Message your team on your computer

Press Chat in the left menu. The first channel is All, and everyone in the project is in it without being added. Type at the bottom and press the arrow.

• Your own messages sit on the right, everyone else on the left with their name and the date.
• New starters join All automatically and people who leave drop out of it, so it never needs maintaining.
• The number next to a channel is how many messages you have not read.

For a conversation that does not belong to everybody, press the new chat button above the channel list, type a name over the heading, and pick who is in it.

• Give it a name people will recognise later: Kitchen, Weekend cover, Front of house.
• The heading is editable, so a group that changes purpose can be renamed rather than replaced.
• A chat with exactly two people is a direct message and shows the other person's name instead of a title.

The avatars under the heading are the people in the chat. Click the people icon next to them to open Select participants and change the list.

• Search by name, or filter by tag when you want a whole role rather than named people.
• Each row shows how many shifts that person has and how many hours, which is useful when you are picking who to ask.
• Tick and untick, then confirm. People added see the whole thread from the start.