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

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

Assign chat roles

During the implementation of your chat feature in Finalsite's new mobile app, you will work closely with our integration team to assign roles to your people, 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 are 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 the notifications in a chat, and reply in a thread where they are allowed to chat. There are different possibilities for limiting and restricting communication in certain ways for Chat Participants. Finalsite Support or your 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.

Chat roles and permissions table

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

Create chat rooms

Once the roles are assigned and established, rooms are ready to be created. Rooms will be created during implementation, but sometimes additional rooms need to be created manually once there is a better idea of specific needs.

Chat room creation permissions

For District and School Admin roles, it's possible to create chat rooms in two places within the Chat platform:

• Via the Mobile Apps module > Chats explorer
• Within the mobile or desktop Chat feature

Users with the Chat Manager role can also create new chat rooms in the Mobile Apps module, but only when granted permission to do so. Otherwise they automatically have the ability to create chat rooms in the mobile or desktop Chat environment.

Create chat rooms in the Mobile Apps module > Chats explorer

• Step 1: Log in and navigate to the module menu > Mobile Apps module > Chat feature
  
• Step 2: Navigate to Chats explorer > + Create chat room button in top right corner.
• Step 3: Configure the Create chat room window, providing a Chat room name and setting Posting permissions, which will determine who can post messages in this new chat room.
  
• Step 4: Once the new chat room details are entered, click Create chat room to confirm. The new chat room will now appear in the Chats area on the left.
• Step 5: Ready to add members.
  • Click Show members to manage chat membership, then + Add members.
  • The Add members window will open, allowing selection from Group or Constituent users.
    • Group: These user groups are created using Group Manager.
    • Constituent: Anyone that exists as a Constituent can be added via the Constituent tab.

Create chat rooms in the mobile or desktop Chat feature

• Step 1: Click on the Chats icon in the bottom toolbar.
• Step 2: When entering into the Chats window, each role will see chat rooms they've been assigned to. District Admins, School Admins, and Chat Managers will see a + sign to the right of the Chat Rooms section.

• Step 3: Click the + to open the Create chat room window.
  • Add a Chat room name. Note that spaces cannot be used in room names. Any spaces left in the field will be replaced with hyphens (-).
  • Select Posting permissions. This will determine who will be able to post messages in this chat room: Everyone or School moderators only. Some chat rooms have posting permissions of School moderators only when they are more for announcements than collaboration.

• Step 4: Click Next. In the next screen, choose the participants who will be members of this chat room.

• Step 5: Once the chat room is populated, click Create chat room. This will open the new chat room where membership can be confirmed and the first message sent via Create your first message.

Monitor all communication

It's 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.

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.

Chat rooms vs direct messages

Chat rooms

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

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.

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.