Team Chat
One shared chat room for everyone in your company — mentions, replies, reactions, photos and files — without leaving the page you are working on.
What it is
Team Chat is a private chat room for your staff. It is completely separate from the messages you exchange with customers, so nothing you write here is ever sent to a client.
Everyone in your company shares one single room. There are no separate channels and no private one-to-one messages — every team member who has Team Chat turned on sees every message. If you need something to stay between two people, say it on the phone or in person.
Team Chat
Your staff talking to each other. One shared room. Opens as a side panel on top of whatever page you are on.
Conversations
Texts and emails with your customers. A full page in the left menu. Different feature — see the Conversations guide.
When to use it
- Asking a dispatcher whether a technician is free before you promise a customer a time slot.
- Telling the whole office that a truck broke down, a job ran long, or a price changed today.
- Sending a photo of a part, a damaged door, or a paper invoice so someone else can act on it.
- Getting one specific person's attention fast while they are on another screen, by tagging them.
Use a customer's lead or client record instead when the note needs to stay attached to that job — Team Chat is a running conversation, not a record that shows up on a lead later.
Before you start
- Team Chat has to be switched on for your role. An owner or admin controls this at Settings›People›Team Roles, in the General group, using the toggle named Team Chat. If it is off, the chat icon does not appear at all.
- Your teammates need names. The tag list shows each person's display name, so anyone still showing only an email address should be given a name at Settings›People›Team Members. Only active team members appear in the list.
- Turn on alerts if you want to be told about mentions. On a computer, go to Settings›My Account›Account Settings›Browser Notifications and click Enable. On the Joby CRM phone app, go to Settings›Notifications and tap Enable under Enable Push Notifications.
Step-by-step
Open Team Chat
- On a computer: click the round speech-bubble button in the top bar, next to the help and bell buttons. Hovering it shows the label Team Chat.
- The chat opens as a panel down the right-hand side of the screen, headed Team Chat. The rest of the page shifts left so you can keep working while it is open. Drag the panel's left edge to make it wider or narrower.
- On a phone or tablet: tap the same speech-bubble icon at the top right of the Home, Leads or Conversations screen. Chat slides up from the bottom as a sheet titled Team Chat.
- Close it with the X in the panel header, or by tapping the speech-bubble icon again.
Send a message
- Click into the box at the bottom that reads Message your team….
- Type what you want to say.
- On a computer, press Enter to send, and Shift + Enter to start a new line. On a phone, Enter starts a new line — tap the send arrow button to send.
Messages appear instantly for everyone with the chat open. Your own messages sit on the right in your company colour; everyone else's sit on the left. Each day of history is separated by a label reading Today, Yesterday, or the full date.
There is no undo
Once a message is sent it cannot be edited or deleted. Read it back before you press Enter, and never paste customer card numbers or passwords into chat.
How to check it worked
- Your message appears immediately in the conversation on the right-hand side, under today's date label, with your name and the time.
- If you tagged someone, their name shows as a highlighted block inside your message. Plain grey text means the tag did not attach and they will not be alerted — delete it and pick the name from the pop-up list instead.
- If you attached files, each one is visible in the sent message: photos as pictures, documents as a tile with a download arrow. Click one to confirm it opens.
- Ask the teammate to confirm, or watch for a reaction appearing under your message.
- To confirm your own alerts work, use Send Test Notification in Account Settings on a computer, or the Test Mention button in Settings›Notifications in the phone app.
Common mistakes
"I sent a private message and everyone saw it"
There are no private messages in Team Chat. Everyone with access reads the same single room, so treat it like speaking out loud in the office.
"I typed their name but they never got an alert"
Typing @ and then the name by hand is not enough — you have to choose the person from the list that pops up. If the tag shows as plain text instead of a highlighted block, it did not attach. Also check the person is still an active team member; inactive staff never appear in the list.
"I searched and got nothing, but I know the message exists"
Search only covers the messages currently loaded. Scroll up a few times to pull in older history, then search again.
"The bottom bar on my phone says Chat but it shows customers"
The Chat tab in the phone's bottom bar opens Conversations — your customer texts. Team Chat is the speech-bubble icon at the top of the screen.
"I cannot find the chat button at all"
Team Chat is not in the left menu; it only lives in the top bar. If the button is missing entirely, ask an owner or admin to switch on Team Chat for your role at Settings›People›Team Roles›General.
"The badge says 9+ but there are only two new messages"
The badge stops counting at 9+, and it counts everything posted since you last opened chat. Open the panel once and it clears.
"I need to take back what I wrote"
Messages cannot be edited or deleted. Post a follow-up message correcting yourself, and reply to the original so the correction sits next to it.
More detail (5)
Tagging a teammate (@mention)
Tagging is how you pull one person out of the noise. A tagged teammate gets an alert wherever they are in Joby, even with the chat panel closed.
- Type
@in the message box. A short list of your active teammates pops up above the box. - Keep typing part of their name or email address to narrow the list.
- Pick the right person: click them, or use the up/down arrow keys and press Enter or Tab. Joby fills in the full name for you — you do not have to spell it correctly yourself.
- Finish your message and send it.
In the conversation, the tag shows as a highlighted name, and the tagged person sees that message with a coloured outline around it so it stands out from everything else.
Tagged someone
They get a pop-up alert with a sound, and the chat button in their top bar flashes red until they open it.
Did not tag anyone
No pop-up. The message still counts towards the red number on everyone's chat button.
Replies and reactions
Move your pointer over any message and a small toolbar appears above it with two buttons.
Reply arrow
A Replying to… bar appears above the message box. Type and send, and your answer shows the original quoted above it. Click that quote to jump back to the original. Press the small X on the bar to cancel.
Smiley face
Pick one of seven reactions: 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🙏 ❓. The reaction appears under the message with a count. Click it again to take yours back, or hover the count to see who reacted.
Replying to someone's message, or reacting to it, sends that person an alert — so a 👍 is a quick way to confirm you have read something without adding another message to the room.
Photos and files
- Click the paperclip button to the left of the message box and choose your files, or simply drag files onto the message box — a Drop files here panel appears.
- You can attach several files at once. Photos show a small preview; other documents show as a named tile.
- Made a mistake? Hover a preview and click the small x on its corner to remove it before sending.
- Add a note in the message box if you want (it is optional — you can send files on their own) and send.
Accepted types are photos, PDF, Word documents (.doc, .docx), plain text (.txt) and Excel spreadsheets (.xls, .xlsx). Photos appear inside the message and open full size in a new tab when clicked. Other files appear as a row with the file name and a download arrow.
Anyone with the link can open an attachment
Attachments are reachable by their web address. Do not post customer identity documents, signed contracts, or anything you would not want forwarded outside the company.
Finding older messages
- Scroll back: Team Chat opens showing the most recent 50 messages. Scroll up and the next 50 load automatically, and so on back through your history.
- Search: click the magnifying glass in the Team Chat panel header. A search bar appears. Type a word and Joby highlights each match in turn.
- Move between matches with the up and down arrow buttons, or by pressing Enter (next) and Shift + Enter (previous). The counter beside the box shows something like 2/7.
- Press Esc or the X to close search.
Search only looks through the messages already loaded on screen. If you are hunting for something from last month, scroll up a few times first to pull that history in, then search.
Alerts and sounds
Joby only interrupts you for three things in Team Chat:
- Someone tags you.
- Someone replies to a message you sent.
- Someone reacts to a message you sent.
Each of those plays a short sound and shows a pop-up in the corner of the screen with a View button. Clicking View takes you to the Conversations page and opens Team Chat so you can answer straight away.
Alerts on your computer
Settings›My Account›Account Settings›Browser Notifications›Enable. You then get alerts from your browser even when the Joby tab is behind another window. Use Send Test Notification to check — switch to another window first, because the test only shows when the Joby tab is not in front.
Alerts on your phone
In the Joby CRM app, go to Settings›Notifications, tap Enable, then use the switches under Notification Types: Internal Chat Messages, Internal Chat Mentions, Internal Chat Reactions and Internal Chat Replies. Tapping a chat alert opens Team Chat.
Choosing the sounds (owner or admin)
Settings›Channels›SMS Configuration›Internal Chat Sounds sets the sound for @Mentioned, Reply to Message and Reaction. Press the play button to hear one first. These choices apply to everyone in the company.
Turning the pop-ups off (owner or admin)
Settings›Admin›Toast Notifications›Notifications has a switch called Internal chat notification. Switch it off and chat pop-ups stop appearing in the app.
What the red number actually counts
The red badge on the chat button counts every message posted since you last opened Team Chat — not only the ones aimed at you. It stops counting at 9+. If you were tagged while the panel was closed, the whole button also flashes red until you open it.