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Team Chat Overview

Team Chat is SendSeven's built-in internal messaging tool -- channels, threads, direct messages, @-mentions and file sharing for your own team, living side by side with the customer conversations in the same app. It is not a separate product: your team uses it from the same workspace where they handle WhatsApp, email, and live chat.

This section covers the parts of Team Chat that matter to developers: how to bring people into it, how to post into it programmatically as a bot, and how to react to what gets posted via webhooks.

Channels, threads, and direct messages​

ConceptWhat it means
ChannelA named room. channel_type is public (anyone in the workspace can join), private (invite-only), or external (shared with a guest from another SendSeven workspace -- see Inviting Users).
ScopeA channel's scope is tenant (this workspace only) or billing (shared across every workspace on the same billing account).
System channelsCreated automatically and not user-deletable -- #general, #random, #shoutbox, and a Knowledge Base channel where the team can ask questions and get answers from your uploaded documents.
ThreadsReplies nested under a parent message, on any channel with threading enabled.
Direct messages (DMs)1:1 (or group) conversations between teammates, separate from channels.

Two places to configure Team Chat​

Team Chat has two distinct settings surfaces in the app, each behind its own gear icon:

  • Channel settings -- the gear on an individual channel's header. It configures that one channel:
    • A notifications mute toggle for the channel.
    • An "Allow Bots to send messages" toggle (see Team Chat Bots).
    • On #shoutbox only, an additional "Show Shoutbox widget" toggle.
  • Global Team Chat settings -- the gear above the channel list, at the top of the sidebar. It configures workspace-wide preferences, including its own "Show Shoutbox widget" toggle.

Because both a channel-level and a global "Show Shoutbox widget" toggle exist, treat the #shoutbox channel's own toggle as the one controlling that channel specifically, and the global settings toggle as the workspace-wide default.

Notifications are per channel​

Muting a channel is an all-or-nothing switch for that channel: it silences every notification transport for it -- in-app unread badges, browser push, and email/mobile push -- not just the in-app indicator. Muted channels show a mute icon in the channel list so it's obvious at a glance which ones are silenced.

Bots​

Each channel has its own "Allow Bots to send messages" setting, found in that channel's settings (see above). It is the gate that determines whether the Team Chat Bot API can post into that channel -- posting to a channel with it turned off returns 403 Forbidden.

Defaults differ by how the channel was created:

  • #general and #shoutbox are created with "Allow Bots to send messages" on, so integrations can post announcements into them out of the box.
  • The Knowledge Base channel always has it off and it cannot be turned on -- bots (and the public Bot API) can never post there.
  • Channels you create default to off unless you say otherwise. The create-channel API accepts an explicit allow_bots boolean so you (or the "create channel" dialog in the app) can decide at creation time; omit it and the channel is created with bots blocked.
// POST /api/v1/team-chat/channels
{
  "name": "release-bot",
  "channel_type": "public",
  "allow_bots": true   // optional; defaults to false when omitted
}

You can also flip the setting on any non-system channel later from its channel settings.

See Team Chat Bots for the full API: authentication, the two send endpoints, attachments, and response shapes.

What's next​