Chat with your team

It's the week before a round. The arrival time needs to reach every family, the drivers need the final instructions, and one dad wants to ask another about a spare sprocket. Team chat keeps all of that inside the team, without a separate group on someone's phone. This guide covers one-to-one chats, the groups everyone is in, groups a manager makes, sending photos and PDFs, and who can see what.

Before you start

• You are on a team: you have accepted your invitation and appear on the roster. See Join a team and book your sessions.
• On the web portal, chat is Team > Messages in the sidebar.
• In the app, chat is the Chats card on My Team. Tap Open chats. When messages are waiting, the card shows how many, such as "3 unread".
• A signal. Chats load from your account, so they need a connection.

Find your way around

On the web portal, Messages shows Chats on the left and the open conversation on the right. Use Search chats to find one. Click a chat to open it, or you see "Pick a chat to start messaging." On a phone-width browser you see one side at a time: open a chat to read it, and tap the back arrow to return to the list.

In the app, Chats lists your conversations. Tap one to open it.

Each chat in the list shows its last message and an unread count. In a conversation, messages are split by day (Today, Yesterday and earlier dates), and in a group each message carries the sender's name. In the app, older messages load as you scroll up. On the portal, scroll up and click Load earlier messages.

Start a one-to-one chat

Anyone on the team can message anyone else on the team.

On the web portal:

1. Open Team > Messages and click New chat.
2. Under "Who do you want to message?", pick the team member. You can search by name.
3. Type in Type a message and press Enter or click Send. Shift+Enter starts a new line.

In the app:

1. Open Chats from My Team and tap New chat. A manager sees New chat and New group: choose New chat.
2. On Message a team-mate, tap the person.
3. Type your message and tap Send.

If you already have a chat with that person, the same chat opens again.

The role groups

Every team has four groups built in:

• Everyone: the whole team.
• Drivers: everyone with the Driver role.
• Parents: everyone with the Parent role.
• Mechanics: everyone with the Mechanic role, and anyone ticked Can be allocated as a mechanic on the roster.

Managers are in all four. You don't join or leave these groups yourself: membership follows each person's role on the roster, so when the manager changes someone's role, their groups change with it.

Tip: Use Everyone for what the whole awning needs, such as the arrival time or the pitch number, and Drivers or Parents for what only they need, so nobody's phone fills up with messages that aren't for them.

Make and edit a group (managers)

Only managers can make groups. Other members can be added to them but can't create one.

On the web portal:

1. Open Team > Messages and click New group.
2. Enter the Group name and tick the Members.
3. Click Create group. If you leave the name empty, you see "Give the group a name."
4. To change it later, open the group and click Edit group. Change the name or the members and click Save.
5. To remove it, click Edit group, then Delete group. The portal asks "Delete this group and its messages for everyone? Click Delete group again to confirm." Click it again.

In the app:

1. Open Chats, tap New chat, then New group.
2. Enter the Group name and pick the Members. "You're always in groups you create."
3. Tap Create.
4. To change it later, open the group and tap the menu at the top right: Rename group, Edit members or Delete group. Deleting asks "Delete this group?" with "The group and its messages are removed for everyone in it." Tap Delete to confirm.

The four role groups can't be renamed, edited or deleted.

Good to know: Deleting a group removes it and its messages for everyone in it. It can't be undone.

Send photos and PDFs

You can send photos (JPEG, PNG or WebP) up to 15 MB and PDFs up to 4 MB. Photos are turned the right way up and resized before they are sent, and their location data is removed, so a photo taken in the paddock doesn't carry where it was taken.

On the web portal:

1. In the conversation, click the paperclip (Add photo or PDF) beside the message box.
2. Choose one or more files. They show as Adding… while they upload.
3. Add a message if you like, and click Send.

If a file is too big or the wrong type, you see "That file could not be added. Send a photo (JPEG, PNG, WebP up to 15 MB) or a PDF up to 4 MB."

In the app:

1. In the conversation, tap Attach and choose Camera, Photo library or PDF.
2. Add a caption in Add a caption if you like, and tap Send.

You can send up to 10 attachments in one message. If an upload fails, tap the file to try again. If the app can't open the camera or your photos, check its camera and photo permissions in the phone's settings.

Tap or click a photo or PDF in the chat to open it.

Notifications

When a new message arrives in one of your chats, the app sends a push notification to your phone. Tap it to open that conversation.

To turn chat pushes off or on:

1. On Home, tap the person icon (Profile & settings).
2. Under Notifications, use the Chat messages switch.

The other switches there cover team updates: Team updates and messages, Invitations, Money (invoices and payments), Workshop, Hires and Racing. Chat messages don't appear in the app's Messages inbox: that keeps your debrief reminders and team updates, and chat stays in Chats.

If notifications are off for AVB RaceLabs in the phone's settings, the section says so and offers Open settings.

Who can see what

• Only the people in a chat can see it. Nobody can find or read a chat they aren't in.
• One-to-one chats are private to the two of you. Managers can't read other people's one-to-one chats.
• Groups follow the roster. Someone who leaves the team, is removed, or whose role changes loses access straight away to any chat they no longer belong to.
• A deleted group is gone for everyone in it, messages included.