Chat FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Chat.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Chat Overview.
Setup
Do I need to turn on anything else before Ask AI answers from conversation history?
Yes. Answer from conversation history requires Semantic search to also be on. It retrieves conversation history through embeddings, so if semantic search is off the assistant has nothing to search against and its replies will not reference the conversation’s history. Both settings default to on, but if either was turned off you need both enabled. When you first turn semantic search on (or back on), a background job backfills embeddings for all existing messages — the Settings page shows progress so you can tell when history is fully searchable.
Who can change Chat settings?
Company admins (admin role or above) and Chat admins — except Keep messages for and Information barriers, which company admins alone can change. The Analytics dashboard can also be opened by the people an admin names in Settings, and Recently deleted also shows each person the conversations they deleted themselves.
What does “Conversation with yourself” do, and what happens when it is off?
Each person has one conversation that only they are in, titled with their name and “(you)”, for drafts, links, files and reminders — Messaging yourself in Chat is the article to send employees. It is on by default, switched by Conversation with yourself under Settings → Messaging, separately from One-to-one messages. When it is off, nobody can start one, and each existing one stays readable but takes no new messages; turning it back on lets people send in theirs again. People use it in the OneMango Desktop app — the web and phone apps don’t list it yet.
Permissions and access
Who can delete a conversation for everyone?
Only the person who created the group or channel, or a Chat admin. Direct messages cannot be deleted for everyone. “Delete for everyone” is a soft delete — the conversation enters a 30-day restore window at Chat → Recently deleted, where the person who deleted it or a Chat admin can restore it. After 30 days it is permanently purged, unless a legal hold keeps it.
What are the per-conversation permission settings?
Groups and channels list them under Conversation settings (the gear button beside the conversation’s name, shown to its admins):
- Who can add new members?
- Who can see the group (or channel) member list?
- Who can send messages in this group (or channel)?
- Who can send important messages and request read receipts? — only where Important messages or read receipt requests are on and allowed in that conversation
- Who can reply in threads? — channels only
Each is answered with Any member, Conversation admins and company admins, or Company admins only, and all default to fully open (any member). Conversation admins are the conversation’s own admins; company admins are your organization’s admins, and anything open to conversation admins is open to them too.
Day-to-day
How long can someone edit a message after sending it?
15 minutes. After that the edit option disappears. Only the sender can edit their own messages, and only text — media-only messages are not editable. Company admins and Chat admins can turn editing off entirely with the Edit messages toggle in Settings.
Who can delete individual messages?
A user can delete their own messages at any time (no time limit). A conversation admin can delete anyone’s messages in that conversation. Both capabilities are governed by the Delete messages toggle in Settings — when it is off, nobody can delete chat messages, conversation admins included.
What happens when a sender marks a message as Important or requests a Read Receipt?
Important messages require each recipient to acknowledge them explicitly. Read Receipt requests keep the message body hidden until each recipient confirms they have read it. Both are per-message choices available in the composer for direct messages, groups and private channels of up to 50 people — not in public channels or in channels of more than 50 people. Each feature has its own business-level toggle (Important messages and Read receipt requests) in Settings. In a group or a channel, the sender sees “Read by X/Y” and who has and hasn’t read it; when the sender was a manager or a conversation admin at the time they sent it, they can also send a reminder to the people who haven’t, and other messages have no Remind button — making someone an admin later does not add one to what they already sent. In a 1:1 chat the sender sees when it was read. If the sender set a backup who is not in the conversation, the backup’s notice names who hasn’t confirmed and offers a “Message” button to start a chat with them, without the message’s words.
How do updates from other apps get into a channel?
A channel’s admins choose them under App updates in this channel — Open shifts, Coverage gaps, Team recognition and Celebrations — in the channel’s Conversation settings (the gear button beside its name) on the web, or on the channel’s Members page on the phone. Each kind of update is offered only when its app is in use, and each one posts into the channel as a card.
What does an approval card in Chat say once someone decides it elsewhere?
It says who decided it and, when known, where — for example “Approved by you, from Notifications” or “Declined by Dana, on the approvals page” — instead of only “Already handled”.
Who sees “Seen by” on a message?
The sender. In a 1:1 chat they see “Seen by” and the other person’s name; in a group, under their latest message someone has read, the names of who has read it — up to three, then how many more (“Seen by Ana, Bob, Cy +2”). In a conversation of more than 50 people they see “Read by N%” instead, which opens the list of who has read it. A channel of up to 50 people shows neither. An admin can turn this off with Show who has seen a message in Settings; senders then see only “Sent” or “Delivered”. Important messages and read receipt requests keep their own “Read by X/Y” either way.
Can we export Chat history for a legal matter or an investigation?
Yes — a company admin can, from Admin → Compliance → Chat Export. Choose up to 50 people and a range of days (at most 3 years), and optionally only some of their conversations. The ZIP holds every conversation those people were in during those days, with every message in them, deleted messages and earlier versions of edited ones included. Only the admin who started it can download it, for 7 days; then the file is deleted, and the record of the export stays. Where your company has Messages, keep Include Messages (direct and group messages) ticked and the same file also holds the Messages conversations those people were in during those days, everyone’s messages in them included; the conversations you choose narrow Chat only.
To keep a conversation past your retention settings without joining it, a company admin uses Hold a conversation on Admin → Compliance → Retention & Legal Holds (found by its name or its people; nobody in it is told), and lifting a conversation’s hold asks for a reason.
How do retention and exports treat someone’s conversation with themselves?
As a one-to-one conversation, which it is underneath: its messages are kept for the One-to-one messages period under Keep messages for, Chat Export includes it when you choose its owner, and it can be held like any other conversation. Nobody else is ever in it — it can’t take members — so its owner is the only person whose export holds it.
What are the limits on file and video attachments?
Up to 10 files per message. Non-video files default to a 25 MB per-file cap (admins can set it anywhere from 1 to 500 MB). Video has a separate, larger cap that defaults to 500 MB (configurable from 1 to 2,000 MB). Executable file types (.exe, .bat, .sh, .msi, .dll, and others) are blocked, and browser-renderable formats (.html, .svg) are also refused. Allowed types cover documents (call transcripts and captions — .vtt and .srt — included), images, audio, video, archives, and fonts.
How does search work, and when should we enable semantic search?
Keyword search (full-text) is always on and covers most needs — you can filter by conversation, sender, and date range. Semantic search adds a meaning-based mode that finds messages even when the exact words differ. It is on by default. When you first enable it (or turn it back on after it was off), a background job backfills embeddings for your existing message history. After the backfill completes, new messages and edits keep their embeddings current automatically. If your organization does not need meaning-based search and wants to avoid the embedding cost, turn it off in Settings.
How do other tools post into a channel?
With an incoming webhook. A channel’s admins and your Chat admins open the channel’s … menu → Incoming webhooks… (on a phone, Incoming webhooks at the end of the channel), give the webhook a name and choose Add webhook. Its URL is shown once — copy it then; only a fingerprint of it is kept. Another tool POSTs Slack’s message JSON to it ({"text": "Deploy finished"}, with Slack’s bold and <url|label> formatting, attachments and blocks), or you subscribe the URL to an AWS SNS topic as an HTTPS endpoint — it confirms itself, and CloudWatch alarms arrive as a short summary. Each post comes from the OneMango account, headed with the webhook’s name, and the channel’s own notification level decides who is told; a webhook never @mentions anyone. Everyone in the channel is told when a webhook is added or revoked, but only its admins see the list, and nobody sees a URL again. Revoke stops a URL at once. To stop every webhook in your company at once, turn off Incoming webhooks under Channels in Settings; the webhooks are kept and post again when it is turned back on. A webhook takes up to 60 posts a minute; a post longer than 10,000 characters is cut to fit, and a request over 512 KB is refused. A channel holds up to 20.
Can I customize the Ask AI assistant’s name and avatar?
Yes. A company admin sets the assistant’s name, icon, description and greeting in Ask AI › Guidelines › Assistant; they apply wherever the assistant answers — chat conversations, the Ask AI panel and the phone. Chat → Settings keeps the one Chat-only part, the history tip (under Ask AI), a line added to the assistant’s first answer from a conversation’s history.
How do Ask AI trigger phrases work?
When enabled (on by default), a message that starts with a trigger phrase invokes Ask AI without an @mention. The default phrase is /ai (case-insensitive); workspaces set up before September 2026 keep hey ai and /ai until an admin changes the list. Phrases are matched at word boundaries, so “Hey Aisha” does not accidentally trigger the assistant. You can customize the phrase list in Settings under Trigger phrases.
When something looks wrong
“I can’t see the Chat app in my navigation”
Chat is a licensed app that is off by default. An admin must enable it from Admin → Apps → All Apps → Chat → Enable. If the app is enabled but only some users can see it, check whether a contextual access policy has been configured — the access gate is enforced on every request, so a user outside the policy’s audience will not see the app.
“My employees say they can’t start a DM with someone”
Check two things: (1) the One-to-one messages toggle in Settings must be on, and (2) if a contextual access policy is configured, both the sender and the recipient must be within the policy’s audience. A DM with yourself isn’t one: in the desktop app it opens that person’s own conversation (below), and the web refuses it with an error.
“An employee can’t find their conversation with themselves”
It is in the OneMango Desktop app only — the web and phone apps don’t list it yet. There it is pinned at the top of their conversations once they have used it (unless they unpinned it), and before that it is the first row under Direct messages; their own row in People opens it too. If none of those shows it, check that Conversation with yourself is on in Settings.
“Someone deleted a group chat — can I get it back?”
Yes, if it was deleted within the last 30 days. Go to Chat → Recently deleted — the person who deleted it sees it there, and a Chat admin sees every deleted conversation. You can search by conversation name or participant name, filter by type (direct, group, channel), and restore individual conversations or select multiple conversations to restore in bulk. After 30 days the conversation and its messages are permanently purged and cannot be recovered, unless a legal hold keeps them.
“Start huddle isn’t showing up in chat conversations”
Start huddle (Live Assist) is an item in each conversation’s … menu at the top right of the conversation, not a button in the conversation header. On a phone it is a full-width Start huddle button at the end of the conversation, below the last message. Either one appears when: (1) Live Assist huddles is on in Chat → Settings (off by default); (2) the Live Assist app is enabled and published to the person — while it is published to admins only, nobody else sees it; (3) Live Assist’s Who can start a Live Assist session? setting admits them; and (4) they are a member of the conversation who can send messages in it. When one is missing, the Huddles row of Chat → Settings says so, and selecting it names which.
Licensing and limits
Does Chat require a licence?
Yes. Chat is a licensed app — it requires a licence and is disabled until an admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps. It comes with the Communications & Intranet suite.
What are the configurable ranges for attachment sizes?
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Max attachment size (non-video) | 25 MB per file | 1–500 MB |
| Max video attachment size | 500 MB per file | 1–2,000 MB |
| Max files per message | 10 | Not configurable |
Are there limits I should know about?
- Max files per message: 10
- Message edit window: 15 minutes after sending
- Reaction emoji set: 10 platform-default emojis
- Deleted conversation restore window: 30 days before permanent purge
- People in a group: up to 20 — adding more, or giving the group a name, turns it into a private channel
- Channel name length: 80 characters maximum (lowercase words joined by dashes)
- Pinned messages: up to 25 per conversation
- Scheduled messages: up to a year ahead, and at most 100 scheduled or not-yet-sent per person in one conversation
- Message reminders (Remind me): up to a year ahead
- Channel topic length: 500 characters maximum
- Working hours (dashboard stat): configurable, defaults to 9:00–18:00; start accepts 0–23, end accepts 1–24
- Ask AI monthly token budget: 0 means unlimited; configurable up to 2,000,000,000
More help
- Chat Overview
- Messaging yourself in Chat — for employees
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Chat questions from these articles.