Overview: messaging in IoTFlows
What chat is for, and when a work order's comments are the better place to write.
IoTFlows carries two kinds of conversation, and they never meet. A chat hangs off the people in it; a work order's comments hang off the job. Which one you pick decides whether the next person to touch that machine ever reads what you wrote.
What chat is
A chat is a conversation between people you choose: one other person, or a group. Every chat holds exactly one thread, the running list of messages inside it. There are no channels, and no sub-thread hanging off a single message.
A chat belongs to one organization. The list at /chats is the list for the organization you are signed into, and switching organizations switches the list. See Switch organizations.
In a thread you can send text, replies, photos, videos, files, and voice notes, pin a message, and react to one. Each has its own page, linked at the end.
Chat versus work-order comments
Every work order carries its own thread, on the Comments tab of the work-order drawer. It behaves like a chat, but it is attached to the work order rather than to a list of people. See Update, discuss, and close a work order.
Chat threads are attached to people; comment threads are attached to a work order.A diagram in two columns. The left column is headed Chat: a box reading "Attached to people, Dana Ruiz, Maintenance team" with an arrow dropping into a second box reading "One thread, in the chat list, at /chats", and a note under it reading "A decision made here is invisible to anyone you did not add." The right column is headed Work-order comments: a box reading "Attached to a work order, WO-1042 Replace spindle bearing" with an arrow dropping into a second box reading "One thread, on the work order’s Comments tab", and a note under it reading "Stays with the job. Whoever opens it next week reads it." A line across the bottom reads: put anything about one work order in that work order, everything else belongs in chat.| Chat | Work-order comments | |
|---|---|---|
| Attached to | The people you add | One work order |
| Where you open it | Messaging in the top navigation, at /chats | The Comments tab on the work order |
| What belongs in it | Anything: a shift handover, a question about a part, a photo of a leak | Everything about that one job |
| Found again by | Opening the chat | Opening the work order |
| Unread shows as | A count on the chat's row in the list | A blue count on the jump-to-latest button |
Chat or comments?
Put anything about a specific work order in that work order's comments. A decision made in chat is invisible to the technician who picks the job up next week, and the work order is the thing they open.
Everything else belongs in chat: the question that has no work order yet, the handover note, the photo somebody needs to look at before anyone raises a job.
You probably do not need a group chat per machine. A question about one job already has a home on that job.
Cross-organization chat
A chat can include people from outside the organization you are in. An external organization is any organization in the chat other than the one you have selected: a contractor, a customer, or another of your sites that IoTFlows runs as its own organization.
You add their people by handle, the same way you add a colleague. A handle is a username qualified by its organization, written maria:acme. See Start a direct or group chat.
IoTFlows marks those chats so nobody posts to the wrong audience. An orange badge in the chat header carries the outside organization's logo and name, and members from outside are marked in the chat's member list.
With more than one outside organization in the chat, the badge stacks up to three logos and drops the names. Hovering it lists them all under Outside your organization.
Where chat appears
| Client | Where |
|---|---|
| Web | Messaging in the top navigation, at /chats |
| Android | Natively in the app |
| iOS 18 and later | Natively in the app |
| iOS 17 and earlier | The same web dashboard, opened inside the app |
The phone notifies you when a message arrives, including from organizations you are not signed into. See Get push notifications.
What a chat holds offline, and what becomes of a message you send with no connection, differs by platform. See What works without a connection.