Search and organize your chats
Find a message you remember, and keep the unread count worth reading.
Chat gives you one list and two searches. The list at /chats says what is waiting, the box above it searches every chat you belong to, and the magnifier in a chat's header searches only the chat that is open. All three read the organization selected in the header, so a message in another organization needs a switch first.
Before you start: have a chat to open. See Start a direct or group chat.
The chat list and unread counts
The list runs down the left of /chats. Each row carries the chat's picture, its name, when the last message arrived (a time today, a date before that), one line of that message, and a gray pill counting what you have not read. A direct chat is named for the other person, a group for the group.
The list is ordered by activity. A new message moves its chat to the top and adds one to the pill, unless you sent it or already have that chat open.
Opening a chat with unread messages does not drop you at the newest one. The thread opens where you stopped reading, under an Unread Messages divider.
The chat list at /chats, with a gray unread count on the right of the one row holding unread messages.
The pill clears when you reach the bottom of the thread, not when you open it. While you are scrolled up, a down-arrow button at the bottom right of the thread carries a blue count: select it to jump to the newest message, which clears the pill too. Leave a chat halfway and the pill keeps whatever is still below you.
There is no mark-as-unread, no mute, and no archive, so the count stays honest only if you read a thread to the bottom or leave it alone.
A work order's comment thread is a chat of its own, and the reliable way back to it is to open the work order. See Chat versus work-order comments.
Search across every chat
- Select Messaging in the navigation to open
/chats. - Type into the Search Messages... box above the list.
The results replace the list. Search covers every chat you belong to in the selected organization, direct and group, and it waits for a pause in your typing before it runs.
Each result names the chat it came from, the time of the message, and the matching text. A file sent with no message of its own shows a paperclip and the file name, so torque-spec-rev-c.pdf is findable by name months later.
The Search Messages box above the chat list, with results from three different chats replacing the list.
Selecting a result clears the box, opens that chat, and scrolls the thread to the message, flashing it blue for about a second. A message older than what the thread has loaded is fetched with its neighbors first, so you land on it in context.
A query that matches nothing returns "No search results found" in place of the list. Clearing the box brings the chat list back.
Searched the wrong box?
The search box in the site header looks for records, not messages. Message search lives above the chat list and nowhere else. See Global search.
Search inside one chat
- Open the chat.
- Select the magnifier at the top right of the chat header, to the left of the ... menu.
- Type into the Search Messages... bar that slides down under the header.
This search reads only the open chat, and it runs on every keystroke. Each result shows who sent the message, its text or file name, and its time. Selecting one jumps the thread to that message with the same blue flash.
The in-thread search bar under a chat header, with matches from that chat listed by sender.
The bar stays open, so you can jump to one match and come back for the next. Select the X at its right to clear the text and close the bar. Unlike the list search, this one has no empty state: a query that matches nothing shows nothing.
Which search do you want?
Search inside the chat when you remember who said it, and globally when you only remember what was said. Global search across a busy organization returns more than you can read, so a two-word query like bearing arrived beats bearing by itself.
Resize the pane
The border between the chat list and the thread is a drag handle 8 px wide. Hover it until the pointer changes, then drag sideways. The list opens at 300 px, which is also its minimum, and stops at 500 px.
The width is not saved. Returning to /chats later puts the list back at 300 px.
You do not need this. Widen the list only when the names you are scanning are cut off, for example when several chats start "Line 4 Changeover". On mobile the list and the thread each fill the screen and swap as you open and close a chat, so there is no handle to drag.
See also
Attach a photo, a document, or a recorded voice note to an IoTFlows chat from any client: on the web dashboard the paperclip beside the composer opens Photo or Video, File, and Camera, and the preview that follows carries the compressed-versus-original choice, where compressed caps the longest side at 1600 px and arrives as a thumbnail under Media while an original arrives as a download row under Files. Voice notes record by holding the microphone, iOS and Android add slide-left-to-cancel and slide-up-to-lock, and both phones can share a photo in from another app, which the web cannot.
How to administer an IoTFlows chat from its info panel: select the chat's name in the header to open the panel, which carries the chat picture and name, an Add button, a More menu, and the Members, Media, Files, and Voice tabs. Edit renames a group and changes its picture, capped at 80 characters, and any member can do it. Add Members picks people and teams from the selected organization or accepts a full handle like maria:acme. Hovering a member row exposes Make Owner, Remove Owner, and Delete, none of which the web client gates on ownership. Leave removes only you and keeps the chat for everyone else; Delete Chat is shown to either side of a direct chat and removes the chat and its history for both of them; the dashboard offers no Delete Chat on a group, so a group is deleted from iOS or Android. Read receipts run on iOS and Android in direct chats only, as one check for sent and two for read; the web shows none, and no group shows any.