Compliance Reporting and Oversight

Available in Enterprise Edition E20

This feature enables compliance exports to be produced from the System Console, with all query and download actions logged in an audit history to enable oversight and prevent unauthorized queries.

Compliance exports can be filtered to date range, user account, and keyword list. Requests from queries can be downloaded from the user interface in .csv format, with a .json metafile documenting the query, as well as placed in a directory set by the System Administrator.

Daily compliance reports may also be generated, supporting integration with compliance solutions like Global Relay.

Note: By default, all Mattermost Editions retain all messages, including edits and deletes, along with all files uploaded.

Enabling Compliance Reporting

After purchasing and installing a license key for Enterprise Edition E20:

  1. Go to System Console > General > Compliance > Enable Compliance and set the value to true.
  2. (Optional) In Compliance Directory Location specify the directory in which to place completed compliance reports. Defaults to ./data/ if left blank.
  3. Click Save.

This will enable Compliance Reports to be run from the System Console > Compliance and Auditing tab, as well as enable the option to generate Daily Compliance Reports.

Turn on Daily Compliance Reports

After enabling compliance reporting:

  1. Go to System Console > General > Compliance > Enable Daily Report and set the value to true.
  2. Click Save.

Your system will now export all new messages posted within a 24-hour period as a .csv file to the location specified in Compliance Directory Location. This feature can be used in conjunction with centralized compliance reporting systems that move

Run Compliance Reports

Compliance Reports are exports of all messages in Mattermost matching the report criteria. To run a report:

  1. Go to System Console > Compliance and Auditing

  2. Fill in the following criteria:

    • Job Name: Name the compliance report you are about to run, e.g. “HR Audit 455”.
    • From: Start Date for search in YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. “2016-03-11”.
    • To: End Date of search in YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. “2016-05-11”.
    • Emails: Comma separated list of email addresses of users who’s posted messages you want to search. e.g. bill@example.com, bob@example.com.
    • Keywords: Indicate the words that would be contained in a message for it to be included in the Compliance Report results.

  3. Click “Run Compliance Report”

The report will be queued in the display below the fields described above. The properties of each Compliance Report run is explained as follows:

  • Timestamp: Time at which the report was requested.
  • Status: running indicates the report is being run. finished indicates the report is complete and ready for download.
  • Records: Shows the number of search results.
  • Type: adhoc indicates the report was requested by completing query fields, daily indicates the report is a daily export (see above section for description).
  • Description: Job Name indicated in request.
  • Requested by: Email of person requesting the report.
  • Params: Parameters of the compliance report request.

Each Compliance Report includes a “Download” link which downloads a compressed file named adhoc-[UNIQUE_ID].zip. Inside the file is meta.json, which includes the parameters of the search executed and posts.csv which includes the contenst of messages found by the request.

Compliance query definition stored in meta.json file

meta.json contains the following information about the compliance query:

Field Description Example
id Unique identifier for compliance query ja8z8egap7nq9kqetz3rt98khe
create_at Timestamp at which compliance query was executed 1463637842478
user_id Mattermost User ID for person creating query 3bq1shta93yztg3i6aiu1tzi5h
status Status of query: ‘finished’ or ‘failed’ finished
count Count of messages found matching keyword 36
desc User entered description of compliance query Example Compliance Report
type Type of compliance query: “adhoc” or “daily” “adhoc”
start_at Timestamp at which query began to run 1451606400000
end_at Timestamp at which query ended 1463529600000
keywords Comma-separated, case insensitive keywords to match in query “drinking”
emails Comma-separated emails of users to search. Blank returns all frank.yu@ha.ca, mary.li@hi.co

Compliance query results stored in posts.csv file

posts.csv contains the following information about the compliance query results, one search result per row:

Field Description Example
TeamName URL name of team contosi
TeamDisplayName Display name of team Contosi Corporation
ChannelDisplayName Display name of channel where keyword was found Community Heartbeat
ChannelName URL name of channel community-heartbeat
UserUsername Username of user posting the message containing keyword frank.yu
UserEmail Email of user posting the message containing keyword frank.yu@contosi.com
UserNickname Nickname of user posting the message containing keyword fan du
PostId Unique ID of message post containing keyword xt9anyx6x3fx9y84aehgakdpze
PostCreateAt Timestamp at which post was created 2016-03-02T16:01:59Z
PostDeletedAt Timestamp at which post was deleted (if applicable) 2016-03-02T16:01:59Z
PostUpdatedAt Timestamp at which post was last edited (if applicable 2016-03-02T16:01:59Z
PostParentId Unique ID of parent post if post is a comment xt9anyx6x3fx9y84aehgakdpze
PostOriginalId Unique ID of post if deleted or edited xt9anyx6x3fx9y84aehgakdpze
PostMessage Message containing keyword Drinking from the fire hose
PostFilenames Comma separated list of filesnames attached to post [“/f../ho.png”,”/f../hi.png”]

Global Relay Support

Mattermost daily compliance reports are compatible with Global Relay compliance solutions through the conversion of Mattermost .CSV exports into Global Relay EML files.

  • This conversion can be done by in-house developers who have previously written scripts to convert other communication systems into Global Relay format based on your organization’s specific needs.
  • You can also contact your Global Relay account manager about a services project to establish this conversion.