Start a chat

The CrewCollaborate app allows staff and onsite workers to communicate with other team members at any location, through instant messaging chats. There are two types of chats:

Context-based collaboration - Group chats specific to individual items like scheduled tasks, submittals, requests for information (RFI),  change orders (CO), and punch lists, with the item title as the topic. Only the persons taking part in that item can be the participants in an item-specific conversation; hence sensitive information, data, and digital assets pertaining to that item are not compromised. For example, only the PM, foreman, and the assigned crew members can take part in a discussion created for a scheduled field task schedule. 

Users create context-specific group chats from the management screen of the respective item in the mobile apps (field workers) or the web console (office staff). All the context-specific group chats, in which you are a part, are shown with their topics in your CrewCollaborate app. You can view the conversation between other members and participate in the conversation at any time. The app also notifies you whenever there is a new message in any of your chats for you to view and/or respond to.    

General collaboration - Group/individual chats in any context with any of the members, like foremen, crew members, project managers, etc., involved in the project. This helps make general queries, make announcements, get clarifications, and more.

This page explains how to create a general chat to start a conversation with your team members. Once created, you can use the same group chat at any time to chat with the same participants.

• Create a group chat
• Add participants
• Add attachments to chat messages

Add a chat

• Tap 'Topics' at the bottom
• Choose the project from the drop-down at the top-left.

The screen shows the topics of all existing group chats in which you are a member, by default. The chats include the item-specific chats created for scheduled tasks, RFIs, Submittals, etc., and the general chats added for the project.

Click the  button at the top-right

• Enter the topic of the chat, to shortly describe the subject of the discussion
• Tap 'Create'

The chat with the topic adds to the list. The next step is to add the participants to the discussion.

Add participants to a chat

• Tap the topic to open the chat

• Tap the icon at the top right to view the details of the chat
• Expand the 'Members' pane to view the list of all staff from all contractor/architect companies collaborating on the project:  

• Tap 'Add' beside the members to include them in the conversation.

• Close the 'Members' pane

Chat away! Type your messages to share with the members and get their responses. You can add attachments like photos, and documents to your messages. If required, you can add more participants to the chat as explained above.

Add attachments to chat messages

You can share photos, location, document files, documents scanned using your device camera, etc, through the chat. You can also schedule events like field meetings and pass them to your team members. 

To share an item

Touch the paperclip icon beside the message box

• Choose the source and item type to share:
  • Camera - Capture a new photo using your device's camera.
  • Photo Library - Browse the picture you want to use from your device gallery.
  • Location - Share your current location on a map
  • Document - Upload a document file from your device's local storage
  • Scan using camera - Capture the image of a document using your device camera, edit it for size, orientation, skew correction, etc.,  and upload it to share
  • Share Event - Schedule an event and share it with your team members