What you can do with Chat

Church life does not stop on a Sunday, and most churches have ended up with conversations scattered across half a dozen WhatsApp groups nobody quite controls. Chat brings those conversations back inside your own app, using the groups you have already set up in Hubb.

Chat is one part of Messaging, which is how your church communicates generally. The other parts are Mailing for email, text messages and mailing labels, and Broadcasts for news that lands on a phone. Safe Messaging sits across all of them, so anything reaching a child is approved by their parent first.

What people can do in the app

• Message one-to-one with anyone who shares a group with them where direct messaging is switched on. See How to send a message.
• Take part in a group conversation for any group with group chat switched on.
• Add emoji, and see when a message has been delivered and read. In a group, see exactly who has read it and who has not. See How to see who has read a message.
• Run a quick poll in a group chat, which is a simple way to settle a date or a preference without twenty separate replies. See How to use polls in a group chat.
• Mute a conversation for eight hours or permanently, so a busy group does not have to mean a busy phone. See How to mute a conversation.
• Get a push notification when a message arrives, and pick up a conversation on another device.

What your church controls

• Which groups have chat at all, and whether that is one-to-one, group, or both. See How to turn on chat for a group.
• Whether a group is a conversation or an announcement channel where only leaders post.
• The hours during which members can post to a group chat.
• Whether chat runs indefinitely or stops on a date you set.
• Who can message children, which is Safe Messaging and works across your whole site rather than group by group.

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Good to know

• Nobody needs a personal phone number, and there is no separate app to install. People use the same login they already use for events, rotas and giving.
• Conversations between adults are private to the people in them. See Who can see chat messages? for the full picture, including how messages to children are treated differently.
• Chat is text, emoji and polls. There is no image or file sharing.
• It is included at no extra cost on church management plans.
• Start small. One or two groups who will actually use it tells you more than switching it on everywhere at once. See Getting started with Chat, start to finish.