Chat Rooms vs messages

By now, you know all the best practices for using Chat and you can handle difficult situations like a pro. You have truly earned your black belt. Perhaps the last thing to give you on your merry way is the nagging question: Why did Google create three ways of messaging inside Chat, are they really different? It turns out they are, and they are meant for different purposes and have upsides and downsides.

Messaging has much improved in 2020.

Direct messages

also called DMs or 1:1 messages. They are the backbone and the default messaging type of Chat. No messaging type can transform into another - direct messaging threads cannot have another person added and become group messages.

Group messages

are technically direct messages as well, just with more people. You need to define the people you message when you set up the group message, you cannot add or remove people later. This looks annoying and a case of lazy programming, but sets group messages apart from chat rooms and makes them very secure: You can be sure that what goes on in a group, stays in a group.

At your company, group messages may not be stored and expire after 24 hours, just like all direct messages.

Chat rooms

Chat rooms are very different. They have threads and you can add and remove people to them the entire time - all the time. In fact, chat rooms are created empty (just with you in them), then you add people one by one. Chat rooms can have names and are more colorful, more fun (be sure to use ~~emojis~~ icons in their titles!).

Chat rooms are also inherently "public", because when you add somebody later, that person will have access to everything said since the beginning of time. When you remove somebody from the chat room, that person will lose access to everything that was said. Chat rooms belong to nobody, there is no "owner" or moderator - in that aspect, they are a bit like shared drives.

At your company, conversations in chat rooms may be stored in Vault and expire after a certain amount of time, which means you can search for them. That makes them appropriate for some conversations and not for others.

Ideas when to use what

The side conversation

Group messages are wonderful for ad-hoc conversations. Need to compare notes during a town hall? Your vendor is presenting and you need to be on the same page with your team before you ask something? Spin up a group message.

Project rooms

Every project needs to start with a Chat room. Every internal area needs a chat room.

Parker's baby shower

Everyone should be in here as well, everyone but Parker. And name the room "TPS reports", just to be safe.

Temporary rooms

You can create rooms that are meant to be there for a short period of time, like during a presentation. Then kick people out.

Personal conversations

You will have figured out that you can create "1:1 rooms". Just be clear that everything you say in rooms can be read and exported by auditors and this may not be appropriate. The other person may even add somebody to your room, accessing everything that was said. Use direct messaging for privacy.

The full details

This would not be a nerdy blog without a lot of nerdy details.

Direct messages & groups

Chat rooms

History retention

May be disabled

May be set separately from direct messages

Membership

Direct messages: 2 people

Group messages: 3-unlimited (see limits). Fixed membership.

1-8.000. Can add and remove people at any time.

Message format

Single thread

Threaded conversation

Bot & webhook support

Direct messages: Bot support only

Group messages: No support

Bot support, webhook support

Chat with guests

(people outside your domain)

Direct messages: Yes

Group messages: No

Yes

Configuration

None

Title, Chat with guests yes/no

New! Bridging direct messages and group messages

You can now create a group message from a 1:1 message, or start a new one from an existing group message. It will then suggest the existing participants and you can add/remove participants to start your brand-new group message. This will be a brand new, empty conversation, of course.

This will let you:

Correct mistakes when you set up a group ("oh no, I invited everybody but the 13th fairy godmother! Will I have to do it all over again?")
Do break-out groups on the cheap
Exclude people and resolve difficult situations
Include people, say into your 1:1 conversations.

Note that this is not available in Rooms. Now you know why - in rooms, you can just add people. Yes, it would be nice to "split rooms", but it does not do that for now.

Thank you for reading this rather technical post - it was necessary as a reference for other posts and to point people to. I hope it was not too dry and I was able to explain why Google built all the different messaging options. It also helps to remember that the G Suite world at your company may be different than the average Google customer's world. See you for the next post!

#chatPublished 2020-08-18 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2020-08-18 by Holger Matthies.

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