Chat for school leaders: Assign chat roles, create rooms, and manage members

This article covers how to configure chat roles and manage members in Finalsite Chat, including how to use the four permission levels and how to add or adjust membership in the CMS.

In this article

• Understand chat types
• Assign chat roles
  • Review chat roles and permissions
• Create chat rooms
• Rename a chat room
• Monitor all communication
• Manage room membership

Understand chat types

Here are the different chat formats available in Finalsite's chat feature:

• Direct chat between 2 people
• Group chat with multiple people
• Auto-created chat rooms based on SIS, and ability to create more chat rooms
• One-way chat room: admin can send messages to group without recipient ability to respond
• Two-way chat room: anyone can send a message

The mobile Chat homescreen is divided into two sections: Chat Rooms and Direct Messages.

Compare chat rooms and direct messages

Chat rooms

A chat room is a place where all members of a class, an athletic team, or a fine arts group can communicate together on an ongoing basis. Rooms with new, unread messages will be listed first. A small notification bubble with a number inside signifies new and unread messages in that chat room.

• Read and write new messages.
• Mute or unmute push notifications with an easy toggle.
• View other chat room members.
• Post files and other media in messages or replies.
• Change formatting (bold, italic, strikethrough).
• Reply and react to messages with comments and/or emojis.
• Leave rooms no longer needed.

Direct messages

Direct messages are more situational or targeted toward having a quick conversation with a smaller audience. New and unread messages will display first with a notification bubble.

• Involve other teachers or parents/guardians in a message.
• Write or reply regarding a mutual student.
• Know with confidence who is included in a direct message.
• Mute when notifications for a message are no longer needed.

Assign chat roles

During the implementation of the chat feature in Finalsite's mobile app, the integration team will work with the district to assign roles, ensuring that each role has the right level of involvement in the chat process.

Here are the 4 chat roles available to choose from.

• District Admin: This may be a Director of Communications, a Tech Director, or Superintendent. This is the role with the highest level of abilities within the chat setup, including the ability to monitor all chat messages and rooms in all schools.
• School Admin: This role might be a Head of School or Principal/Assistant Principal. They may have the highest level of rights within their own school but not over other schools in their district.
• Chat Manager: A Chat Manager is an assigned role to manage a particular chat room or rooms, though limited in abilities to monitor other chats and block users.
• Chat Participant: Likely a parent, guardian, or student, Chat Participants are able to participate in chat conversations and chat directly with a Chat Manager if this is a part of their setup.
  • Chat Participants can report messages, mute notifications in a chat, and reply in a thread where they are allowed to chat. There are different possibilities for limiting and restricting communication for Chat Participants. Finalsite Support or the implementation team can help adjust the access levels. For example, students can be limited from starting messages or sending direct messages. Submit a request to learn more and get help.

Review chat roles and permissions

This table helps make the best decision on what role each person will have in order to successfully participate in the communication process.

Create chat rooms

Chat rooms can be created manually in two ways or dynamically via Academic Classes in Group Manager. 

• For step-by-step instructions for all three methods, see "Create chat rooms in Finalsite Chat." 
• Users of Athletics Manager and Finalsite Chat can also manage and streamline athletic team room creation. See "Set up athletic team Chat Rooms from Athletics Manager" for details.

Rename a chat room

Any user holding the Chat Manager role can rename a chat room directly from the mobile or web Chat feature. This includes users who have "Not Allowed" or a lower-level permission in the Mobile Apps CMS module. The rename feature lives within the Chat interface itself, so module-level permissions do not affect this task.

The Rename chat room option appears in two cases:

• Manually created chat rooms
• Direct messages or Group DMs that include at least one Admin

This is by design. Requiring an Admin's presence in a DM prevents participants (such as students) from renaming a conversation to impersonate an official chat room name.

To rename a chat room:

• Step 1: Open the chat room and access its settings.
• Step 2: Tap or click Rename chat room.
• Step 3: Enter the new name and confirm. Spaces are automatically replaced with underscores (_).

Monitor all communication

It is helpful at this phase to understand how communication taking place in the assigned arena will be actively monitored and moderated.

• Configure the chat room settings via the CMS website desktop version.
• Depending on the Chat permissions level, some roles may assist with managing or moderating the chat.
• Anyone within the Chat feature can start and participate in direct messages.

Manage room membership

Once the support or implementation team has added people into the system, membership can be managed from the Members tab. To view membership, open the Chat feature by first opening Mobile Apps from the module menu. Click the Members tab to see a list of all members.

Family members in a chat room appear with their specific relationship label (Mother, Father, Guardian) rather than a generic "Parent" label. Teachers and Chat Managers can also see which student a family member is connected to (for example, "Mother of Rebecca") when viewing the members list. This makes it easier to identify who belongs in a room and to manage membership accurately.

Here are all of the different tasks available from the Members tab:

• Filter by chat role and/or location to populate only that selection in the list.
• Add members manually to appear in the Members tab, or delete with the trash can icon.
• Adjust the chat role level of a member by expanding the dropdown and selecting a new role.