Messages
1. What it is
Messages lets employees send private one-to-one or small-group threads that land in each recipient’s inbox alongside notifications, tasks, and approvals. It is asynchronous — more like email than Chat — and governed on its own track so an admin can control retention, who may start a conversation, and whether attachments are allowed without affecting Chat channels at all.
- Enablement: Messages requires a license and is disabled by default. An admin turns it on from Admin → General Settings → Direct Messages or from the Apps Marketplace.
- What it is not: Messages is not Chat. Chat provides real-time rooms and channels with presence indicators and typing notifications. Messages provides private, asynchronous threads that surface in the unified Inbox. The two apps are licensed, configured, and retained independently.
2. Standing it up
- Go to Admin → General Settings → Direct Messages and turn Messages on. Alternatively, enable the app from Admin → Apps Marketplace → Messages.
- Open Apps → Messages → Settings to configure the four governance controls: group messages, attachments, who can start a thread, and the retention window. All four have sensible defaults (see §5), so the app works immediately without changing them.
- No role assignment or per-user provisioning is needed. Every member in the organization can send and receive messages once the app is enabled. To restrict who may open new conversations, change the Who can start a message setting to Admins & managers only.
- Confirm it works: open the Messages client by going to Inbox → Messages. Start a one-to-one thread with another user, send a message, and verify it appears in that user’s inbox.
What employees see: the Messages client — a conversation list with a reading pane — accessible from the Inbox. The New Message composer is available there, and from the user directory, org chart, and profile pages.
What employees do not see: the Messages app tile in the Apps Marketplace. It is visible only to business admins and designated Messages app admins. Employees who navigate directly to Apps → Messages are redirected to the Messages client.
Silent-until-configured pairing: if you enable Messages but turn Group messages off, employees can only start one-to-one threads. They will see no error — the group option simply does not appear in the composer. This is by design, but can surprise admins who expect group messaging to work out of the box (it does: the default is On).
Similarly, turning Attachments in messages off hides the attach and voice-note controls. Files sent through a direct API call while the toggle is off are rejected with an explicit error, not silently stripped.
3. How it fits together
Threads — every conversation is a thread. A thread is either one-to-one (exactly two people) or a group (three to ten people). One-to-one threads are idempotent: starting a conversation with someone you have already messaged reopens the existing thread instead of creating a duplicate. Group threads are always new.
Example: Priya messages Raj from the user directory. A one-to-one thread is created. Later she messages Raj again from a profile page — the same thread reopens with the full history intact. She then starts a group thread with Raj and two others; that is a separate conversation with its own history.
Messages vs. Notifications — Messages has two related surfaces that are easy to confuse. The Messages client is where employees read and write conversations. It is the list-plus-reading-pane at Inbox → Messages. The Mail alerts folder in the Notifications rail lists the notification rows about messages (e.g. “New message from Raj”). Both live in the same Inbox page but serve different purposes: one is the conversation, the other is the bell.
Composing — employees start a new message from the New Message button in the Messages client, from the user directory, from the org chart, or from a profile. The composer opens as a drawer, lets the sender pick one or more recipients, add a subject line, write the body, and attach files. Reply and Forward work the same way: they open the composer with the subject and a quoted body pre-filled.
@Mentions — inside a message body, employees can type @ to mention a colleague who is part of the conversation. The mentioned person receives a separate notification so the mention stands out from the regular “new message” alert.
Reactions — five emoji reactions are available on each message: 👍 ❤️ 😂 🎉 ✅. Tapping a reaction toggles it; each reaction shows a count and who reacted.
Voice notes — when attachments are enabled, the composer includes a voice recorder. The recorded audio is transcribed automatically, so the recipient can read it as text instead of playing it back.
Drafts — the composer auto-saves a draft as the user types. Reopening the same thread restores the unsent draft. The draft is cleared as soon as the message is sent.
Governance vs. the client — the Messages app page at Apps → Messages is an admin-only surface for governance settings and usage analytics. Employees never see it. The admin-facing dashboard shows total messages, active conversations, participants, and a 30-day trend chart.
Read state and “Seen” receipts — opening a conversation marks it read automatically. Employees can also mark a conversation unread from a specific message so it reappears as unread in their list. In one-to-one threads, a “Seen” receipt appears under the sender’s latest message once the other person opens the conversation.
Notifications and push — when someone sends a message, every other participant receives an in-app notification (throttled to one unread notification per conversation to avoid inbox clutter). Each message also triggers a mobile push notification so closed apps are woken. Mentioned users get a separate, higher-priority mention notification. All of these honor the registered Direct messages notification preference, so employees can opt out through their notification settings.
Relationship to Chat — Chat and Messages share no configuration. An admin can disable Messages while Chat stays on, or vice versa. Retention windows, attachment policies, and access rules are set independently for each app.
Semantic search — Messages supports semantic (meaning-based) search across message content. When an employee searches in the Messages client, results include conversations matching by participant name, email, or message body.
4. Running it
Reviewing usage
Go to Apps → Messages. The dashboard shows six analytics cards:
- Messages sent — all time, excluding deleted.
- Last 30 days — messages in the most recent 30-day window.
- Conversations — total one-to-one and group threads.
- Active (30d) — threads with at least one message in the last 30 days.
- Participants — unique people who are part of any conversation.
- Reactions — total emoji reactions on messages.
Below the cards, a 30-day activity trend chart shows daily message volume.
Changing who can start conversations
Go to Apps → Messages → Settings. Under Who can start a message, choose Anyone (the default) or Admins & managers only. This restricts who may open a new thread; replying to an existing conversation is always allowed regardless of this setting.
Setting a retention window
Under Message retention (days), enter the number of days after which messages are automatically purged. The default is 0, which means messages are kept forever. The retention job runs daily and soft-deletes messages older than the configured window. Retention is governed separately from Chat’s channel retention.
Archiving and muting conversations
Employees can archive a conversation from its action menu. Archiving is per-person — it hides the thread from that employee’s list only. The conversation reappears automatically for everyone if someone sends a new message.
Muting a conversation suppresses notifications and badge counts for that employee. The conversation stays visible but stops alerting until the employee unmutes it.
Managing group threads
Participants can rename a group thread (up to 120 characters), add people (up to the 10-person cap), or leave the thread. One-to-one threads cannot be renamed or left — archive is the “hide” affordance there.
Editing and deleting messages
Employees can edit or delete their own messages. Edited messages show an “edited” indicator. Deleted messages are soft-deleted — they disappear from the conversation but thread structure stays intact.
Mobile access
Messages has a dedicated mobile surface. Phone-class browsers are automatically redirected there. The mobile view provides the full conversation list, message reading, composing, replying, and forwarding — all with the same governance rules enforced server-side. Tablet-class browsers stay on the desktop surface.
Loading sample data
During setup or evaluation, go to Apps → Messages → Settings and scroll to the Sample Data card. Use Load sample data to generate realistic sample conversations. Sample records are tagged and can be removed with Remove sample data without affecting real conversations.
5. Settings
All settings are at Apps → Messages → Settings.
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Group messages | On | Allows group threads (up to 10 people). When off, only one-to-one threads can be created. |
| Attachments in messages | On | Allows files and voice notes in messages. When off, the attach and voice-note controls are hidden and the server rejects uploads. |
| Who can start a message | Anyone | Controls who may open a new conversation. The other choice is Admins & managers only. Replying to existing threads is always allowed. |
| Message retention (days) | 0 (keep forever) | Auto-purges messages older than this many days. A daily job soft-deletes expired messages; thread structure and attachments are preserved. |
A Reset to defaults button restores all four settings to the values above.
Each setting has a real runtime effect: the group-messages toggle is checked when creating a thread, the attachments toggle gates the upload controls and the server-side accept path, the initiation rule is enforced at thread creation, and the retention window drives a daily automated purge.
Where else the enabled/disabled toggle lives
The master on/off for Messages also appears at Admin → General Settings → Direct Messages. Both surfaces write to the same underlying state, so toggling one is immediately reflected in the other. The governance settings (group threads, attachments, who can start, retention) are only on the Apps → Messages → Settings page.
Real-time delivery
Messages are delivered in real time via WebSocket broadcast. When someone sends a message, every participant’s open conversation updates immediately without a page refresh. If the recipient does not have the conversation open, the new-message notification and the unread badge in their inbox update in real time as well.
6. More help
- Messages FAQ — specific setup and operating questions.
- Chat App Overview — the companion real-time messaging app with channels and rooms.
- Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Messages from these articles.