---
title: "Overview: messaging in IoTFlows"
description: "IoTFlows carries two kinds of conversation: chats, which hang off the people in them and live at /chats on web and natively in both mobile apps, and work-order comments, which hang off one job. This page says which one a message belongs in, and explains cross-organization chats and the orange badge that marks them."
category: "Start here"
source_url: "https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/overview/"
---
# Overview: messaging in IoTFlows

What chat is for, and when a work order's comments are the better place to write.

IoTFlows carries two kinds of conversation, and they never meet. A chat hangs off the people in it; a work order's comments hang off the job. Which one you pick decides whether the next person to touch that machine ever reads what you wrote.

## What chat is
A *chat* is a conversation between people you choose: one other person, or a group. Every chat holds exactly one *thread*, the running list of messages inside it. There are no channels, and no sub-thread hanging off a single message.

A chat belongs to one organization. The list at `/chats` is the list for the organization you are signed into, and switching organizations switches the list. See [Switch organizations](/docs/get-started/switch-organizations/).

In a thread you can send text, replies, photos, videos, files, and voice notes, pin a message, and react to one. Each has its own page, linked at the end.

## Chat versus work-order comments
Every work order carries its own thread, on the **Comments** tab of the work-order drawer. It behaves like a chat, but it is attached to the work order rather than to a list of people. See [Update, discuss, and close a work order](/docs/maintain/work-order-detail/#comments).

*Chat threads are attached to people; comment threads are attached to a work order.*

| | Chat | Work-order comments |
|---|---|---|
| Attached to | The people you add | One work order |
| Where you open it | **Messaging** in the top navigation, at `/chats` | The **Comments** tab on the work order |
| What belongs in it | Anything: a shift handover, a question about a part, a photo of a leak | Everything about that one job |
| Found again by | Opening the chat | Opening the work order |
| Unread shows as | A count on the chat's row in the list | A blue count on the jump-to-latest button |

> **Info:**
> **Chat or comments?**
>
> Put anything about a specific work order in that work order's comments. A decision made in chat is invisible to the technician who picks the job up next week, and the work order is the thing they open.
>
> Everything else belongs in chat: the question that has no work order yet, the handover note, the photo somebody needs to look at before anyone raises a job.
>
> You probably do not need a group chat per machine. A question about one job already has a home on that job.

## Cross-organization chat
A chat can include people from outside the organization you are in. An *external organization* is any organization in the chat other than the one you have selected: a contractor, a customer, or another of your sites that IoTFlows runs as its own organization.

You add their people by handle, the same way you add a colleague. A *handle* is a username qualified by its organization, written `maria:acme`. See [Start a direct or group chat](/docs/messaging/start-a-chat/).

IoTFlows marks those chats so nobody posts to the wrong audience. An orange badge in the chat header carries the outside organization's logo and name, and members from outside are marked in the chat's member list.

With more than one outside organization in the chat, the badge stacks up to three logos and drops the names. Hovering it lists them all under **Outside your organization**.

## Where chat appears
| Client | Where |
|---|---|
| Web | **Messaging** in the top navigation, at `/chats` |
| Android | Natively in the app |
| iOS 18 and later | Natively in the app |
| iOS 17 and earlier | The same web dashboard, opened inside the app |

The phone notifies you when a message arrives, including from organizations you are not signed into. See [Get push notifications](/docs/alerts/mobile-push/#what-sends).

What a chat holds offline, and what becomes of a message you send with no connection, differs by platform. See [What works without a connection](/docs/get-started/offline-behavior/).

## See also
- [Quickstart: start a chat with your team](/docs/messaging/quickstart/)
- [Start a direct or group chat](/docs/messaging/start-a-chat/)
- [Send, reply to, edit, and delete messages](/docs/messaging/send-messages/)
- [Update, discuss, and close a work order](/docs/maintain/work-order-detail/#comments)
- [Get push notifications on your phone](/docs/alerts/mobile-push/)