Collaboration - An Overview

Real-time text chat-based communication is the easiest way to inform, share, clarify, resolve, guide, instruct, command, and more among persons in different locations. Linarc features an easy-to-use collaboration tool that enables workers in the office and site to communicate in any context to share information instantly and get work done on time.

Context-based collaboration - The project management console allows project managers to initiate and use conversations specific to individual items like scheduled tasks, submittals, requests for information (RFI),  change orders (CO), and punch list items. Each item-specific group chat includes the selected project managers and the field staff of the companies taking part in that item; hence sensitive information, data, and digital assets pertaining to that item are not compromised. For example, in a conversation created for a task in an integrated schedule, only the PMs of the general contractor and the subcontractor company to whom that task is assigned can take part. But you can add more participants from other companies too if required. 

General collaboration - The project managers can initiate group/individual chats in any context with any of the members, like the project managers and project directors and field superintendents/foremen of all other companies involved in the project. This helps make general queries, make announcements, get clarifications, and more.

• Click the  icon at the top right to open the collaboration screen at any time

You can create group chats and select members from any company to converse. The group conversation also allows you and other members to add more people at any time to the conversation as required. The menu notifies the total number of new messages in your conversations. 

The icon also notifies you whenever there is a new message in any of the conversations in which you are a member. The total count of new messages in all chats appears beside the icon as the notification.

The 'Collaboration' interface

• Click the icon at the top right of the project management console.

The screen shows the topics of the group chats in which you are a member on the left. The list shows all chats, including context-specific conversations for scheduled tasks, submittals, RFIs, COs, etc., and general conversations.

The number at the right of the topic indicates the count of new, unread messages in that chat.

• Use the drop-down at the top right to filter the conversations that belong to a specific category:

• Select a conversation to view its content on the right pane

The right pane shows the messages and image attachments from the participants in chronological order. 

• Click on an image to enlarge and preview it.

The options on the top allow you to perform various actions in the conversation:

• View the participants
  • Add new members
• View and download the attachments

View members

The 'participants' icon shows the number of members in the chat group.

• Click the icon to view the list of members in the conversation:

• Click at the top to return to the chat window

Add new members

• Click the icon to add new participants to the conversation.

The 'Select People' pop-up shows the list of persons eligible for adding to that conversation. For example, if the conversation is for a specific change order, the team members of only those companies participating in it and not yet added are shown.

• Select the people and click 'Add Members' 

The persons are included as participants in the conversation.

View and download the attachments

The icon shows the number of images uploaded to the chat by different members.

• Click the icon to view the attachments:

The right pane shows the thumbnails of all attachments. Each thumbnail contains the file name, the person who uploaded it, and the attachment date. 

• Hover your mouse over a thumbnail to view the options

• Click to expand the image.
• Click to download the image to your device.
• Click to copy the URL of the image if you want to share the image with someone through any out-of-band communication.

See the following sections for more details:

• Start a general conversation
• Respond to a conversation