Team Chat — User Guide

Install Team Chat from Marketplace (free Collaboration module). Until it is installed, the Team Chat nav item and /team-chat page stay hidden.

Who can use Team Chat?

Workspace users with a login — owners, admins, managers, and staff — after the module is installed and their role includes the relevant permissions (at least team-chat.view).

Employees without a linked login cannot open EloSync, so they cannot use Team Chat.

Guests (external participants without a workspace login) are not supported in this version; that is planned for a later release.

Install

1. Open Marketplace.
2. Find Team Chat (Collaboration category).
3. Click Install (free — $0; not included by default on new workspaces; not billable yet).

You need Marketplace purchase permission to install. After install, your role still needs Team Chat permissions (below).

On install, the workspace provisions a public #general channel and joins every active (verified, non-suspended) user automatically. Opening Team Chat later re-checks that #general exists and that active users are members.

Open Team Chat

Open Team Chat from the sidebar under Communication (/team-chat).

The page fills the workspace content area: channels and direct messages scroll in the left pane, the open conversation scrolls in the message list, and the composer stays pinned at the bottom. Long message history does not grow the browser page scrollbar.

Channels, DMs, and group DMs

Type	Behavior
Public channel	Visible in the sidebar to everyone with team-chat.view. Join to read and post. Creating a channel requires team-chat.channels.create.
Private channel	Invite-only. Non-members cannot open or join; someone with team-chat.channels.manage adds members.
Direct message (DM)	1:1 conversation with another workspace user. Opening a DM with the same person reuses the existing thread. Anyone with team-chat.view can start a DM.
Group DM	Multi-person direct conversation (created with a list of users).

#general is the default company-wide public channel. It cannot be deleted.

Channel creator settings

If you created a channel, open Channel settings (gear) in the conversation header to:

• Rename the channel or edit its description
• Switch visibility public ↔ private
• Permanently delete the channel and all of its history (messages, reactions, pins, and attachments) by typing the exact channel name to confirm

Only the creator can change visibility or delete the channel. Deleting #general is blocked.

Messages

With team-chat.messages.create you can post in conversations you belong to.

• Send — press Enter to send; Shift+Enter inserts a new line.
• @mentions — type @ and pick a teammate. Mentions use the same @[Name](user:id) token pattern as lead notes / task comments and notify the mentioned member.
• Threads — reply to a message to keep a side conversation under the parent.
• Reactions — add or remove emoji reactions on a message.
• Edit / delete — authors with team-chat.messages.update can edit their own messages; team-chat.messages.delete (or update on own messages, depending on role) can remove them.
• Pins — pin important messages in a conversation; pinned messages are listed for everyone in that room.
• Typing — teammates see when someone is typing in the open conversation (realtime over Reverb).
• Attachments — upload files on a message; files are stored on the workspace object storage disk (S3 in production) under a Team Chat path and downloaded through the app (not a public URL).
• Search — search message text across conversations you can access (mod+f focuses search on the Team Chat page).

Notifications and unread

• Bell — @mentions and new direct messages create in-app notifications (team-chat.mentioned, team-chat.direct_message). Clicking a notification deep-links into /team-chat for that conversation (and message when provided).
• Unread — each conversation shows an unread count based on messages after your last read; opening a conversation marks it read.

Realtime delivery uses the existing per-user notification channel plus the conversation channel for live message updates.

Retention

Workspace admins set how long Team Chat keeps messages and attachments:

Setting	Key	Options
Message & file retention	team-chat.retention_days	30, 90, 365 days, or Forever

This is one workspace-wide setting (Settings → Team Chat when the module is installed). Forever keeps history indefinitely. Otherwise a scheduled purge permanently removes messages older than the window (attachments go with those messages).

Keyboard shortcuts

On the Team Chat page (same pattern as other modules):

Shortcut	Action
n	Start a new conversation / channel (permission-gated)
mod+f (⌘F / Ctrl+F)	Focus Team Chat search

Permissions

Permission	Ability
team-chat.view	Open Team Chat, list/join public channels, open DMs; read messages, search, and download attachments in conversations you belong to
team-chat.channels.create	Create public/private channels (creators can later edit visibility / delete their own channels)
team-chat.channels.manage	Add/remove members on channels where you are a moderator, or with this permission
team-chat.messages.create	Post messages, reactions, pins, attachments
team-chat.messages.update	Edit own messages
team-chat.messages.delete	Delete messages (moderators / elevated roles)

Default role map grants full Team Chat permissions to admin and manager. Staff get view, channel create, and message create/update (not channel manage or message delete). Workspace owners (superadmin) receive all permissions via provisioning.

Related

• Tenant Settings — retention and other workspace settings
• Marketplace