Overview: Channels in Chat (App)

This article provides an overview of public and private channels in Chat in App.

In this article

Overview

In Chat, you can create public channels and private channels. Public channels are open to all users in your organization, while private channels are closed conversations between a specific set of users.

Once you create a channel, its access level is not changeable. A public channel will always be public and a private channel will always be private.

You can update various settings for both public and private channels under the channel’s settings.

For private channels, you can:

• Add or remove users

• Change the name

• Modify the conference settings

• Mute notifications

• Archive the channel

For public channels, you can:

• Change the name

• Modify the conference settings

• Mute notifications

• Archive the channel

Note that you can’t add or remove members from a public channel because public channels are available to every user on your organization.

Also note that, once a channel has been archived, it’s permanently deleted and is therefore no longer accessible to anyone who previously had access to it.

Visual breakdown

• Private Channel (A): A private channel is marked by a lock icon and is only accessible to the users added to it. You can edit and view channel information under channel settings. To make a private channel public, it’s best to archive the private channel and then create a new channel with the access level set to public. Also, private channels include a specific set of users, so you can view all the users in the channel by opening the channel user list, which is viewable to you once you select the channel.

• Public Channel (B): A public channel is marked by a hashtag (#) symbol and is accessible to all users on the account. Under the channel’s settings, you can change the channel’s name, conference settings, mute notifications, or archive it. Users are not auto-added to public channels so they must manually join or be added to a public channel. Like private channels, you can’t change the channel from public to private. To make a public channel private, it’s best to create a new channel that is set to private.

• Muted Channel (C): Muted channels are a lighter color than unmuted channels. If you mute the channel, you will not receive notifications. If you unmute the channel, you will resume receiving notifications.

• Channel User List (D): This list displays all of the users who have access to the selected private channel. Here you can see a high level overview of a user’s availability, queue status, and on-the-phone status. To open the channel user list, click the caret to the left of the channel’s name shown above the messaging area.

• Conference Info (E): The Conference Info button allows you to join a Sync video conference for the active messaging channel. In the image above, click the Conference Info button, then click Join to join the Sync video conference session.

• Channel Settings (F): This button opens the channel settings workspace. For both public and private channels, this is where you can rename, modify conference settings, mute notifications, or archive the channel. For private channels, this space also includes the members list where you can add or remove members from the channel. 

  • • The Mute Channel toggle is where you enable or disable push notifications for the channel. When this toggle is enabled (green), you don’t receive push notifications for new messages in that channel. When the toggle is disabled (red), then you do receive push notifications when a member of the channel posts a message to it.

• Profile Details (G): You can access a user’s profile details in two ways, either open the channel user list and click on the user, or, click on a user’s profile picture in a channel conversation. This panel displays important profile details that the user themselves under call settings or your administrator can configure these in Console under the Basic user settings container of the Users menu. When this panel is opened, it displays the following information: the user’s profile picture, name, and statuses (availability and queue). In addition, the profile details panel displays the user’s title, email, extension, direct manager, and mobile phone number. 

• Day line break (H): The day line break is a visible line that separates messages from previous days from more current messages. If the message is one day old the day line break will display “yesterday”, if it is older it will display the date.

• System messages (I): System messages show information about changes within the channel. These messages display when users join or leave a channel, are added or removed from a channel, and if the name of a channel changes. 

• Timestamp (J): Timestamps show the time when messages are sent. The time stamp either appears to the right of the user’s name or to the left of the message (if the message was sent quickly after another message from the same user). If you can not see the timestamp for a message, hover over the message to view it.