Chat
Direct messages, group channels and record conversations — the place your team talks about the work, next to the work.
Chat (/chat) is where your team talks about the work — inside Linbis, next to the shipments,
quotes and accounts the conversation is actually about.
It is not a second inbox. Email is how you talk to customers and partners; chat is how you talk to each other, and how you ask Linbis itself a question without leaving the conversation.
What you get
- Direct messages — a one-to-one conversation with a colleague.
- Group channels — a named conversation with several people, created by whoever needs it.
- Record conversations — the comment thread that already lives on a shipment, quote or account, listed in the chat rail so you can find it without hunting for the record first.
- @Linbis — a direct message with Linbis itself, which answers from your live records. See Ask @Linbis.
- Red flags — an urgent item aimed at named people, with a record of who answered. See Red flags.
The layout
The left rail lists your conversations. The right pane shows the one you selected. On a narrow screen only the rail shows first, so the first tap is always "pick a conversation".
Below your own conversations, the rail has a From your records section. A record appears there once its conversation thread has something on it — a colleague's comment, or a customer email the agent linked to the file. Nothing is created for you and nothing is guessed: a record shows up because somebody said something on it.
Starting a conversation
Select New at the top of the rail.
- Pick one person for a direct message. If you have messaged them before, you land back in the existing conversation rather than creating a second one.
- Pick several people, give it a name, and you get a group channel. Whoever creates it owns it and can add or remove members afterwards.
Writing a message
The composer supports a few things worth knowing:
@mentions a person. Start typing a name and pick from the list. A mention is what makes the message count as "waiting on someone" — see Notifications.#references a record. Type#and part of a shipment, quote or account number. Linbis looks the number up in the database rather than guessing from its shape, so it works whatever your numbering scheme is. The reference posts as a chip you can click to open the record, and a shipment reference unfurls a live card in the thread: lane, status, ETA, house bill, consignee and owner, read fresh each time rather than frozen at the moment you typed it.- Attachments — drag a file into the composer or use the paperclip.
- Voice notes — record straight from the composer when typing is slower than talking. The recording is transcribed, so it shows up in search like any other message.
- Reactions and replies — hover a message for the emoji picker and the reply action.
- Editing and deleting — your own messages only.
Finding things again
Search covers message bodies across every conversation you are a member of. Voice notes are included, because they are transcribed on arrival.
Two views sit above search in the rail and answer the question "is anything waiting on me":
- Mentions — every message that named you.
- Flags — every red flag that is waiting for your acknowledgement.
The count on the Chat item in the main sidebar is the sum of those two, so a badge means a person is waiting for you, not that a channel is busy.
What other people can see
- A conversation is visible only to its members. Someone who is not a member gets the same "not found" answer as for a conversation that does not exist — membership is never confirmed to a non-member.
- Read receipts show who has seen a message, so "did you see this" stops being a question.
- Presence shows who is currently online, and typing indicators show who is composing.
- If someone from outside your company is a member of a channel, the header says so. This matters most for @Linbis answers, which restrict themselves to what that outside person is allowed to see.
Archiving
An owner can archive a group channel that is finished. Archiving hides it from the rail without deleting anything — the history stays, and the channel can be restored from the archived list.