Nobody is saying you should stop messaging each other. Quick messages are how a lot of work gets done. The problem is where those conversations end up: spread across group chats, personal phones and email, cut off from the jobs they're about.
What disconnected chat costs
- The key detail about getting into a site is in a chat nobody can find.
- A new engineer picks up a job with no idea what's been said about it.
- Customer information sits on staff members' personal phones.
- When someone leaves, their messages leave with them.
Put the conversation where the work is
The best place for a conversation about a job is on the job itself. Anyone who opens the job sees the discussion. Anyone who picks it up later gets the context without asking.
Keep direct messages too
Not every conversation is about a job. People need to message each other directly, and small groups need somewhere to talk. That's fine, as long as it happens somewhere the business controls rather than on personal apps.
Respect who can see what
If a job is only visible to certain people, conversations about it should be too. A private job shouldn't have a discussion anyone can read.
Notifications that help
People should know when a new message arrives without being buried in alerts. A badge, a short notice and a sound for genuinely new messages is usually plenty.
OmniSchema's Messages covers direct messages, group conversations and threads linked to a particular job. A thread linked to a job follows that job's visibility rules, so people who can't see the job can't see the conversation either, and new messages show a badge wherever you are in OmniSchema.