# Talk to your team with Team chat

> Install Crewtavo - Team Chat from Apps for channels for the whole team, each crew and the office, with photos, @mentions and pushes to phones.

Team chat is built into Crewtavo. It gives your business channels to talk in, like a group text that stays organized: news for everyone, one channel per crew, and one for the office. It's off until an owner or admin installs it, and it costs nothing extra: messages and photos are stored in your own Crewtavo like everything else.

## Install it

1. Open **Apps** (in the menu on a computer, or under **More** on a phone) and choose **Crewtavo - Team Chat**, under **Built into Crewtavo**.
2. Click **Install**. The button turns into a ring that fills while it installs, then into a red **Uninstall**.

Crewtavo starts you with:

- **Announcements:** everyone reads it; owners, admins and the office post.
- **#general:** anything for the whole team.
- **A channel for each crew**, named after it (North Crew becomes **#north-crew**). Field crew only see their own crew's channel.
- **#office:** owners, admins, office and estimators.

Everyone on your team then has **Team chat** in the menu, and **Chat** in the bar at the bottom of their phone. A crew added later in **Settings → Crews** gets its own channel too.

## Talking

- **Send a message:** type it and press **Enter** on a computer, or tap the send button on a phone. **Shift + Enter** starts a new line.
- **Mention someone:** type **@** and pick a person or a role, like **@Field crew**. They get a notification in the bell and, unless they've turned it off, a push to their phone. Owners, admins and a channel's managers can also use **@everyone**.
- **Photos:** tap the camera to take a photo or pick up to six. They're shrunk before they upload, so they go quickly on a phone signal.
- **Link a job:** tap the job button and pick one. Everyone who can open that job sees a card that opens it; anyone who can't (another crew's job) just sees that a job was linked.
- **React, reply, edit and delete:** hover over a message on a computer, or tap it on a phone. React with **Thumbs up**, **On it** or **Seen**. You can edit and delete your own messages.
- **Pin a message:** people who manage a channel can pin important messages, like a gate code or a change of plan. Everyone finds them under the pin at the top of the channel.

Unread channels show in bold, and a red number counts messages that mention you. The member list on the right shows who's in the channel and who's online.

:::tip
Opening a mention's notification takes you straight to the message.
:::

## Who sees what

Channels follow your team's roles, the same roles as **Settings → Roles**. To give someone different access, change their role there.

Owners and admins choose what each role can do in **Chat settings** (the gear at the top of the channel list):

- **Can see**, **Can post** and **Can manage** for each channel. Manage means pinning messages, changing the topic and removing other people's messages.
- **Name color:** the color the role's names and @mentions show in.
- **Show separately in the member list:** people with the role get their own group, like "Crew lead — 2".
- **Anyone can @mention this role:** when it's off, only owners, admins, the office and a channel's managers can.
- **Crew channels: their own crew only:** someone on North crew sees **#north-crew** but not the other crews'. On for field crew to start with.

Change what you like, then click **Save changes**. A custom role follows its access level until you give it rules of its own; **Follow** puts it back.

Owners always see and can do everything.

:::note
These rules are kept by the database itself, not just the screen: someone whose role can't see a channel can't read its messages or photos any other way either.
:::

## Channels

On the **Channels** tab of **Chat settings**, owners and admins can:

- **Add a channel** for the whole team, as announcements, for the office, or for a crew.
- **Edit** a channel's name, category and topic. Channels are grouped by category in the list.
- **Move** a channel up or down.
- **Archive** a channel. It becomes read-only and only owners, admins and its managers still see it. **Restore** brings it back.

## Notifications

Mentions arrive in the bell right away. By push, email or text, they follow each person's choices in **Settings → Profile → Notifications**, under **Team chat** (push is on to start with). A push comes about a minute after the message, and not at all if the person has already read it.

Messages show up instantly for everyone who has Crewtavo open. Phones and browsers don't keep a web app running in the background, so someone with Crewtavo closed hears about mentions by push and catches up when they open it.

## Uninstall it

On **Apps → Crewtavo - Team Chat**, click **Uninstall**. Chat disappears from everyone's menu, and every channel and message is kept. Installing it again brings everything back as it was.

Source: https://crewtavo.com/docs/connections/team-chat/ (last updated 2026-10-20)