The shift chat is one shared channel per venue for the whole staff: the stop list, “banquet for 20”, “we're out of salmon — what do I tell the guest”. Open it in one tap from the bottom dock on a phone (the pill carries the unread dot), from the sidebar on a computer, or from the More page. Messages arrive instantly while the app is open.
It is an operational tool, not an archive. Besides the shared channel there are one-to-one private conversations — see below.
The venue's whole staff — everyone with a membership, whatever their role. There is deliberately no “chat” permission: the shift's one channel cannot be switched off by a role toggle by accident. If the venue does not want a chat at all, the owner switches it off whole: Settings → Staff screens → Shift chat — the section disappears for everyone; the history is kept until it is switched back on.
Shared devices (the kitchen or bar tablet) are in the chat too — often that tablet is the station's only screen. A message from a station is signed with its name (“Kitchen”, “Bar”) and marked with a device icon: it is honest about being written by someone at the pass, not by a specific person. Remember: anyone who walks up to the tablet can read the chat on it.
The conversations button in the chat header opens the list: the shift channel and your private conversations. A private conversation is visible to the two of you alone — even the venue owner has no access. Stations (shared tablets) stay out: anyone at the tablet would read it. A private message always arrives with a full push notification.
The "⋯" menu on a message: Reply quotes it so everyone sees what it is about; the quick reactions (👍 ✅ ❗ ❤️ 😂) are an "acknowledged" without the noise. Tapping a reaction again removes it.
A member with the Staff right can pin a message — it stays as a bar above the shift channel: the stop list of the day, "banquet for 20 tonight". One pin per venue; the cross on the bar unpins.
The microphone button in the composer: tap to record, tap to send. For a kitchen with wet hands this is the native format.
Under your own messages — "✓✓ N": how many colleagues have read this far (hover for the names). The answer to "has everyone seen the stop list?".
The @ button in the composer inserts a mention. The mentioned member gets a full push notification with the text — even with the app closed. That is how “take table 12” reaches a specific waiter instead of drowning in the stream.
A message can carry one photo: the dish on the pass, an invoice, a handwritten stop list. Photos are compressed automatically; tap to open full size.
The unread counter shows on the “Shift chat” sidebar item and on the More page; a station's dock shows a dot. Opening the chat clears it. Every member has their own counter at every venue.
The chat protects the shift's attention: only the mentioned get a full push with the text. Everyone else gets one quiet “New messages” at most every few minutes, and a burst of messages collapses into a single notification. The new-message sound is short and secondary — the order signal always stays louder.
You can delete your own message; a member with the Staff right can delete anyone's. A “Message deleted” marker stays in place — the content is gone for good, photo included.
90 days. Older messages and their photos are deleted automatically — the shift chat lives in the present; use other tools for documents.
You can write in the shift chat on the QR order and Tourist plans (and during the trial). On the Menu plan the chat disappears from the navigation and nobody can write in it, but the conversation is not deleted: it is kept for the usual 90 days and shows again after a move to QR order or Tourist.