What the module does
- New message to a recipient group: pick the group, enter a subject and the first text; attachments are optional. Anyone with the module assigned may start a message - typically a driver. Only groups you are allowed to write to are offered; if none are left for you, the message cannot be sent and the application tells you whom to contact.
- Message to specific people - the opposite direction. A dispatcher or supervisor picks people by name, or enters them by assignment (depot, centre, category), and sees how many people the message will reach before sending it. That is how a message is started on the web; in EDISONKA you send a message to one person.
- Sender of a message to people: either on behalf of a group (all its members see the replies), or yourself as a personal message (you and the message administration see the replies). The addressee recognises a personal message by the Personal badge in place of a group name.
- Chat-style communication - replies in chronological order with day separators; the thread opens at the latest reply. State changes are written into the thread as system entries.
- Who the message is for is shown on the list card and in the thread header. With more addressees, the first name and the number of the rest are shown; the full list expands with a tap.
- Delivered and read - marks appear under a reply: one tick sent, two ticks delivered to everyone, two blue ticks read by everyone. With several addressees the mark carries the ratio of people who have read the reply. Tapping it opens Reply information with names and times. An addressee sees the state of their own replies, a resolver the state of their side’s replies.
- Acknowledge - an addressee of a company message confirms with one tap that they have read it, instead of writing a reply that all the other addressees would receive. The resolver then sees in the header how many people out of how many have acknowledged it.
- Muting a thread - the bell in the header turns off alerts from that one thread. It is your personal choice, it does not affect the other participants, and neither the list nor the badge changes.
- Message states: New → Open (automatically after the first reply from the other side) → Closed. The Close button belongs to the resolving side, that is a group member or the message administrator; the author of the message never has it. Depending on the carrier’s settings you can reopen a closed message with a new reply, or the thread is closed and further communication starts as a new message.
- Filter of the list: Active / Closed / All. The list starts on Active.
- The number of messages with unread replies is shown by the badge on the tile. Push notifications announce a new message, a reply, a closure and a hand-over to another group, and they carry the sender’s name.
- Deleting - the administrator may delete any message; the author only their own, and only while nobody has responded to it (state New).
The module has two permission levels: the Messages role allows starting messages and communicating in threads; the Messages (administration) role additionally sees all messages of the company and manages recipient groups.
The My messages list shows even an administrator only their own threads and those they resolve. All threads of the company are in the Message administration table, in EDISONKA under Whole company.
Differences between phone and web
- Message to people - in EDISONKA the new message lets you choose between a group and a single person. The To a person option belongs to those who resolve messages, that is a member of a recipient group or the message administrator; the message is then sent on your own behalf as a personal one. You search for the person by name or personal number, and accents do not matter. Several people at once and entry by assignment (depot, centre, category) are web only, as is the preview of how many people the message will reach.
- Adding an addressee to a running thread - web only. Those added receive an alert as with a new message, and a system entry recording who joined is written into the thread.
- Message administration - web only, opened with a button on the list toolbar. It is the dispatcher’s working screen: a table of all threads of the company with a filter by group, state and direction, with the Unread, To first response and Open columns and the Open, Close, Hand over to another group and Remove actions.
- Search - web only. The Search messages… field goes through the subject, author, addressees, group name and the text of replies. There is no search in EDISONKA.
- Hand-over to another group - web only. If a message went to the wrong group, a group member or the administrator hands it over elsewhere; the hand-over is written into the thread and the original group loses access to it. A personal message can be handed over too, and from that moment the members of the new group resolve it.
- Managing recipient groups (name, colour, members, targeting) is web only and for the administrator only. A group member can be an employee or a portal user (typically a dispatcher). A group has two independent sides: members see all threads of the group, reply, close them and receive an alert about every new message and reply (except their own); targeting only decides whom the group is offered to in the “To” selection - it affects neither the alerts nor who sees the thread.
- Attachments - on the web you can attach any file including a document, at most 5 attachments and 50 MB per file. In EDISONKA you attach a photo, a video and a voice message; documents are only displayed in replies.
- Playing attachments - on the web a photo is shown straight away and audio and video play after a tap; in EDISONKA only a voice message plays straight away.
- The filter choice - on the web it is remembered by the open browser tab; in EDISONKA the list deliberately always returns to Active.
- When you have nobody to write to - on the web the new message button is disabled; in EDISONKA it stays enabled and sending ends with a message that no recipient group is available.
- The alignment of the conversation on the web is set by the carrier: either your replies are on the right and the others on the left as in an ordinary chat (the default, the same as in EDISONKA), or the author of the message is always on the right and the resolving team on the left, so that the thread looks the same to all resolvers. In EDISONKA you always see your replies on the right.
- On the web an open thread refreshes itself (roughly every half minute) and the Refresh button loads new replies in the open thread too, not only in the list.
Carrier settings
Whether you can reopen a closed message depends on your carrier’s settings.
- The addressee may reopen a closed message - when enabled, you reopen a closed message with a new reply. Otherwise the thread is closed: instead of the writing field an explanation is shown and you start a new message for further communication.
- Conversation display on the web - “As a chat” shows your replies on the right and the others on the left (the default). “By the message author” always puts the author on the right and the resolvers on the left, so that the thread looks the same to everyone resolving it. The setting does not apply to the phone.
- Groups you can write to - the administrator may limit a group to a depot, centre or category. In the “To” selection you then see only the groups that concern you; if none are left for you, the message cannot be sent and the application tells you whom to contact. The limit affects neither threads already running nor handing a message over to another group. Targeting has no effect on who receives alerts - those go to the members of the group.