# Channels (https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/chats/channels)

Creating a channel, its settings, adding and removing members, archiving, deleting, and leaving one.

Creating channels needs the **Manages channels** permission — see [who can do what](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/chats/). If the **+** beside
**Chats** isn't there for you, you can still write everywhere you've been added and start direct
messages with anyone.

## Creating one [#creating-one]

The **+** at the top of the list opens the form.

![Screenshot: chats/create-channel](https://docs.serviata.ru/screenshots/en/chats/create-channel.png)

1. Who the channel belongs to — the whole workspace, or one property
2. Whether people can find it without being added
3. The people who start in it
4. Announcements only — admins write, everyone else reads

Above those, a name, a description and a picture. The name is what everyone reads forty times a day,
so keep it short and specific: `front-desk`, `housekeeping`, `lobby-refurbishment`. The description
sits under the name in the header and answers "what goes in here?" for whoever joins next month.

For the picture, pick a colour, or a colour with an icon, or upload a photograph. It exists so the
list can be read at a glance rather than word by word.

<Callout title="Scope and privacy are the two decisions that matter">
  A name can be changed in ten seconds. Who can see a channel cannot: property or workspace decides
  which colleagues can ever reach it, and private-to-public is a one-way door. Choose both
  deliberately, then get on with it.
</Callout>

If you have channel rights on exactly one property, the scope is filled in and locked — there's only
one right answer, so the form doesn't ask.

## Settings [#settings]

Open a channel, then **⋯** in its header → **Channel settings**. It's available to the channel's own
admins and to workspace owners and admins.

![Screenshot: chats/channel-settings](https://docs.serviata.ru/screenshots/en/chats/channel-settings.png)

1. General, Members, Advanced
2. Who is in the channel, and what each of them can do to it

**General** holds the name, the description and the privacy setting. **Members** and **Advanced** get
a section each below.

## Members [#members]

When you add members, only users who have access to the channel's scope are shown. For a property
channel, for example, only users with access to that property are listed. Users without the
necessary rights do not appear in the list, because they would not be able to see the channel's
messages.

The menu beside a member offers three actions:

* **Make admin** — the member can change the channel's settings, add and remove members, and archive
  the channel.
* **Remove as admin** — the member becomes an ordinary channel member again.
* **Remove from channel** — the member loses access to the channel until somebody adds them back.

A channel must always have at least one admin. The last admin cannot be removed from the channel or
turned back into an ordinary member until another one has been appointed. Members joining, being
added, leaving and being removed are recorded in the conversation, so the history of changes can be
reviewed in the channel itself.

## Archiving a channel [#archiving-a-channel]

**Advanced** → **Archive channel**. The channel becomes read-only, drops out of the list and moves
behind the **Archive** filter, with a banner across the top saying so. Nothing is lost, and
**Unarchive** brings it back.

This is what to do with the channel for a job that finished. The refurbishment is over, nobody should
post in it again, and in eight months somebody will still want to know which tiles were ordered.

## Deleting a channel [#deleting-a-channel]

**Advanced** → **Delete channel**, which asks you to type the channel's name first. That is not
ceremony: deleting takes every message in it with it, for everybody, permanently.

Two limits worth knowing:

* Only a workspace owner or admin can delete a channel.
* The channel a property was created with can't be deleted at all. Archive it instead.

Nine times in ten, archiving is what was actually wanted.

## Leaving a channel [#leaving-a-channel]

**⋯** in the header → **Leave channel**. You lose access until somebody adds you back, or — for a
public channel — until you rejoin yourself.

* If you are the channel's **only admin**, promote somebody first.
* If you are its **only member**, leaving deletes the channel. The confirmation says so.

## Joining a public channel [#joining-a-public-channel]

Public channels can be found by anyone in their scope, in [search](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/chats/finding/). Open one you
are not in and its messages are there to read, with a **Join channel** prompt at the bottom. Joining
is what puts it in your list and lets you post.