Broadcast messages are an effective way for admin users to send real-time notifications or urgent updates to any group of logged in users. For instance, a server restart or maintenance message, or an urgent notice relevant only to certain user teams.

Broadcast to Users in a Knowledgebase

To send a broadcast within one Knowledgebase to all logged in users, perform the following steps:

1. Select Messaging in the Left Pane. 
   
2. Select the Recipients. Options include Everyone, only specific users, and specific teams. Messaging to end user teams is supported.
   
3. Press Send. The message is delivered shortly as a pop-up to the logged in recipients.
   

   

What if Messaging is not Enabled?

If Messaging is not enabled, navigate to Home > Preferences > Left Pane and select the Messaging checkbox. If Messaging still does not appear, check that your user group has permission to send messages. Only admin users can edit group permissions. The  'Allow access to Messaging wizard' setting appears on the General tab of the Manage Groups dialog, located at Setup > Access > Manage Groups.

Broadcast to All Users on a Server - Multiple Knowledgebases

To send a message to everyone, meaning every user logged in to any knowledgebase on the same instance of Agiloft, log into the Admin Console and access the Broadcast feature, located at Setup > Broadcast.

Use a REST Request to Send a Message

It is possible to construct an HTTP request with specific attributes and parameters to send a message without logging in to the system. The request must include credentials for an admin user.

Default message

You can send this default message when you are about to restart the server:

Please save your work and logoff, the server is going to be restarted for the system checks in 5 minutes. 
It will be available in 10 minutes.

To do that, use this request:

 http://myewserver:8080/ewws/EWBroadcast?$KB=Demo&
 $table=chatmessage&$login=admin&
 $password=your_password&$lang=en

In this case, the KB attribute expects the name of your knowledgebase. The login and password pair should identify an admin user with enough privileges to send a broadcast message.

The same request can be used to send the default restart message to all KB's installed on your server. For that, you need to use admin as KB name and valid login to the admin console.

http://myewserver:8080/ewws/EWBroadcast?$KB=admin&
$table=chatmessage&$login=admin&
$password=your_password&$lang=en

Your custom message

To send your own message you will need to use two attributes:

messagekey=clear_message and messageparam=your message text

To send a message "Please save your work!", the request URL should look like this:

http://myewserver:8080/ewws/EWBroadcast?$KB=Demo&
$table=chatmessage&$login=admin&
$password=qwerty&$lang=en&messagekey=clear_message&
messageparam=Please save your work!

Message from GUI2.properties

As part of localization solution the system uses a properties file. This file contains all Agiloft system messages and interface text. For example, the text you read in any wizard or dialog screen is contained in this file. You should not edit this file unless you are adding support for a new language. This file is shared by all KBs, so you can only apply your changes if you have login access to the server itself.

The file contains pairs of keys and values. If you know the key name, you can access the value.
To download the file, go to Setup > Localization > Translate. In this screen you can download the Program Translation File, with a name in the format GUI2_XX.properties, where XX is the Java localization code.

For broadcasting using REST, we employ this concept to access predefined, often parameterized, text messages, that also can be translated in different languages.

It is recommended to consult with customer support by submitting a ticket if you would like to add a new key/value pair, otherwise existing ones can be used with any parameters.

See the example below, where we use the GUI2.properties key server.isdown.soon as a messagekey and value 15 as a parameter:

http://myewserver:8080/ewws/EWBroadcast?$KB=Demo&
$table=chatmessage&$login=admin&$password=qwerty&$lang=en
&messagekey=server.isdown.soon&messageparam=15

This results in the following message being sent:  

 Please save your work and logoff, the server is going to be restarted for the system checks in 15 minutes. 
It will be available in 10 minutes.

Using SSH Connection to the Server

If you have login access to the server itself, you can send a broadcast message from the command line (Unix/Linux).

Navigate to the Agiloft installation directory and run the following:

echo The server will be restarted for a system check. >
./tmp/message2broadcast

This message will be sent to all KB's on that server.