Set team messaging and communication rules

Help center / Your team

Open Messages to start a private conversation or a named group channel within the selected business. Check the recipient list before posting: membership determines who can read the conversation, while communication rules determine who can send to whom.

1. Select the intended business and open Messages.
2. Choose the people or available department destination.
3. Review the full audience and any access explanation.
4. Write the message and send it.
5. Check the conversation for replies inside the app.

The public workspace is coming soon. Use these instructions to understand the implemented behavior and the contact planning guide to prepare your team's routing decisions.

Check access to business messages

Participants must be active members of the same business and have the Messages screen grant. A person listed in another business is not automatically available here. Switching businesses changes the context in which you communicate.

If a recipient is unavailable, review their membership and screen access with an authorized manager. Do not create a substitute group with an unintended audience to work around the restriction. NIST's least-privilege definition is useful background for deciding which people should have access to internal communication.

Configure role communication flow

Open People & roles, edit the relevant role and review Communication flow. The rules are available through the Roles matrix as well. These settings control permitted sending relationships between roles.

Treat a rule change as a business-wide decision for people using that role. Confirm the intended sender and recipient directions before saving. For background on organizing permissions, see NIST's role-based access explanation. The app's communication rules are separate from the reporting connections drawn in the organization chart.

Allow replies between employee roles

Sending permission is directional. Permission for a manager to contact an employee does not automatically grant the employee permission to send back. Review both directions when a conversation needs replies.

In the preset flow, owners and admins can contact all roles, including future roles. Managers can contact owners and employees; assistant managers can contact owners, managers and employees; employees can contact managers. A new custom role starts without sending destinations. Review the saved rules for your business instead of assuming a role name implies a particular communication path.

Start a private group conversation

Select the full group before sending. Groups support up to 25 participants, and the sender must be allowed to contact every other participant. A group with one disallowed recipient cannot be used to bypass the sending rules.

Use a name that helps participants recognize the purpose without putting sensitive details in the title. Keep unrelated matters in separate conversations where that gives them a clearer audience. A group is private to its participants; it is not a business-wide bulletin simply because a manager created it.

Review the fixed message audience

The participant list stays fixed for an existing conversation. Start a new group when the audience needs to change. Do not assume that a person who joins a department later can read its earlier conversations.

Before copying context into a new group, check that every new recipient needs that information. Owners and admins who are not participants cannot read a private conversation merely because of their role. Administrative access to role settings is different from membership in a particular conversation.

Send to designated department contacts

A department destination resolves to its designated contacts, rather than every department member. The app shows the audience for review. Each destination request creates a new private group with that fixed audience and a snapshot of the department name.

All contacts must be eligible under the current membership, screen-access and sending rules. The app does not silently drop an unavailable person and send to the rest. See department setup if a destination has no contacts or the proposed audience is wrong before you send.

Write messages within supported limits

Messages support up to 4,000 characters. Keep the requested action and useful context together so the recipient can understand the purpose. If a message refers to a task, identify it clearly and keep its formal assignment in Work.

Posted messages cannot currently be edited or deleted, and attachments are not supported. Review the text before sending. The app does not send external message notifications, so agree how participants will check for updates instead of assuming an email or phone alert will arrive.

Archive and reopen a channel

The channel creator, while still a participant, or an authorized role administrator can archive or reopen a channel. Use archiving to close a conversation that no longer needs new posts. It is not the same as deleting its messages.

Choose a new group if the purpose or audience has changed. Reopening an old conversation does not update its participant list to match the current department. Check the existing audience and current sending permissions again before treating a reopened channel as the right place for new information.

Resolve blocked conversation posting

New posts can be blocked when a participant becomes inactive or loses required access. Communication-rule changes can affect sending too. Review the explanation on the unavailable control, then have an authorized person check the relevant membership or role settings.

Avoid interpreting access trouble as evidence that a message was delivered. Confirm the posted message appears in the conversation. Messages are separate from operational JSON backups, so those files are not a conversation export. The backup guide explains which business records an operational backup contains.

Coming soon

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