How messages and meetings work

Three kinds of chat

• Team. Every location has one, named after the location. Everyone who works there is in it, along with Admins who cover every location. You do not join or leave it: it follows where you work.
• Direct. Between you and the people you pick, named after them. Anyone can start one.
• Group. A named chat that someone manages: they can rename it, add and remove people, and archive it. See Manage a group chat.

Messages is one of the parts of Yes Chef a location can have switched on or off. Where it is off there is no Messages page or tab, and the chats are kept out of sight until it is switched back on.

What you can do in a chat

• Send a message, with photos, videos, files or a voice message, and edit or delete it afterwards.
• Reply, react and mention someone with an @.
• Pin a message so it stays to hand, and see who has read one of yours.
• Search: the box above the list of chats finds chats by name and messages by their words, in the chats you are in.
• On the phone, a shift’s own screen has Share in chat, which puts the shift into a chat as a card, with a line such as “Can anyone cover?”. Only a shift on a published rota can be shared.

Broadcasts

A broadcast is a manager’s announcement to a whole team, several teams or part of one. It sits in the team chat as a card of its own and can ask each reader to confirm with Got it. See Send a broadcast and Confirm a broadcast.

What notifies you

• A new message puts one row in your inbox for its chat, and alerts your phone if notifications are on.
• Muting a chat stops that for the chat.
• A broadcast, and a message that mentions you, reach you even in a muted chat.
• Meetings tell you separately: when you are invited, when one moves or is cancelled, and before it starts.

How long things are kept

• Photos, videos, files and voice messages: 30 days, then they are deleted, unless someone presses Keep. See Keep a photo or file.
• The words: for good, unless an Admin has chosen 90, 180 or 365 days in the messaging rules. Pinned messages are not cleared.

Who can do what in Messages

Everyone can message, react, reply, mute and keep. Two permissions add to that:

• “Send broadcasts to the whole team”. Location Managers and Admins by default; a Supervisor can be given it.
• “Create and manage group chats, and remove messages”. The same levels. It also covers pinning in team chats and groups, making a team chat announcements only, and undoing someone else’s Keep.

Employees cannot be given either.

Meetings

A meeting is a stretch of a day at one location, with a title, an agenda, the people invited and their answers. It is drawn beside the rota, not in it: it is nobody’s shift and is not counted in the rota’s hours.

• Who sets one. People with the “Set meetings and invite people” permission: Supervisors, Location Managers and Admins by default. See Set a meeting.
• Hosts and guests. Whoever sets it is the organiser. They can mark up to five of the people invited as co-hosts. Everyone else is a guest. Guests see the title, time, place, agenda, files, notes and who is coming; hosts also see who has opened the invitation and why someone can’t come.
• Answers. Each person says Going or Can’t, and can change it until the meeting ends. See Answer a meeting invitation.
• Paid or unpaid. Chosen when the meeting is set. After a paid one, a host says who came, and anyone not already clocked in for the time gets a timesheet for it.
• Afterwards. The hosts send the notes, and the to-dos in them can become tasks.
• Changes. See Change or cancel a meeting.

Meetings need Rota & Team to be switched on at the location. Where it is off, its meetings are out of sight and nobody is told about them.

Where meetings show up

• On the web: above the chats in Messages, as a block on the rota, and for people who set meetings, on the Meetings page under Rota & team.
• On the phone: above the chats in Messages, on Today, among your shifts, and above the rota.