Alongside the chat that every Job gets automatically, Administrators can start a chat of their own with any mix of people on the Branch. These are not tied to a Job, so they have no Related Job row in their Details panel. For an overview of Messages, read here.
Starting a chat
Go to Communications > Messages and select the New Chat button. A dialog box opens with three things to fill in.
Participants - start typing a name to search. Each result shows the person's role type after their name, so you can tell two people with similar names apart. You can pick as many as you like, and you are already in the list yourself.
Title - what the chat is called. Everyone in the chat can see it, so name it for them rather than for your own filing. TutorCruncher suggests one from the people you have picked, and anything you type replaces it.
Description - optional, and shown in the chat's Details panel. Useful for saying what the conversation is for. Everyone in the chat can see this too.
Select Save and you are taken straight into the new chat.
Starting a new chat.
Things to know before you save
You are pre-selected in Participants. To set a conversation up without being part of it, remove yourself from that field before saving.
A chat needs at least two people in it, so if you take yourself off you will need to add at least two others.
Everyone you add, apart from you, is sent the 'Added to Conversation' email straight away.
Affiliates cannot be added to chats, so they will not appear in the search.
Note: taking yourself out of Participants does not hide the chat from you. Administrators can open any chat on the Branch - it only means you are not listed as a participant and will not be emailed about it. You will still be shown in the participant list with a Creator chip.
Adding and removing people later
Open the chat from Communications > Messages and find the Participants heading in the Details panel. On a narrow screen, select the Details button at the top of the chat first.
Select Add next to that heading to search for more people, exactly as you did when creating the chat. Anyone you add is sent the 'Added to Conversation' email, and can read the conversation from the beginning, with everything already marked as read so they do not arrive to a wall of unread messages.
To take somebody out, select the remove icon beside their name and confirm. They lose access immediately, and their messages stay in the conversation. Either way, a short note is added to the conversation itself saying who was added or removed.
Note: you can only add and remove people on chats an Administrator started, and only while the chat is open. A locked or archived chat's participant list is frozen, and a Job's chat takes its participants from the Job itself - so add or remove people on the Job at Activity > Jobs > select the Job instead. Read more here.
Managing who is in a chat.
Changing the title or description
Open the chat from Communications > Messages. The title is edited from the pencil beside the chat's heading, and the description from the Details panel using Add description, or the pencil beside it once there is one.
Any Administrator with the 'Edit Operations' permission can rename a chat an Administrator started - it does not have to be one they started themselves. A Job's chat is named after its Job and cannot be renamed here. Tutors in a chat can edit the description; Clients and Students cannot edit either. Nothing can be edited once a chat is locked or archived, and every edit adds a short note to the conversation saying who made it.
Locking and archiving a chat you started
Open the chat from Communications > Messages and use the Status dropdown in the Details panel. You need the 'Edit Operations' permission, and the three options are:
Open - the normal state. Participants can post.
Locked - the history stays readable but nobody can post, edit the chat or change who is in it.
Archived - the chat moves to the Archived tab of the Messages list for everyone, is locked, and stops sending unread-message emails.
TutorCruncher asks you to confirm before each change, and setting the status back to Open reopens the chat. Read more about locking and archiving here.
Being emailed about your own chat
Administrators do not get emails about a chat by default, even one they started themselves. To turn them on, open the chat from Communications > Messages and tick Email me about new messages in the Details panel.
This also switches on the red unread dot on your Messages link for that chat. It only affects your own emails - everyone else sets this for themselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Administrator chats lock like Job chats do?
Not on their own. A Job's chat locks when its Job is Finished or goes cold, but a chat you started is not tied to a Job, so nothing locks it automatically. You can still lock or archive it yourself from the Status dropdown in its Details panel, and a severe Safeguarding/Wellbeing Concern raised against it makes it read-only for everyone except Administrators until the concern is resolved.
I started a chat by mistake. Can I delete it?
No - chats cannot be deleted by anyone. Set its Status to Archived in the Details panel instead: it moves to the Archived tab, nobody can post in it, and it stops emailing anyone.
Can I link a chat I started to a Job?
No. A chat is either a Job's own chat or a free-standing one you started, and it cannot be moved between the two.
Can I start a chat with only other Administrators in it?
Yes. You can pick any mix of Administrators, Tutors, Clients and Students on your Branch.
Somebody I expected is not in the participant search. Why?
Either they are already in the chat, or they are an Affiliate, or they are not on this Branch. Chats cannot include people from another Branch.