Send a chat message

You can enter a message and send it to others on the call, and reply to messages that others send you. All messages are deleted when the call is disconnected.

Individual appointment, Consult Now, or meeting room calls

Group consultation calls

Individual appointment, Consult Now, or meeting room calls

NHS Hospital Trust virtual consultation screen with a video area on the left and a chat panel on the right. The chat panel displays messages with timestamps, showing a conversation between Dr. Julie McDonald and a patient. Dr. McDonald’s messages appear in gray bubbles, while the patient’s responses are in blue. UI elements at the bottom include buttons for mic, camera, raise hand, chat, and leave call.

  1. From the call screen, select Chat Chat button.. The chat window opens.

  2. In the Send message field, enter the text you want to send.

  3. Press Enter or select Send Chat button..

Your messages will be visible to all participants on the call.

Group consultation calls

Chat button from the toolbarNot all group consultations have chat available. If the service provider has enabled chat for your group consultation, you see the Chat button in the call screen.

There are two types of chats available within group consultations:

  • Message everyone: Where all participants in the call (or room) can post chat messages that everyone else on the call can see. This could be used if the service provider wants to provide a website link to participants in the call.

  • Private message: Where a service provider starts a chat with a service user. Concurrent private messages can be sent. Private messages are not visible to other participants in the call, and service users cannot privately message each other.

Note: By default, service users' initials only are displayed on their video tiles and chat messages in the group consultation call screen. If they need to see each other's first and last names, ask your administrator to enable this. For more information, see Default Group Consultation Settings.

Send to everyone

To send a message to everyone who is in the same room, follow these steps:

  1. From the call screen, select Chat Chat button.. The chat window opens.

  2. Set Send to to Everyone.

  3. In the Send message field, enter the text you want to send.

  4. Press Enter or select Send Chat button..

Your messages will be visible to all participants who are in the same room.

Send a private message

Private messages can only be seen by you and the person you're chatting to. You can spot private messages in the following ways:

  • Above the message, the To label shows which person the message was sent to.

  • The message is purple.

Virtual consultation screen for 'Organisation name' with a video area on the left and a chat panel on the right. The chat panel contains messages with timestamps from Dr. Sam McDonald, John Edwards, and a participant. Messages are color-coded: system messages in blue, public messages in gray, and a private message in purple. A dropdown menu at the bottom allows sending a private message to Dr. Sam McDonald.

Important: If you send private messages, at the start of the group consultation explain to everyone how to send a private message. Remind everyone that not all messages are private.

To send a private message, service providers can follow these steps:

  1. From the call screen, select Chat Chat button.. The chat window opens.

  2. Set Send to to the participant you want to message.

  3. In the Send message field, enter the text you want to send.
    We recommend explaining how to reply-privately, in your message. For example, “To reply privately, select my name from the Send-to menu. Check that Send-to is NOT set to Everyone.”

  4. Confirm that Send to is not set to Everyone.

  5. Press Enter or select Send Chat button..

If participants are in breakout rooms, you need to be in the same room to message a participant.

Breakout rooms

A service provider may move some participants to a breakout room. You can not message participants who are in a different breakout room.

Chat messages from the main call are deleted when you move to a breakout room. A breakout room also deletes messages when you return to the main call.

For more information, see Breakout rooms.

See also:

Call screen activities