Chat Spaces

Add a chat to your Community or a Circle

Create a chat space for everyone in your Community, or only for the members of one Circle.

When to use this

  • Your Community has posts and questions, and you want a live chat alongside them.
  • A Circle (a smaller room inside your Community) needs its own conversation.
  • You want Community membership, not a separate join or price, to decide who can see the chat.

How it differs from a standalone chat space

A Community chat is a normal chat space that's been placed in your Community. Messages, pins and members work the same way. What changes:

  • Who can see it comes from Community scope: Whole community means everyone in your Community; a Circle means only that Circle's members.
  • There's no Visibility option.
  • Members can't leave it themselves.
  • Message notifications follow your Community's notification settings instead of the chat's own digest.
  • If your Community is paused (read-only), members can read the chat but not post.

Steps

For your whole Community

Open Community chat spaces

Go to Community → Chat Spaces: "Manage the conversations available to your whole community or a Circle."

Create it

Click Create Chat Space. Add a Title, Description and, if you like, a Cover Image.

Set the scope

Under Community scope, keep Whole community. Keep Pricing on Free. Access already comes from your Community.

Save and welcome

Click Create Chat Space. Open it, post a welcome and Pin it.

For one Circle

Open the Circle

Go to Community → Circles and open the Circle.

Add a chat

In the Chat Spaces section, click New Chat Space. The Circle is already chosen under Community scope.

Create it

Add a Title and Description, then click Create Chat Space.

You can also create it from Community → Chat Spaces and pick the Circle under Community scope.

Managing a Community chat

In Community → Chat Spaces, each card shows Active or Archived, the scope (Whole community or the Circle's name) and the price. The card menu offers Edit, Share and Remove from Community. Inside the room, the Manage chat space menu offers Edit, Preview, Share, Archive / Unarchive and Delete permanently….

You can widen the scope, not narrow it. In Edit Community Chat Space, a Circle chat can only be opened up to Whole community. A whole-community chat can't be limited to one Circle: "This chat space is open to the whole community and can't be limited to a single circle." This protects members who already joined. To make a smaller room, create a new Circle chat.

Remove from Community also archives the chat. The dialog says: "This removes the Community linkage and archives the underlying chat space." Use it when you're closing the room, not when you only want to tidy the list.

  • Delete permanently… removes the room, its messages and its members for good. "This action cannot be undone." It only works once no members are left in the room. Archiving is usually the better choice.

What your members see

Community members find the chat in your Community. A Circle chat is only visible to that Circle's members. When your Community is paused they see "This community is read-only right now. You can read the conversation, but sending messages is paused."