PaT Chat Overview

Watch first: Time to break up with email

Summary PaT Chat is a communication platform for business that goes well beyond email. This module shows how to turn on the Chat Wall and find your way around it: the Folder Menu, searching by chat title or with Advanced Search, adding members to a chat, following, docking and linking to a chat, the actions you can take on a message, contextual communication, attachments, and expanding the chat panel for more room.

Steps

Introduction. PaT Chat is an advanced communication platform designed for business. Its productivity and automation benefits go well beyond traditional email. As people get to know its features and use them every day, they often become noticeably more productive and gain a level of control over their work that was out of reach before. That reduces stress and increases job satisfaction, and helps teams achieve better results, faster, by working smarter.

Note. PaT has two chat views: the standard Chat Panel, which opens down the right side of the screen, and the Chat Wall, which opens in its own tab next to Task Wall.

Tip. Most people prefer the Chat Wall, because its layout is like a traditional email client. It has the same core functions as the Chat Panel, plus some extra features, so the rest of this module uses it. The steps below make sure it is turned on.

Turning on the Chat Wall

Step 1

Click your profile photo, at the top middle of the screen between Certification and Integrity. Your profile opens in a my Profile tab.

Step 2

Click system, the last of the tabs along the top of your profile.

Step 3

Tick Use Chat Wall for chats, to the right of Hide TaskWall Image, to turn on the Chat Wall view.

Step 4

Click Submit, just below the tick box.

Step 5

Click the chat icon (a speech bubble with three dots), in the row of icons at the top right of the screen. The Chat Wall opens in a Chat Wall tab, next to Task Wall.

Finding a chat

Step 6

The vertical panel down the left side of the Chat Wall is the Folder Menu. The folders in its grey lower half, under My Folders, are your own: you create them, name them and arrange them the way you want. To see the options for one of them, swipe left on its name.

Step 7

The Search by Chat Title box, at the top of the list of chats, filters the list by chat title. Every chat has a title, so searching by it is often the quickest way to find what you're looking for. If you've forgotten the exact title, use Advanced Search instead.

Step 8

Click Adv. Search, the purple button just below the search box.

Step 9

The Advanced Search panel slides in over the list of chats. Its search box searches every word in every message across all your chat threads, so even when a chat title search doesn't find what you need, Advanced Search will.

Working in a chat

Step 10

Click a chat in the list to open it. The row of photos at the top of the chat editor, in the middle of the screen, is the chat's Members List. To add (tag in) a new member, click the + icon at the top left of the list. Note: anyone you add this way can see the entire chat thread. If you want them to see only one message in the thread, use an inline reply instead.

Step 11

Every chat has the same small group of icons at the top right of the chat editor: a star and a round down-arrow, with a pencil and a share icon below them. Steps 12 to 15 cover the star, the down-arrow and the share icon.

Step 12

The star is a favourites function. Click it, and PaT instantly saves the chat thread to your Following folder.

Step 13

The Following folder is in the Folder Menu on the left. Use the star to bookmark your important chats there: it clears them from your main chat list, and makes sure you come back to them at your next daily review, including any time you set aside for follow-up work.

Step 14

To dock the chat, click the round down-arrow, just right of the star. The chat docks to the bottom left corner of your screen. Dock the chats you open often, so you don't have to search for them later.

Step 15

To copy a link to the chat thread, click the share icon (an arrow coming out of a box), below the round down-arrow. The link is copied to your clipboard, and you can paste it into chats, notes, tasks, emails or any document. When someone clicks it, a webpage opens showing the full chat and any attached files. It's a handy way to connect work and communication across PaT, both internally and externally.

Step 16

Type your message in the large white box below the row of purple formatting buttons. To send it, click send comment at the bottom right of the chat editor.

Step 17

The right side of the screen shows the Chat Thread: all the chat messages the chat's members have written.

Step 18

Swipe right on a message in the chat thread to show buttons at its left. Click copy to copy the message, or click the members button (a people icon) to see who has seen the message and at what time.

Step 19

Swipe left on a message to show three buttons at its right: task converts it into a task, reply starts a sub-chat, and sd turns it into an SD.

Step 20

The panel at the top of the chat thread tells you what the chat thread is part of, such as its Chat Title and, for an inline chat, its Source Chat. PaT uses a concept called contextual communication: unlike email, where communication sits in one person's email account, PaT holds and manages conversations in the context of the work they belong to.

Step 21

To see all the files shared in the chat, click Attachments, at the top right of the chat thread next to Chat.

Step 22

For more room, click the chevron (a small right-pointing arrow) at the top left of the panel above the chat thread. The chat panel expands and gives you more space to work in.