About WorkZone Chat

WorkZone Chat is an internal communication tool which enables WorkZone users to collaborate and communicate about specific cases or documents as well as add additional or remove existing cases and/or documents. WorkZone Chat can also be used to communicate more informally with other WorkZone users without being associated to a case or document.

WorkZone Chat can only be used to communicate with other WorkZone users and can only be used internally through WorkZone. WorkZone Chat cannot be used to communicate with other parties or contacts externally. If you need to communicate with an external contact or party, you must use another 3^rd party chat program.

Note: WorkZone Chat is disabled by default and must be enabled by a system administrator in WorkZone Configurator > Global > Feature settings > Client > Chat.

Removing participants and leaving a chat

Chat participants can leave chats or be removed from a chat. In both situations, the participant is no longer a part of the chat and will not receive notifications when the chat is updated (for example when new chat messages are posted). All existing messages from the participants who have left are still displayed in the chat. The participants who have left or been removed can still be added to the chat again.

Chat notifications

Users receive notifications when they are added to a new chat or when a new message is received in a chat they participate in. Users can mute a chat, which will hide all notifications to the user from the muted chat. Other chat participants that have not muted the chat will still receive notifications about new messages.

Opening a chat

A chat window can be opened from the bottom of the browser page or from any case or document that the chat contains references to. If the chat is opened from the bottom of the browser page, all chats for the user are displayed, and if a chat is opened from a referenced case or document, only that specific chat is displayed.

Case and document references in chats

Chats can contain case and/or document links which the chat participants can access for reference during the chat conversation.

You can add case and/or document references when you create chats or you can create an independent chat without any case or document references.

If you need to change the references at a later date, you can add additional or remove existing case and/or document references directly on the chat at any time, for example if information that can affect one or more cases surfaces in a chat, users can add relevant case and/or document references directly to the chat or remove irrelevant ones.

Note: You can add document and case references to a chat irrespective of each other. Selecting to base a chat on a case does not prevent you from adding a document from another case as a document reference to the same chat.

Case and document access

Cases and documents submitted as references to chats still respect all read- or write-based access codes assigned to the original cases and documents. This means that you can only view chat references to cases or documents that you have read access to and you can only add or remove chat references to cases or documents that you have read access to.

Chats are only displayed in the Chats detail tab on the case detail page or document detail page if you have at least read access to the respective case and/or document.

You can still be a participant in a chat but not have access to the referenced cases or documents. In this situation, the cases and documents you do not have read access to, are not displayed in the References page of the chat message area nor in the chat data. Additionally, you will not be able to access the chat from the Chat detail tab for the cases or documents you do not have read access to. You can still access the chat from the chat window opened from the bottom of the browser page.

Creating Chats

Chats can be created from the bottom of the browser page or directly from a case or document. If a chat is created from a case or document, a reference to the case or document is already created. You can then add participants and start chatting. If the chat is created from the bottom of the browser page, you must manually add any relevant references as well as add participants.

References and participants can be added and removed at any time during the chat, and chat details, such as title and description, can be changed by any chat participant at any time. Likewise, the chat can be registered to be retained by any user.

Editing chats

Chat data (chat title and description, case and/or document references, and the list of chat participants as well as the chat retention state) can be edited by any chat participant either from the chat window or from the Chats detail tab.

Chat participants can only view chat references to cases or documents they have read access to and can only add/remove chat references to cases or documents they have read access to.

Deleting chats

New chats are by default created as unretained chats and will therefore automatically be deleted after a predefined retention period if there is no activity on the chat. Any activity (for example posting new messages) on a chat will reset the retention period.

Chats can be manually deleted by any chat participant and will also be deleted automatically after the retention period for chats has expired. Any activity (for example sending new messages) on a chat will reset the retention period for that chat.

The retention period for chats is defined in the Retention period for chats field found in WorkZone Configurator > Global > Chat settings tab.

Chat retention states can be toggled from unretained to retained, which will prevent the chat from being manually or automatically deleted. Likewise, chat retention states can be toggled from retained to unretained, which will enable the chat to be manually or automatically deleted. Toggling the retention state qualifies as updating the chat and will therefore reset the retention period of the chat.