Forwarding Chat messages

And what it tells us about services playing together

Google just released one of the smallest buttons I have yet seen. It enables you to forward chat messages to your own inbox. Sounds straightforward, but enables you to do all sorts of magic.

I am obviously not great at counting.But those messages (the one you click "7" plus the four before) get forwarded.

This is what you will see in Gmail.

How to forward

It could not be easier: You hover over any message and click "Forward to inbox". That message gets sent to your inbox. In keeping with conversation history best practice, a little context gets sent as well - namely, up to 4 previously sent messages (bringing the total up to five). As you see, this is not a backup tool - it would take a LOT of clicking to get a complete thread delivered to your inbox. Much, much more than just taking screenshots.

Now, I know you like nerdy details, so here they are:

Attachments (which are links) are included
Images are attached
Meet links are excluded
YouTube links are included (guess the engineers like YouTube a lot)

Immediate benefits in Gmail

Forwarding chat messages seems pretty silly, but it taps into Gmail's power. Maybe you will become a fan of that little button as well.

Store messages

If your company has disabled or shortened Chat's message history, it suffers from artificial amnesia. Yet sometimes there are single messages that you would like to store permanently. Maybe it has directions to a hotel, or how to accomplish something complicated.

Or maybe you would simply like this message to be a reminder to do something, before the 24 hour memory loss sets in and the message is lost forever. This way, you can.

Print messages

Remember when we went to the offices and had machines that made black marks on dead trees?

You can't really print chat messages, but you can print emails in Gmail. So if for any reason you need to print chat messages - you can now forward them to yourself and print them.

Snooze messages

Sometimes a message is a reminder to do something. Or the message comes at an inconvenient time, but tomorrow in the afternoon you will get to it (promise).

I will not pontificate here about not using your inbox as a todo list... Because if you want to, this feature makes it really easy. If you have chat messages that you would like to be reminded off, forward them to you and snooze them.

Using Gmail to unlock workflows

Having the snippet in Gmail allows you to do much more with it. Not all may be useful to you - but you are a one of the many Keep addicts, then the little "forward" button has just put Chat on steroids for you.

Calendar integration

You can easily create a Calendar event based on the Chat message, by clicking the email thread's three-dot menu and selecting "Create event".

Store a reference to the email in Keep

Besides storing select chat messages in Gmail, you can create Keep notes that refer to emails to easily go back to them. With the email open, just open the side bar, bring up Keep and create a new note. There will be a link to the email attached.

Store a reference to the email in Tasks

This works just like Keep, only you start from the message thread's three dot menu ("Add to Tasks"). It would be nice if they would make it work exactly like Keep.

Thinking beyond features: Service orchestration vs. letting the ball drop

All of this works because you keep a tightly knit web of services, which together are much more than the sum of their parts. When our teams give trainings, we are often challenged by comparisons with the legacy tools we are replacing or with expert tools that still exist (and will continue to exist) in corners of the firm.

In my book, instant messaging, email, calendaring and task management are not considered expert tools. They enable personal and team productivity and that productivity breaks down when I start using other tools (WhatsApp, or Teams, or Zoom), whether I am officially allowed to or not. Those may be the right tools for different companies that took different decisions a long time ago, in completely different ecosystems or for firms that rely on less integrated ways of communication than the company you want to be.

In any company, rogue tools just stand out, in a bad way. In a team play, when things move fast, it's letting the ball drop.

Summing up, one little button that ties Chat into Gmail can go a very long way! It can enable instant productivity features, it can enable workflows and it can bring our services more closely together. That is the kind of exponential innovation we like. Thank you for reading!

#gmail #chatPublished 2020-04-09 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2020-04-09 by Holger Matthies.

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