Documents & Communication

Messages & Channels

Channels and direct messages give the club a place to talk other than a group text. Nobody can search a group text, and new members of the club never get into it.

Where to find messages

My messages is in your own sidebar. All conversations that you can read are in one rail on the left, under four headings: Channels, Direct messages, Front office, and Instructors. Select a row to open that conversation next to the rail. On a phone, the rail and the conversation show one at a time. Use the back arrow to go between them.

If you work on the front office queue, an Office and Personal switch is at the top of the rail. Office shows the queue of member messages for your organization. Personal shows your own conversations under the four headings. The rail keeps the last choice that you made.

The unread count on My messages includes all four headings. One number tells you if a message is waiting.

Channels

A channel is a named room. There are two types: a channel for all people in the organization, or a channel for a list of people that you select. There is no third type that uses an access group. Thus, a channel for the instructors is a selected list, and a person must keep that list current.

To create, rename, or archive a channel, or to change its members, you need the Manage channels permission. Owners, administrators, and managers have this permission by default. Staff and members do not. You do not need a special permission to post. If a channel is on your rail, you can write in it.

A user with Manage channels sees all selected-list channels in the organization, also the channels that do not include that user. This is intentional. It makes sure that a responsible person can always find each channel. This rule does not apply to direct messages. Only the two people in a direct message can see it.

To end a channel, archive it. Resyrv asks you to confirm. The messages stay, and you can restore the channel later. You cannot fully delete a channel.

Direct messages

Direct messages between members are off when an organization starts. Until a user turns them on, a member can write only to the front office and to their instructors.

The switch is in Organization Settings, Messaging, with the label “Members can message each other directly”. To see it, you need the manage-settings permission. When the switch is on, any active member can open a direct message with any other active member of the same organization.

The switch is all or nothing. A flight school with forty students who do not know each other well gets the same open access to direct messages as a partnership of four people.

How messages behave

Chat messages are flat and permanent:

• A message can have up to ten thousand characters and one file: a photo, a PDF, a Word document, or a plain text file. Photos can be up to 25 MB. Other files can be up to 50 MB.
• You cannot edit or delete a sent message. The person who posted a file can remove it. A user who manages channels can also remove it, but not in a direct message. Each message stays as the sender sent it.
• A channel shows all messages in one flat list, in the order that people sent them. There are no threaded replies.
• Search finds conversations only. The box above the rail filters the names of channels and threads. It does not search the text of messages.
• A conversation opens on its last two hundred messages. You cannot scroll to older messages. Resyrv keeps the older messages, but you cannot get to them from the app.
• In the iPhone app, Messages is under More. It has the same channels, direct messages, and staff threads. The iPhone app cannot send or show files yet. To see a file in a message, open the message in a browser.

The front office and instructor threads

Front office and Instructors on your rail are an older, separate feature, and they work differently. A member writes to the office. All users on your team with the manage-messages permission see the message on the Office side of My messages, in a shared queue. These threads send notifications. A new member message is a notification event like all other events, so it can get to staff by email.

Use front office threads to contact your operation. Staff follow up on these threads. Use channels and direct messages to talk among yourselves. People read them when they open the app.

Announcements & Notificationsthe events that send email and push, and the people who get them.

Your own chat settings

The gear at the top of the conversation list, next to My messages, has three preferences. They are for you, not for your organization. The first sets if Enter sends the message or starts a new line. The second sets if the rail shows the last message under each name. The third sets if the rows are compact.

Your account keeps these preferences. Thus, if you set them at the front desk, your laptop gets the same settings. The same menu has a Message notifications link to your notification settings.

Channels have a second gear in the conversation header. Use it to rename the channel, change its members, or archive it. Only users with Manage channels see this gear.

Can’t find what you need? Contact us - a real person reads every message.