Channels and announcements

Know what you can do

Chatting happens in Messages in the crew view, the same place crew use. Messaging in Stage Management holds your Channels and Scheduled announcements cards, and Open Messages takes you to the chat.

What you can do depends on the Messaging access your organization’s owners give you. With the built-in Stage Manager access:

• On the shows you’re on, you can build channels, post announcements, see who has signed, nudge, and moderate.
• For the whole organization, you can see sign-offs but not post. Announcing in Everyone, posting in an organization channel set to Only managers, and building channels for the whole organization need the owner to grant Messaging for the whole organization.

Owners can do all of this in every channel. See your own access under Your access in Stage Management.

Build a channel

Everyone and one channel per active show are made automatically. You can build your own from departments, positions, department heads, and people.

1. Go to Messaging and choose New channel. In Messages, it’s New channel, or Create a channel instead in New message.
2. Give it a Name of up to 40 characters. Each live channel needs its own name.
3. Under For, pick Whole organization or one of your shows.
4. Choose Add people or groups, then pick from Departments, Positions, Heads, and People. Choose Done choosing when you’re finished.
5. Check how many people match, and choose See who for the list.
6. Choose who can post, then Create channel. It opens right away.

• Channels stay in sync. People join and leave automatically when they’re placed in or removed from those departments and positions on Shows & crews.
• A show channel’s departments and positions count people on that show only. For the whole organization, they count people on any active show.
• Someone matched more than once is in the channel once. Owners are always members.

To change a channel later, open its details (••• at the top of the channel) and choose Edit channel. Archive channel makes it read-only for everyone. Its history stays, and owners can still export it.

Choose who can post

In a channel’s details, Who can post is Everyone or Only managers. Crew can still react in a managers-only channel. Everyone starts as Only managers, and show channels start as Everyone.

A show channel becomes read-only when its show closes or is archived. Nobody can post or react there, and its history stays.

Choose chat or posts

Every channel is a chat channel or a post channel. A Chat channel is one running conversation, like a group text. In a Posts channel each post gets its own replies, so conversations stay together. Channels start as Chat unless someone chooses otherwise.

• Pick the type under Channel type when you choose New channel.
• To switch a channel later, open its details (••• at the top of the channel) and choose Chat or Posts under Channel type, then Switch to posts or Switch to chat. You can switch back any time.
• Switching never deletes or rewrites anything. After a switch to posts, the chat from before shows together as Earlier messages, read-only. After a switch back to chat, earlier posts stay, and their replies show as replies to the post.
• In a post channel set to Only managers, only managers start posts, and crew can still reply to every post.
• Show channels follow your organization’s setting for show channels until you set one by hand. Use the organization setting puts it back.

You can change the type of the channels you manage. Only owners change the Everyone channel’s type and the setting for show channels. In a post channel, an announcement is a post: choose Make this an announcement when you start one, and people can reply to it.

Post an announcement

1. Open the channel’s details and choose Post an announcement, or use the Post an announcement link above the message box. You can also choose New announcement on the Scheduled announcements card.
2. Check Post in. It shows how many people the announcement reaches.
3. Add a Title (up to 120 characters) and the Message (up to 4,000). Use the buttons for bold, italics, lists, and links, and Preview to check it.
4. On the Program plan and up, choose Attach photos or files to add up to 4.
5. Tick Ask everyone to sign if people need to confirm they’ve read it. Then choose when to Remind people who haven’t signed: Off, or after 12 hours, 1 day, 2 days, or 3 days. It starts at After 1 day.
6. Tick Pin to the top to keep it at the top of the channel. Each channel can have 3 pinned announcements.
7. Choose Post now, or Schedule with a date and time in your organization’s time zone.
8. Add an end date under Ends (optional) if it should leave Home after a day. It stays in the channel.
9. Choose Post announcement or Schedule announcement.

Everyone in the channel sees it on Home and in the channel, and gets an email unless they turned announcement email off. Email waits during quiet hours unless you tick Urgent: email right away, even during quiet hours.

Edit, pin, cancel and remove

• Edit an announcement any time. A plain edit is silent, and the announcement shows Edited.
• Tick Notify everyone again to send a fresh notification and email.
• Tick Ask everyone to sign again to clear the signatures, so everyone signs the new version.
• Pin to top and Unpin from the announcement’s menu. A 4th pin in one channel is refused until you unpin one.
• Scheduled announcements wait on the Scheduled announcements card, where you can edit them or choose Cancel announcement. Crew see nothing until the time comes.
• Remove announcement hides it from crew. You and owners can still find it, with its signatures, under Removed in Announcements.
• After its end date, an announcement leaves Home, loses its pin, and shows Ended in the channel.

Follow sign-offs

On an announcement that asks people to sign, choose the count, like 8 of 12 signed, to open Sign-offs. View access is enough to see it.

• Not signed and Signed list people in crew order: department, then the head, then position, then name. Signed rows show when.
• Nudge sends one reminder, in the bell and by email, to everyone who hasn’t signed. You can nudge once every 12 hours, and it needs manage access.
• The automatic reminder, if you chose one, goes once at the time shown under the list.
• People who join the channel later show as not signed. People who leave drop off the not signed list, and signatures they gave stay, marked Left the channel.

Crew only see whether they signed themselves. They never see the counts or who else has signed.

Keep channels on track

In channels you manage, tap ••• on a message, or press and hold it, for moderator actions:

• Remove message removes it for everyone in the channel. The sender isn’t told who removed it.
• Mute with their name stops someone posting for 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week. They can still read and react. Choose Unmute next to their name in the channel’s members to end it early.

You can only moderate channels for shows you manage, or organization channels when the owner granted that. You can’t mute an owner. Reports from crew go to the owners.