Help and Support

Channels

What are channels?

Channels are just groups of people that need to communicate around a topic. Here are some everyday examples:

• Topics like Safety, Quality, or Permits
• Channels for your internal project team (e.g. Superintendents)
• Channels for each of your subcontractors (e.g. Electrical)

Here's an example from a general contractor project. Note how each trade has their own channel and dedicated phone number.

Project can have as many channels as you like. But we suggest you don't overdo your channels at first. See how the team communicates and what topics are important for the project.

If you are an administrator, to add a new channel, click on "Create new channel" at the bottom of the list of channels for your project. Only account administrators can create new channels.

Phone numbers

If you want to send text messages on a channel, it needs a phone number. You can assign a phone number when you create or edit a channel. If you are out of local phone numbers, contact FieldChat Help for more.

Group Chat vs. Notify When Mentioned

If you set a channel as Group Chat, everyone will get a text message or app notification with every new message, unless specific people are @mentioned. For a very large group of people, this can get noisy. That's where the Notified When Mentioned channel setting can be useful. With this setting, people can see the messages in the FieldChat app, but won't get an app notification or text notification unless the whole @channel is mentioned or specific people are @mentioned.

Examples:

Channel admins

Channel admins can invite more users to a channel or remove users from a channel.

Deleting a channel

To remove a channel, select the Delete Channel menu option. In the mobile app, you can find this option in the channel details menu. In the web app, this is in the channel menu. If you delete a channel with a phone number, that number becomes available for use in another channel.