leaving notes.
- Photos is an image gallery that makes it easy to find, share, and navigate a collaborative collection of photos and images.
Supports ranking photos by time, place, tags and frequency of viewing. - — a calendar-scheduler that allows you to coordinate meetings, schedule chats and video conferences. Integration with iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, Outlook, and Thunderbird groupware is provided. Loading events from external resources that support the WebCal protocol is supported.
- - a joint address book and a web-interface for working with e-mail. It is possible to bind several accounts to one inbox. Encryption of letters and attachment of digital signatures based on OpenPGP are supported. It is possible to synchronize the address book using CalDAV.
- — messaging and web-conferencing system (chat, audio and video). There is support for groups, the ability to share screen content, and support for SIP gateways for integration with conventional telephony.
Key innovations of Nextcloud Hub 20:
- Work has been done to improve integration with third-party platforms, both proprietary (Slack, MS Online Office Server, SharePoint, MS Teams, Jira and Github) and open (Matrix, Gitlab, Zammad, Moodle). Open REST API is used for integration Designed to enable interoperability between content collaboration platforms. Three types of integrations are proposed:
- Gateways between Nextcloud Talk chats and services such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Matrix, IRC, XMPP and Steam;
- Unified search covering external bug tracking systems (Jira, Zammad), collaborative development platforms (Github, Gitlab), learning systems (Moodle), forums (Discourse, Reddit) and social networks (Twitter, Mastodon);
- Calling handlers from external applications and web services.
- A new summary screen (dashboard) is proposed, on which you can place widgets and directly open documents without calling external applications. Widgets provide the means to integrate with external services such as Twitter, Jira, GitHub, Gitlab, Moodle, Reddit, and Zammad, view status, display weather, show favorites, chat lists, collections of important emails, calendar events, tasks, notes and analytics.
- A unified search system that allows you to view search results in one place not only in Nextcloud components (Files, Talk, Calendar, Contacts, Deck, Mail), but also in external services such as GitHub, Gitlab, Jira and Discourse.
- In Talk support for accessing other platforms. For example, rooms in Talk can now be connected to one or more channels in Matrix, IRC, Slack, Microsoft Teams. In addition, Talk offers an emoji selection interface, download previews, camera and microphone settings, scrolling to the original message when clicking on a quote, muting participants by a moderator. Modules are provided for integrating Talk with a summary screen and unified search.
- Notifications and actions are brought together on one screen.
- Added the ability to determine your status, by which others can find out what the user is doing at the moment.
- The scheduler calendar now has a list view of events, redesigned layout, and added modules for integration with a summary screen and unified search.
- In the interface for working with e-mail, a threaded view of discussions has been implemented, the handling of namespaces in IMAP has been improved, and tools for managing a mailbox have been added.
- The Flow component for optimizing business processes implements support for push notifications and the ability to link to other web applications via web hooks.
- Added support for setting direct links to files in Nextcloud in the text editor.
- The file manager provides the ability to attach descriptions to links to shared resources.
- Implemented integration with Zimbra LDAP and added an LDAP backend for the address book (allows you to view an LDAP group as an address book).
- The Deck project scheduling system provides integration with a summary screen, search and calendar (projects can be transferred in CalDAV format). Expanded filter options. A modal map editing dialog has been implemented and the function of archiving all maps has been added.
Source: opennet.ru