Chat
Chat is for internal team communication. Use channels for shared topics and direct messages for one-to-one conversations. Customer conversations belong in Inbox, not Chat.
Find your conversations
Section titled “Find your conversations”Open Chat from the Operations section. Home greets you with your unread count, a Catch up shortcut, and your recent channels and direct messages. The sidebar lists channels and direct messages; direct messages can be shown as a flat list or grouped By department.
Above the conversation lists:
- Activity collects mentions, thread replies, reactions to your messages, and direct messages, with tabs for All, DMs, Mentions, Threads, and Reactions. Turn on Unreads to hide what you have already seen, or use Mark all as read.
- Saved items lists messages you saved with Save for later.
- Scheduled lists messages waiting to be sent.
Unread counts, typing indicators, read receipts, and presence update as teammates work. Drafts are saved per user and conversation, and a conversation reopens at the message you left it on.
The Messaging dock keeps recent direct messages open as small chat windows while you work elsewhere in Workstation.
Channels
Section titled “Channels”Channels can be:
- Public — anyone in the workspace can find and join
- Private — invite only
Create a channel with New channel, then give it a short name such as support, sales, or project-acme, plus an optional topic and description. Anyone can read a public channel, but must Join before posting.
Each channel has two tabs:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| Messages | The conversation |
| Files & links | Everything shared in the channel, filterable by Files, Media, and Links |
Open Channel details to see the topic, description, and members, edit the channel, or leave it. Authorized members can also archive or delete a channel. Pinned messages appear in the channel’s Pinned list for everyone.
Use Jump to… to move to last week, last month, the very beginning, or a specific date.
Write messages
Section titled “Write messages”The composer supports:
- bold, italic, underline, strike-through, lists, links, inline code, and code blocks
- emoji, including custom Team emoji your workspace adds
- @mentions of people, plus
@here,@channel, and department mentions (Chat asks you to confirm before notifying a large group) - file attachments, with drawing on photos before sending
- text snippets
- voice messages and recorded video clips (camera, screen, or both)
- polls in channels
- Rewrite to have AI tidy a plain-text draft before you send it
Use the arrow next to Send to schedule a message for later, such as In 1 hour, Tomorrow morning, or a custom time. When you write outside work hours, Chat can suggest sending at the next opening instead. If you are offline, messages wait in an outbox and send automatically when you reconnect.
Polls can show who voted, allow multiple answers, let people add options, allow revoting, mark correct answers, close after a set duration, and hide results until they close. Polls are available in channels rather than direct messages or thread replies.
Threads and message actions
Section titled “Threads and message actions”Reply in a thread when a discussion belongs to one message and should not interrupt the main channel.
Depending on authorship and permissions, message actions include:
- reacting with emoji
- Reply in thread
- Save for later
- pinning to the channel or conversation
- copying text or a link
- Forward to other conversations
- Translate to another language
- editing and deleting your own messages
- Create a Task, Ticket, Contact, or Deal from the message — the new record is linked back to the message
Files shared in Chat get thumbnails and open in an in-app viewer, so teammates can read them without downloading. Previews cover PDFs, Word and PowerPoint files, spreadsheets and CSVs, Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote files, HEIC and TIFF photos, saved emails (.eml), Markdown, code, images, audio, and video. Long documents show a page strip, and Find in file searches the text. Archives and installers don’t preview; download them instead.
A pod is a live audio or video call inside Chat. Select Start pod in a channel or direct message to start one. Teammates you call see a ringing prompt; others can join from the pod card posted in the conversation.
In a pod you can mute, turn on video, share your screen, raise your hand, react, invite more people, and see who is in the call. The pod card shows who is in the call while it runs and when it ended.
Fox, AI coworkers, and your Secretary
Section titled “Fox, AI coworkers, and your Secretary”Chat also hosts Workstation’s AI helpers. Each appears as a bot in the sidebar.
| Bot | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fox | The built-in AI coworker. Message Fox directly or @mention it in a channel to ask about or act on CRM data. Fox also sends you interactive cards — approvals, mentions, tickets, inbox conversations, invoices, low stock, and daily summaries — with buttons such as Approve, Reject, or Reply that act without leaving Chat. |
| AI coworkers | AI agents an admin has deployed to Chat. They answer in the channels they are allowed in and, if enabled, in direct messages. See AI Agents. |
| Secretary | Your own private assistant. Select Create your secretary in the sidebar to set its name, picture, schedule, and what it watches. |
Fox and AI coworkers act with the permissions of the teammate who asked. Actions that need approval show approval cards before anything changes.
When anyone decides a card’s request — in Chat, on the record’s page, or through the API — every copy of the card updates, so nobody is left with buttons for something already handled.
Secretary
Section titled “Secretary”The Secretary sends a Morning briefing, an End-of-day wrap-up, and Urgent nudges between them. It can also prepare you before meetings, follow up after them, read your connected mailbox (opt-in), and take messages from teammates who @mention it.
The Secretary runs on your own Claude Code or Codex subscription through the Repzo desktop app, so it does not use workspace AI credits. Only you can talk to it, and you can pause or remove it from its settings.
Search
Section titled “Search”Search covers messages, channels, and people, either across Chat or inside the current conversation. Filter by channel (In), author (From), Date, and Has (file, link, in thread), and sort by Most relevant or Most recent. You can also type filters such as in:, from:, before:, after:, has:file, has:link, and is:thread. Recent searches are kept for quick reuse.
Notifications
Section titled “Notifications”Each channel can notify you about:
- All new messages
- Just mentions —
@youand@channel - nothing, by muting the channel
Channels and direct messages can be muted for 30 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 24 hours, or until you turn them back on. Under This device, choose whether to play a sound for mentions and direct messages.
With web push or the Repzo desktop app, Chat shows native notifications and updates the app badge.
Apps and bots
Section titled “Apps and bots”Apps can post rich messages in Chat — cards, tables, charts, buttons and menus — and open forms when you click them. A bot’s own conversation can also have a Home tab with a personal dashboard. Messages only you can see are marked Only visible to you and disappear when you reload.
Workflows can also post to a channel or direct message with the Send Chat Message action.
To build an app, see Chat apps.
Permissions
Section titled “Permissions”Chat access is controlled by the chat.view, chat.send, chat.create_channel, and chat.manage_channels permissions.