Introducing Chat Instant Messaging for Engagement Communities: Available Now!

Quick Links

1. Activating Chat for your Engagement Community
2. Types of Chat
3. Community Broadcast
4. Group Channels
5. Collaborations
6. Direct Messages

Engagement Communities Chat Instant Messaging is now available in your community. Chat Instant Messaging will allow organizations to expand their capabilities of instantly communicating with group and community members. The chat functionality ranges from allowing for specific member to send broadcasts to the entire community to allowing community members to direct message other specific community members. Read the following summary for a complete overview of chat instant messaging.

Activating Chat for your Engagement Community

To activate Chat for an Engagement Community the community admin will need to go to the Community Settings on the Community Profile.

Once in the Community Settings screen, the community admin will see a "Chat Enabled" option which is, by default, set to disabled. 

In order to activate chat the community admin will need to click on the toggle, which will become highlighted in the organization's branded color to indicate it is now set to "Enabled". The community admin will need to click "Save" to save the update.

Once chat is activated in a community it will display in the bottom left hand corner of the engagement community screen as a dialogue bubble icon.

Users can click on the chat icon to expand the chat main menu. Each user will have the option to "Enable push notifications" which will allow browser notifications to display for the user when a new chat messages is available.

Browser notification are currently only available on Chrome browsers and will appear for the user as long as they are logged into MissionBox, whether they have a MissionBox tab open or not. 

Users can disable notifications by clicking the "Notifications Enabled" toggle that appears at the top of the chat main menu.

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Types of Chat 

MissionBox chat functionality allows for four types of chat conversations within engagement communities that have enabled chat.

1. Community Broadcasts: Ability to send chat messages to all members of a community. Replies are blocked for all members except those deemed as Authorized Broadcasters.
2. Group Channel: Each group will have a specific chat channel designated for it. Group Admin can use the group channel to send chat messages to all members and can determine which member roles are allowed to reply to and add messages to the chat conversation.
3. Collaborations: All users will have the ability to start a collaboration conversation where they will have the ability to invite two or more community members to participate in a collaboration chat conversation.
4. Direct Messages: All users will have the ability to invite other individual community members to one-on-one direct message chat conversations.

Within these chat options, users can block, hide or mute conversations to control the amount of notifications appearing and the conversations that are listed in their chat main menu.

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Community Broadcast

Community Broadcasts are a type of chat that allow community admin as well as community members designated as Authorized Broadcaster to add chat messages that will display to all community members. This tool is intended to be used to share organization wide updates that are relevant to all stakeholder members of an engagement community. 

The Community Broadcast channel is listed under the "Notifications Enabled" toggle that appears at the top of chat main menu. The community admin or authorized broadcaster can click on the community name listed under the "Community Broadcast" label to open the community broadcast chat conversation window. 

When the community broadcast chat conversation window first opens, the user will see a message explaining who will be able to post within the conversation window.

Users viewing the conversation chat window will see a gear icon at the top of the window that, if clicked, will display setting options for that conversation. The setting options are View Members (person icon), Add Authorized Broadcasters (plus icon), and Mute Conversation (speaker with X icon).

Only community admin are able to add Authorized Broadcasters to a Community Broadcast conversation. When doing so, they will click the plus icon displaying in the settings option in the conversation window and they can then use the type ahead list labeled "Community Members" to type in the name of the user and find a match.

Once the community admin finalizes adding the authorized broadcaster, they will see a confirmation message indicating that the user is "now a part of this conversation". This means the Authorized Broadcaster added will now be able to add messages to the Community Broadcast chat conversation that will display for all community members.

Muting a conversation will suppress the notification actions that occur when a new message is added to a chat conversation. Those actions include a browser notification displaying, the chat conversation window popping up and highlighting, and a badge displaying next to the name of the conversation listed in the chat main menu.

When adding a message to the conversation, the authorized broadcaster will type into the text entry box available at the bottom of the conversation window and click "return" or click the double arrow displaying on the right side of the text entry box to add their message.

Once posted, the chat message will display the profile image of the poster and provide a time and date stamp documenting when the post occurred.

The chat main menu displays an alert, or badge, icon indicating how many new messages are available in the conversation.

Users opening a community broadcast conversation for the first time will see a message about who is allowed to add messages within the conversation and will need to click "Got it" to continue. A megaphone icon will appear at the top left hand corner of the chat window indicating that the conversation window is a Community Broadcast Conversation.

Regular, non-authorized broadcaster users opening the window will also see a message in the text entry box of the chat window that says "Only designated users can add messages" inhibiting them from adding messages to the conversation.

Regular, non-authorized broadcaster users will have a settings option for the chat window but will only be allowed to mute the conversation, thereby disabling notifications from displaying in the browser window and the chat conversation window from popping up when new messages are available.

In the chat main menu, submenu options for each conversation will appear to the right of the conversation name when the member hovers over the "...", though some are only available to community admin such as "View Authorized Broadcasters" and  "Add Authorized Broadcasters". The "Mute Conversation" option will appear for all users.

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Group Channels

Each group within an engagement community will automatically have a chat Group Channel available and listed under the "Group Channels" heading in the chat main menu. Messages posted to this channel will appear for all group members, except for those that have the group channel conversation muted or blocked. The submenu options will be available by hovering over the "..." icon to the right of the group channel name and all users will see the options to Unmute Conversation and Block Conversation. Only group admin will have the option to Edit Permissions.

When selecting Edit Permissions, the group channel chat window will open and the settings bar will appear within the window, opening the "Who Can Post Messages" dropdown. The group admin will be able to select which Member Role they would like to allow to add messages to the conversation.

The options within the "Who Can Post Messages" dropdown are - All Members, Contributors, Editors and Group Admin. Based on the option chosen, members with that designated role will be able to add messages to the Group Channel conversation. All group members will receive messages, though some may have the group channel conversation muted or blocked.

When opening a group channel for the first time all users will see a message describing the level of visibility for that group channel and will need to click "Got It" to see messages within the group channel conversation.

Messages will display with the profile image of the person that added the message and a time/date stamp of when the message was added. The text entry box at the bottom of the conversation window will be blocked for group members that are not of the role selected for members allowed to post.

If a new message is posted for a group channel, a badge will appear next to the channel name in the chat main menu indicating how many new messages have been added.

Users viewing a conversation can hover over a message posted within a conversation to see the name of the poster and the exact time of the post.

Group Channel chat windows will have a gear icon that will display for all users. All users will have the ability to mute or block the conversation but only users with group admin permission can update the Permissions related to the Group Channel chat and change the role of the members "Who Can Post Messages".

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Collaborations

Collaboration chats are chat conversations that allow any user to initiate a conversation and invite two or more other users. Collaborations are available under the Group Channels set of conversations in your chat main menu. A user wanting to initiate a collaboration can click the "+" (plus) symbol to start a new Collaboration conversation. 

The user starting the collaboration chat will fill in the fields on the "Create a New Collaboration" screen. The user will have a set of fields that they will select from or type into to begin their conversation.

Conversation Type: By default this is set to Collaboration, however if a user decides they want to chat with only one other member instead of multiple members, then they can change the "Type" to Direct Message.

Visibility: The user creating the Collaboration Chat can select to make the conversation Visibility one of two options:

Private - meaning no other members of the conversation can invite others to join

or

Protected - meaning that other members of the collaboration can invite other members to join the collaboration chat conversation.

Name (optional): The user creating the chat conversation will be able to enter a name for the conversation, which other members will be able to update within their own settings for the conversation. If a user saves an update to the name, then the name will update the displayed value for all other users. Name is an optional field.

Add Members: The user creating the chat conversation will also need to type in the name of the other community members they would like to add to the collaboration chat. They will add one member at a time and selected member names will display as each new name is selected.

Once all of the fields have been updated the user will click "Create" to start the conversation. They can click "Cancel" if they need to cancel the conversation.

After clicking create, the collaboration conversation window will open and will contain a message about the permissions available within the chat. All members opening the chat will need to click "Got It" to confirm they understand and start the chat. Collaboration conversation windows will display an icon of multiple people, indicating that the window is for a collaboration conversation.

The text entry box will display at the bottom of the conversation window and members can type messages and click return or the double arrow icon to add their message.

Once the message is submitted the profile image of the member will display next to the message along with a time and date stamp.

Members can click on the gear icon at the top of the conversation bar to see the setting menu options for the conversation. Members can leave the conversation at any time by clicking the exit icon on the far right side of the conversation window.

Members can click the speaker icon to mute the conversation so that the conversation box does not automatically pop up.

Members of a collaboration conversation can update the name of the conversation by clicking the pencil icon in the settings menu. Updates to the name will update the name that displays for the conversation for all other members and will update the name as it displays in the chat main menu.

In a protected collaboration conversation, members can add other users by clicking the "+" (plus) icon displaying in the settings menu of the conversation window.

Members of a collaboration chat can view other members of the conversation by clicking on the person icon at the far left of the settings menu in the conversation window.

When new messages are added to a conversation, an alert will appear next to the name of the collaboration conversation in the chat main menu indicating the number of new messages available.

If a member hovers over the "..." to the right of the collaboration conversation name, they will see the same options that display in the settings menu in the conversation window. Those options include -

View Conversation Members:
Add Conversation Members
Rename Conversation
Leave Conversation
Mute Conversation (conversation windows do not pop up with new messages)
Hide Conversation (conversations names don't display in the chat main menu unless there is a new message)

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Direct Messages

The chat option for direct messaging allows users to initiate direct message conversations with other individuals users that are members of the community. Direct Messages display under the set of Collaboration conversations in the chat main menu. Users can initiate a conversation by clicking the "+" (plus) symbol displaying to the right of the Direct Messages label.

Once the  "+" (plus) symbol is clicked, a Direct Message creation box will appear where the user can type in the name of the community member they want to invite to the direct message conversation and then click on the matching result that will display as they type the name.

Once the user has selected the name of the member they want to invite, both names of the conversation members that will be a part of the conversation will display at the bottom of the create direct message screen. The user creating the direct message can click "Create" to finish initiating the conversation.

After the user has clicked the "Create" button, the direct message window will appear and will have the name of the opposite member of the conversation displaying at the top of the window for each member viewing the conversation window. The window will have a message that indicates to members of the conversation that the conversation is private and will only be seen by members of the conversation. An icon of a single person will appear on the left side of the window indicating that the window is for a direct message conversation.

Members can use the text box at the bottom of the conversation window to add a message.

The conversation window will show the profile image of the opposite member beside the messages they've added and contain time and date stamps for the messages

Members of a conversation can also add links to a conversation that will automatically load a hyper link and an embedded image of the website based on the URL.

Direct conversation members can click the gear icon to see the setting menu for the conversation. The settings menu will display the following options -

Block Conversation (no alerts will appear, conversation window will not pop up)

Mute Conversation (conversation windows will not automatically pop up when new messages are added)

Members will see an alert next to the name of the direct message conversation in the chat main menu indicating the number of new messages available.

Members can hover over the "..." symbol to see the submenu option for the direct message conversation. Members can choose to Mute, Hide or Block the conversation.

Hiding a direct message conversation will place it under a"Show more" link so that it doesn't automatically display the name of the conversation. When a new message is added to a direct message conversation, the conversation will unhide temporarily and show an alert containing the number of new messages available.

Blocked conversations will appear grayed out and will not show alerts, nor will the conversation window pop up automatically when new message are added.

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We hope that you find Chat a useful tool within your Engagement Community toolset. Please contact the customer care team with any questions at support@missionbox.com.

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