Chat, the forum and DMs are one system underneath, rendered differently: chat rooms scroll live, forum boards organize by topic and reply, and a DM is a conversation between you and one or more colleagues that only its members can open. Editing and deleting follow the same rules in all three, so they only need saying once.
Chat & DMs
Messages puts the channel list on the left (company/branch rooms and your DMs, each with an unread badge) and the conversation on the right — oldest at the top, scroll up for history. Opening a conversation with unread messages marks it read and clears its badge; reading never notifies the other side. Enter sends; Shift+Enter breaks the line.
- New message — starts a DM: tick one or more people and Start conversation. When the org has DMs switched off, the button simply isn’t there.
- Edit / delete — in a channel that isn’t archived, your own messages can be edited (marked “edited”) and deleted: the delete asks you to confirm first, and there is no undo. Anyone holding Moderate messages can delete anyone’s message — which is why some messages offer delete but not edit.
- Formatting & mentions — the composer formats as you type:
**bold**,`code`,-lists,>quotes; typing@offers your colleagues, and the people a message mentions when you send it are notified (in DMs too). - Attachments — the paperclip, drag-drop, or pasting an image all work; a photo can be sent on its own, and images render right in the conversation with a tap to enlarge.
- Reactions — hover a message for the emoji button (or tap a reaction someone already added) to join or leave it; anyone who can read the channel can react, no posting permission needed (except in an archived channel).
- When the connection drops, a warning strip appears above the panes; the pane stays readable, and reconnecting catches up what was missed.
The forum
Forum is the same data at a slower pace: boards hold topics (title + body), topics hold replies. For discussions that need to stay findable — chat flows away, a topic stays put.
Managing: rooms, boards & policy
Company ▸ Settings ▸ Messaging (under Policy in the settings list) has three blocks:
- Messaging settings — three switches: chat rooms, forum boards, allow direct messages. Switching chat rooms or forum boards off makes them disappear from Messages, and deletes nothing; the catalogs below still list them, but adding, editing, archiving or deleting one waits until the switch is back on. Switching direct messages off removes the New message button.
- Chat rooms and Forum boards — each a catalog: create (name, description, Visible to — the whole company or one branch — and Who can post), edit, archive (no more posting afterwards; nothing is deleted). Visible to is fixed at creation — moving a room would move who can read its history.
- Delete sits at the bottom of the edit dialog, confirming by name, and cannot be undone. DMs are never in this catalog — membership is the only key that opens a DM, admins included.