Use Team Messaging

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

Let’s say you want to send a chat message to all members of your team, rather than sending one at a time. Using Team Messaging with 8x8 Work for Desktop, you can create a purpose-made chat room to streamline your communications with your company contacts. In your list of Messages , you can create persistent chat rooms that you can access in addition to your individual chats. These rooms can be public or private, allowing you to collaborate with any colleague in your organization at any time, or keep confidential information secure within a small group of people.

If you want to quickly find an existing chat room, you can search for the desired room by name as you would search for a contact.

Note: By using the search bar in 8x8 Work, anyone on your phone system can find and access public chat rooms, while private rooms are only visible to people who have been invited to the room.

Features

  • Collaborative chat rooms: With Team Messaging, collaborate with your colleagues via chat more effectively than ever before! Create chat rooms on demand, stay up to date on your team's latest discussions, bring multiple teams together to collaborate, and much more! Based on your needs you can create public or private chat rooms:

    • Public (default): A public chat room can be found by anyone in your company contact list by using the search bar of 8x8 Work, and can be accessed by anyone at any time. To invite co-workers, use "at" mentions. For example, to get Alice Fox's attention, post @Alice Fox. Alternatively, you can ask Alice to search for this room by name.
    • Private: A private chat room can only be found and accessed by room members who are invited. A member who has been invited can later be removed from the room for security reasons; once a person has been removed from a chat room, they no longer have access to the message history of that room.
  • Ability to invite colleagues to private chat rooms: As a member of a private room, you can invite colleagues relevant to the conversation to bring them into your discussions; a fully-collaborative experience allows any member of a private room to invite a new member.
  • Quick access to information on chat rooms: By opening the details page of a chat room, you can see the room type, description, and name, as well as the member list for a private room.
  • Ability to get a colleague's attention in a room: Type <@> before the name of a colleague at any time to mention them in a chat room they have access to, and quickly bring their attention to the current conversation.
    If you try to mention a colleague in a one-on-one chat or private room they are not part of, you instead silent-mention the colleague without notifying them; for example, this helps you introduce a new teammate to other colleagues in your organization.
  • Notification settings for messages and changes: Has your chat room been renamed, or have new colleagues been invited to your private chat room? Whenever something about a chat room changes, you are notified in your chat history for that room. In addition, you can choose to be notified of all messages in a room to stay up-to-date, or reduce interruptions when you are busy by choosing to be notified only when you are mentioned.

Create and use chat rooms

Collaborate with colleagues by creating a chat room from scratch, or by using an existing chat room. Once you create a chat room, you can invite members to private chat rooms, and quickly view details on any chat room you have access to.

Features

  • Create and participate in flexible chat rooms that allow you to quickly share information and discuss ideas with your colleagues.
  • As a member of a private room, you can invite colleagues relevant to the chat room to bring them into your discussions whenever needed.
  • By opening the details page of a chat room, you can see the room type, name, and description, as well as the member list for a private room. This way, you can quickly view information for any chat room you participate in, and switch between conversations in various rooms without losing your bearings.

Public and private chat rooms

Depending on your current needs, you can use a public or private chat room for your discussions. Under Messages > Rooms, you can find all public and private rooms you've participated in.

  • Public chat rooms (labeled as public next to the room name) are ideal for fully-collaborative discussions with anyone in your organization:
    • Public rooms are visible to all users listed in your company directory, and can be accessed by any user who finds them.
    • Mentioning any user in a public room brings their attention to the conversation, and displays the chat room in their list of rooms.
  • Private chat rooms (labeled as private next to the room name) are best for discussions of confidential information that is currently secure within a small group of people:
    • Private rooms are visible and accessible only to room members who have been invited.
    • Only users who have been invited to a private room can be mentioned in it to bring their attention to the conversation.
    • If the wrong person has been invited to a chat room by mistake, or if a person in the chat room is moving to a different team in your organization, you can remove the person from your chat room.
    • Private rooms display the avatar for three members in addition to the remaining number of members included in the room. Clicking on the avatars opens the Members window.

Mention colleagues

By mentioning a colleague, you can bring the colleague's attention to a discussion in a room they have access to, or simply reference their name if you need to reference them in a private room they don't have access to. Depending on the room or conversation where you try to mention a colleague, you can:

  • @mention and notify your colleague: If you need to bring your colleague into a public room they haven't seen yet, or get their attention in a private room you are both members of, you can mention them to notify them of your new message for them. Once sent in a message, the @mention shows up in bold.
  • Silent-mention your colleague: If your colleague comes up in discussion they don't have access to (such as a one-on-one chat or a private room they are not a member of), you can reference their name to other colleagues without notifying the mentioned colleague. Once sent in a message, the silent mention shows up in italics.

Features

  • Type <@> before the name of a colleague at any time to:
    • @Mention and notify them in a chat room they have access to, and quickly bring their attention to the current conversation.
    • Silent-mention them to reference them without calling their attention.
  • If you were mentioned in a public chat room you had not accessed before, the chat room becomes visible to you under Messages > All or Messages > Rooms for easy access.