Team Chat

Team Chat

Team chat gives everyone in your organization a place to message each other in text. Use channels for group conversations about a team or topic, and direct messages for one-to-one conversations. Team chat is part of Nova PBX. It is not the Flare SMS team inbox: messages stay inside your organization and never go out as texts to customers.

Go to Team chat in the sidebar (/chat). The same channels and messages are in Pulse under Messages → Chat.

Who Can Use It

Team chat is included with every Nova PBX plan, Nova Core included, at no extra charge. Every user in your organization can use it. A user does not need an extension.

If your organization has no Nova PBX plan, the page shows Team chat is not on your plan instead.

Team chat is text only. There are no voice or video calls in team chat. To call a colleague, dial their extension.

Channels and Direct Messages

	Public channel	Private channel	Direct message
Who can see it	Everyone in your organization	Members only	The two people in it
Who can join	Anyone, from Browse channels	Only people a member adds	Not applicable
Can be renamed or archived	Yes	Yes	No

You can also open a direct message with yourself, for notes.

Creating a Channel

1. Click Create channel.
2. Enter a Name, for example front-desk.
3. Optionally add a Topic and pick people under Add people (optional).
4. Turn on Private if only invited members should see and join the channel.
5. Click Create channel.

Channel names are lowercase. Spaces become dashes, and a leading # is dropped. A name is 1 to 80 characters: letters, numbers, dashes, underscores or dots. The dialog shows Will be created as #name when your entry will be changed. Each channel name can be used only once in your organization. Topics can be up to 250 characters.

You become the channel’s Owner.

Joining and Leaving

• Browse channels lists the public channels you have not joined. Click one to join it.
• Posting in a public channel you have not joined also joins you.
• To leave, open the channel’s details and click Leave channel. You can join a public channel again from Browse channels. To return to a private channel, a member has to add you again.
• You cannot leave a direct message.

Starting a Direct Message

Click New direct message, then pick a person on your team. If you already have a conversation with that person, it opens instead of a new one.

Sending Messages

Type in the message box and press Enter to send. Press Shift+Enter for a new line. A message can be up to 4,000 characters.

• Edit: you can edit your own messages. Edited messages show (edited).
• Delete: you can delete your own messages. Everyone in the conversation sees Message deleted in its place.

Each user can send up to 30 messages every 10 seconds.

Who Can Do What

“Organization owners” below means users whose role in your organization is owner or admin.

Action	Who can do it
Create a channel	Any user
Join a public channel	Any user
Add people to a channel	Any member of the channel
Rename, change the topic, make private or public	The channel owner, or an organization owner
Archive or unarchive a channel	The channel owner, or an organization owner
Remove someone from a channel	The channel owner, or an organization owner. Anyone can remove themselves.
Edit a message	Only the person who sent it
Delete a message	The person who sent it, or an organization owner

Archiving a Channel

Archive a channel when the conversation is over but you want to keep its history.

1. Open the channel’s details.
2. Click Archive channel and confirm.

No one can post in an archived channel, join it, or add people to it. Its messages are kept. While the archived channel is open, the message box is disabled and the details panel shows Unarchive channel in place of Archive channel. Click it to reopen the channel for posting.

Archived channels are not shown in your channel list or in Browse channels, and they don’t count toward your unread total. Once you move away from an archived channel, you can’t open it again from the list. Archive a channel only when you are done with it.

Notifications and Unread Counts

• Unread counts: the Team chat item in the sidebar shows your unread total. Each channel shows its own count. Your own messages never count as unread.
• Pulse push: when someone posts in a channel or direct message you belong to, Pulse sends you a push notification. The title is the sender’s name for a direct message, or #channel · sender for a channel. Team chat never creates a bell notification or an email.
• Mute: open a conversation’s menu and click Mute conversation to stop push notifications for it. Muted conversations are left out of your unread total. Click Unmute conversation to turn them back on.
• Turn off team chat pushes: turn off Team chat on the Notifications tab of your profile, or in Pulse under More → Push Notifications.

Retention

When you delete a message, its text is removed. If your organization is under a legal hold, the text is kept for the hold but the message still shows as deleted. When a former user’s data is erased, their messages show Former member as the sender.

Troubleshooting

Code	What it means	What to do
TEAM_CHAT_NOT_ENTITLED	Your organization has no active Nova PBX plan.	Team chat is included with every Nova plan. Add a Nova plan to use it.
CHANNEL_ARCHIVED	You tried to post in, join, edit in, or add people to an archived channel.	This channel is archived. Ask a channel owner to unarchive it to post again.

A channel name is refused. Another channel in your organization already uses that name, or the name has characters other than letters, numbers, dashes, underscores or dots.

Conversation not found. The channel may be private, archived, or you may have left it.

No push notifications. Check that the conversation is not muted and that Team chat is on in your notification preferences (the Notifications tab of your profile). Pushes go to Pulse only.

Related

• Pulse: Chat
• Flare SMS Conversations (the customer texting inbox)
• Error codes