Version 7.0 of Ready Room brings one important enhancement: private chat sessions, also known as conversations.

Conversations

Breakout chat sessions allow (most, see below) users to create private conversations with one or more other team members. Which, honestly, is not all that Earth shattering. The power of conversations comes from the knock on effect of having more than a single chat room, to wit; the ability to extend chat to restricted SMEs, observers, and inspectors. The implications of that are covered in a different blog post. Here, we will go over the new functionality.

The Default Chat

If you’ve used any other chat system before, there will be no mystery in using this new functionality. Every inspection now has a default conversation named “Team Chat,” and every person added to the inspection is also added to this default chat, including restricted SMEs and observers, but not, of course, inspectors.

For the most part, the default chat is not special. As with any other conversation, its name can be changed and participants can be added and removed (except, again, inspectors). The only meaningful difference is that since there is no creator, the default chat is manipulable only by admins. In addition, when switching chats, the default chat is always sorted to the top.

Starting a New Conversation

Above the message panel is a new header. The header shows the name of the current conversation and a “more” menu (ellipsis) to the right. To start a new conversation, simply click the “more” icon, and from the resulting menu select “Start a new chat.”

From an interface similar to that of “Briefings,” give the conversation a name and select the participants. On clicking “Create,” the participants will receive a notification (on screen, via email, and in the notifications panel) that they have been added to a new chat and providing a link to said chat.

Switching Conversations

At any time, a user can switch among existing chats by selecting “Switch chats” from the “more” menu. In addition, they can leave a chat, view details about the chat, and, if they created it, edit the chat to change its name or add and remove participants. To abandon an action and get back to the messages of the current chat, simply click its name in the chat header.

Unread Messages

If a team member is looking at one chat, when a message comes in for another, a green counter will appear in the chat tab at the top. This counter will show the total number of messages that a team member has not seen. When switching chats, the user will see which conversations have unread messages and how many. Clicking into a chat will clear the unread count for that conversation.

Multi-line chat messages, @-mentions, and rich-text continue to function as before.

The Rules

There are important nuances regarding private chat sessions and user roles that you should keep in mind. They are summarized below:

Creators

• With exceptions (below), team members can create new conversations and invite team members and inspectors into it.
• Only the creator of a conversation can edit it, allowing them to change its name or adjust the participant list.
• The conversation name does not need to be unique, so be alert for collisions.
• The creator of a conversation cannot leave the conversation.

Participants

• Participants can leave a conversation if they no longer want to receive messages.
• Participants can view details of the current conversation.
• Participants can switch among any chat they are a member of.

Admins

• Admins behave just like any other team member, except only admins can manipulate the default chat.
• Admins cannot invite inspectors into the default chat.
• Note, admins cannot view or otherwise manipulate a conversation of which they are not a participant.

Restricted SMEs

• Restricted SMEs can now participate in chat, including the default chat. If you don’t want them in the default chat, an admin can remove them.
• Restricted SMEs can start a new chat, but they cannot invite inspectors.

Observers

• Observers can now participate in chat, including the default chat. If you don’t want them in the default chat, an admin can remove them.
• Observers cannot start a new chat.

Inspectors

• Inspectors can now participate in chat.
• At first, inspectors are not a participant in any chat.
• Inspectors cannot start a new chat, they can only be invited into conversations by team members.

Existing Inspections

Historically, restricted SMEs and observers could not participate in chat. In order to preserve that, users with those personas were not added to the default chat of any existing inspection. If you would like to add them now, you may.

We hope you find this functionality valuable. Stay tuned for more information and for future enhancements.

Bug Fixes

• The sort order last used in the “table view” was impacting the vertical placement of requests in the “workflow view.”
• Validating the inspector’s shared storage settings was wonky when entering the shared URL before selecting the shared service provider.