FAQ: messages

The New Chat Experience moves you to an improved messaging platform, and allows you to upload files in chat, format your messages as you write, and more. To determine whether your organization is enabled for the New Chat Experience, simply look for the Attach option in the text entry field of your chat conversations; if you are enabled, you see the option.

When you first send a message to an 8x8 Work contact, the message is sent as an IM that turns from white to blue as it finishes sending. Once the message is received by the contact but not yet read, it is labeled with the time the message was sent. Once the other party reads the message, the message is labeled as Read next to the time stamp.

If you send a message to an external number or personal contact, the message is sent as an SMS rather than an IM; you can only see if the message was sent successfully.

If you want to emphasize specific parts of a message you are writing, you can use some doubled punctuation marks to write portions of your message in bold, italics, or a fixed-width font.

Note: This feature is part of the New Chat Experience, which is available based on your organization's requirements. If you wish to explore the New Chat Experience, click here to learn more.

• Type <*Good morning*> with asterisks to format as <Good morning> in bold.
• Type <_Good morning_> with underscores to format as <Good morning> in italics.
• Type <`Good morning`> with grave accents to format as <Good morning> in a fixed-width font.
• Type <~Good morning~> with tildes to format as <Good morning> with a strikethrough.

Note: The doubled punctuation marks must both be on the same line of text (do not use Shift+Enter or Ctrl+Enter in between the marks), and that they must surround the text to format with no spaces in between (typing <*Hi*> works, but typing <* Hi *> does not).

In order to copy a message in 8x8 Work for Desktop completely and preserve its in-text formatting, do the following.

Note: This feature is part of the New Chat Experience, which is available based on your organization's requirements. If you wish to explore the New Chat Experience, click here to learn more.

To copy message text:

1. Hover over the message you want to copy, and click the More option that appears next to it to open a drop-down menu.
2. From the drop-down, select Copy text to copy the text to your clipboard. In addition to copying the full text of a message, it also preserves any in-text formatting that was used when the message was originally written.
   

8x8 Work for Desktop does not accept pre-formatted text, such as text in a specific font, or text that already shows up as bold or italic once you paste it into the chat entry box. Instead:

• If you want to write a message that contains formatting, you can add formatting to your messages as you type them in the app.
• If you want to copy and paste a formatted message that someone else wrote in 8x8 Work, ensure that you copy the message correctly in order to preserve its formatting.

By default, you are only notified of chat room messages if you are mentioned in them (via @-mention, such as <@John Smith>). If you are receiving constant notifications from a chat room, even though the current conversation is not relevant to you, you can change your notification settings for the chat room.

Important: Depending on your organization's requirements for 8x8 Work for Desktop, you may have access to Team Messaging or to group chat.

To set up chat room notifications:

In a chat room under Messages , click the button next to the room name to change your notification settings for that chat room:

• If you are currently Following a chat room: Hover over the button to reveal the Unfollow option, and click the option to receive notifications only for messages where you are mentioned.
• If you see the option to Follow a chat room: Hover over the button to reveal the Follow option, and click the option to receive notifications for all messages in the chat room.

Regardless of how frequently you receive notifications for a room, you can access the room to view its full history of messages and changes at any time.

For example, if the name of the chat room is updated, or if a new colleague is invited to a private chat room you are part of, you can see these changes listed as system messages in the chat history for that room. Any such change is listed along with the time the change was made, as well as the name of the person who made the change.

Let’s say that one of the chat rooms you follow is very active, but you are not part of the discussion and would like to temporarily block notifications for the room; if you want to keep a large number of notifications from cluttering your desktop, simply snooze notifications from the room for a specified period of time. In addition, if you are snoozing a chat room you are following, the ability to snooze conversations also lets you block notifications without unfollowing it.

To temporarily snooze chat room notifications:

1. In a chat room, click More options next to the room name to open a drop-down menu.
   
2. From the drop-down, select Snooze conversation to open a menu.
3. In the Snooze conversation menu that opens, select how long you would like to mute conversations for the chat:
   • 30 minutes
   • 1 hour
   • 4 hours
   • Until tomorrow
   • Until you un-snooze the conversation
4. When you click an option, notifications from the chat are muted for the selected period of time.

If you paste the wrong content into a chat or spot a sentence-altering typo in a message you sent, you can quickly edit the message to correct it and prevent confusion in the chat.

To edit a message you sent:

1. Hover over the message you want to edit, and click the More option that pops up to open a menu.
2. From the menu, select Edit to start editing the message.
   
3. Once you make the desired edits, send the message. The timestamp under the message is updated to reflect the time that the message was edited, rather than the time it was originally sent.

If you enter a message into a chat with the wrong contact or group of people, you can delete the message to prevent confusion or distraction in the chat.

To delete a message you sent:

1. Hover over the message you want to delete, and click the More option that pops up to open a menu.
2. From the menu, select Delete to highlight the message for deletion.
   
3. Confirm to delete the highlighted message. The text of the message is replaced with a mention that the message has been deleted. In addition, the timestamp under the message is updated to reflect the time that the message was deleted, rather than the time it was sent.

You can enable notifications for 8x8 Work messages under the Messages and SMS sections of Settings > Notifications.
You can enable or disable:

SMS is available based on subscription, for phone numbers in the United States and Canada.

Currently, 8x8 does not support SMS chat on phone numbers from outside the United States and Canada.

Since SMS is currently supported only in the United States and Canada, contacts with international phone numbers are unable to receive or send SMS with US users.

Group messaging is not supported for SMS with external numbers; you can only send Team Messaging chat room messages and group messages via IM with company contacts.

Important: Depending on your organization's requirements for 8x8 Work for Desktop, you may have access to Team Messaging or to group chat.