Sameroom: How to open a Sameroom tube between supported chat applications

Objective

This guide will show you two methods of connecting new Sameroom tubes between your chat rooms, channels, or groups.

Note: The procedures below assume that you've already added your chat service(s) to your Sameroom Accounts page, and/or you have added the Sameroom bridgebot to chat applications that require it.

Applies To

Sameroom standalone accounts
8x8 Team Messaging (8x8 Work)
All supported chat application integrations

Procedure

The two methods of connecting Sameroom tubes between chat rooms are:

Open a new Tube using the Sameroom.io admin interface
Open a new Tube using Sameroom Commands

Open a new Tube using the Sameroom.io admin interface

This general process works for any chat applications that appear on your Sameroom Accounts page.

This method is not available for chat services which require a bridgebot (Skype, Telegram, and GroupMe).

Tube creation using the Sameroom.io admin interface is available only for chat services which appear on the Sameroom.io Accounts page.

Follow the instructions below to connect a tube between two chat service rooms using the Sameroom.io admin interface.

In our example, we'll connect an existing Slack channel to an existing Gitter room:

First, log in to your Sameroom account.
Click on Open a Tube at the top of the page.

Connect Side A

In Side A, Step 1, select the chat application account you'll connect, such as Slack, Gitter, Webex, etc.
In Side A, Step 2, click the drop-down arrow and select the existing room you are going to connect Side A of your tube to.

Note: In our example, we've searched for the specific Slack channel we want, and clicked on it.

However, you can also create a new Slack channel instead of selecting an existing one. The option to create a new channel/room is not available for all chat applications.

Connect Side B

Sameroom will immediately take you to the next step, to connect the other side of your new tube.

You can connect your tube to either another room/channel within the same chat application, or to a room in another application entirely.

In our example, we're connecting Side B of our new tube to an existing Gitter room.

In Side B, Step 1, select the chat application account you'll connect.
In Side B, Step 2, click the drop-down arrow and select the existing room you are going to connect Side B of your tube to. As in our example below, you can search for a specific room to narrow the list.

When you click on the room to select it, Sameroom will immediately display a success message, along with a summary of the applications and rooms you've connected.

Click Manage at the top to see the details of your new tube connection.

On the Manage page, you can review all of your Sameroom tubes connecting your chat service rooms.

You should now verify your tube connection by sending messages from each side of the new tube (in our example: Slack > Gitter, and Gitter > Slack). Your message sent from one room should now appear in the other connected room.

Important! Currently there is an API issue with Slack which may result in your new tube being automatically deleted after a few seconds.

We're aware of this issue, and are working to correct it.

If this issue occurs, please follow the steps in the quick-fix article linked below to resolve the issue. Then run through the process above again to permanently create your new tube:

Sameroom: My new Sameroom Tube disappears after I connect it to my Slack channel

Open a new Tube using Sameroom Commands

Creation of tubes using the Sameroom commands is available to all supported chat services.

This method is required for chat services which require a bridgebot (Skype, Telegram, and GroupMe), because they will not appear in the Sameroom.io Account page.

You can also use this method to open tubes between non-bridgebot chat applications.

This procedure assumes that you have already added your chat service to your Sameroom Accounts page, and/or you have added the Sameroom bridgebot to chat applications that require it.

There are two ways to connect a tube using Sameroom commands:

Generate either 1) a Portal URL or 2) an Open Code from a chat room (Room A), and then use the Connect command in the other chat room (Room B) to complete your tube connection.

Connect Room A:

In our example, we'll connect an existing Slack channel (Room A) to an existing Skype group (Room B) using a Sameroom Portal URL. Please see the instructions here if you would rather use a time-limited Open code instead of a Portal URL.

In Room A, request a Portal URL from Sameroom using the following command:
- -sameroom portal
  - In Slack, you can also use: @sameroom portal
Copy the Portal URL that Sameroom replies with. The response should look like this:
- Your Portal URL is https://sameroom.io/aBcDeFGh

Connect Room B:

Now we'll connect our existing Skype group (Room B) to our Slack channel (Room A) using the Sameroom Portal URL we created:

In Room B, enter the following command, including the Portal URL you requested in Room A:
- -sameroom connect <Portal URL>
- Example: -sameroom connect https://sameroom.io/aBcDeFGh

In a few seconds, you should receive a connection status notification in both Room A and Room B.

You should now verify your tube connection by sending messages from each side of the new tube (in our example: Slack > Skype, and Skype > Slack). Your message sent from one room should now appear in the other connected room.

That's all there is to it. However, there's additional information about using Sameroom, below.

Manage Portals and Tubes

When you navigate to the Sameroom.io Manage page, you'll see a list of all of your current Tubes and Portal URLs.

Portal URLs can be shared so that you can re-use them to connect other rooms. Keep in mind that the Tube you are connecting using a shared URL will always be connected to the room where the Portal URL originated.
Portal URLs can be deleted by clicking on the X at the far right of the entry, which would prevent them from being re-used. Deleting a Portal URL does not delete tubes. Tubes remain active until they are deleted or Disabled.
Tubes that you see on the Manage page can be deleted by clicking on the X at the far right of the entry.
Tubes that connect non-bridgebot applications (such as Slack and Gitter) to bridgebot applications (such as Skype and Telegram) will appear on your Manage page.
Tubes that connect only bridgebot applications (such as Skype and Telegram) to other bridgebot applications will not appear on your Manage page. However, they will appear on a Map when it's requested. See below for details.

Map Links

Any time you see a Map link, you can click on it to pop a graphical representation of the associated tube network. All chat applications and rooms will appear in the Map, whether or not they appear on your Manage page.

In the image below, you can see that the tubes we opened to connect Slack, Gitter, and Skype all form a network, as well as two more application rooms we connected. This means that messages submitted in any of these rooms will automatically be broadcast to all of the other rooms.

You can request an instant tube network map from any connected chat room by submitting the following command:

-sameroom map

Note that Map URLs generated by the Sameroom Map command expire after 24 hours, after which they must be requested again.