Your first message
Open a channel, write in it, answer somebody, and start a conversation with one person.
Five minutes, and by the end of them your team has somewhere to talk that doesn't disappear at the end of the shift.
1. Open a channel
Chats in the sidebar. The list on the left holds every conversation you can see; pick one and it opens on the right. If your workspace is new, the channel your property was created with is waiting there.
2. Write something
Click into the box at the bottom and type. Enter sends it, Shift + Enter starts a new line — the reminder is printed under the box, because getting those two the wrong way round in front of colleagues is a rite of passage nobody enjoys.
Three things live in that box beside the text:
- @ — type it and start a name to mention somebody. They are told directly, even if the channel is otherwise quiet for them.
- The paperclip — up to five files on one message. Images show in the thread; anything else arrives as a file to download.
- The microphone — hold a conversation you'd rather say than type. The recording is sent as a voice message and written out underneath, so nobody has to listen to it to find out what it said.
If you switch to another conversation mid-sentence, what you typed is still there when you come back.
3. Answer somebody
Hover any message and a small toolbar appears above it:
- The smiling face adds a reaction — the cheapest possible "seen it, thanks".
- The speech bubble starts a thread: replies that hang off that one message instead of scrolling the channel.
- The arrow quotes the message in your reply, so a one-off answer reads clearly in the flow.
A rule of thumb: react when nothing needs saying, quote when the answer is one message, open a thread when it is going to be a conversation.
4. Message one person
Beside the All chats heading in the list there's a + (beside Direct messages, if your list is split into channels and direct messages). It opens the workspace's member list — search for a name, press Message, and you have a conversation with just that person.
You don't need permission from anyone to do this, and you can do it with anyone in the workspace.
Say it where it will be found again
The first instinct is to write to the person you know will act. The better habit is to write in the channel that owns the subject — the person on shift tomorrow can read it, and nobody has to remember to pass it on.
What's next
- Finding a conversation — filters, sorting, search and the badges on each row.
- Messages — pins, threads, files and turning a message into a task.
- Channels — if you can create them, how to set one up properly.