aiku
Documentation

Talking to colleagues in staff chat

5 min read · #crm · #dispatch · #hr · #chat · #messaging

Where it lives

Every screen in aiku has a thin messaging bar on the right. Click it to expand. It shows who is online now, your team, and your open messages, with a red count for anything unread. On a phone or tablet a conversation opens as a full-screen sheet with big buttons; on a desktop it opens as a small window at the bottom of the page, and Open full view takes you to a full-page version with the conversation list on the left.

The bar also carries the Customer chats entry at the bottom for people who are set up as chat agents. That is the website chat described in Talking to customers in Chat, a different thing.

Messaging a coworker

Open the bar, find the person under Everyone online or Find a coworker…, and click their name. A coworker is anyone who works in an organisation you also have access to. Type and press Enter. Everything you would expect from a messenger is there: paste a screenshot or attach an image, reply to one particular message, react with an emoji, send a GIF, and mention someone with @ so they get an accent badge on the message.

Two things are aiku-specific:

  • Quick replies. Above the composer sit chips such as Done, Help!, Call me, OK, Thanks. One tap sends the word. They exist because a packer with gloves on a tablet should not have to type. Your group can change the list.
  • Automatic translation. Every message is translated into the language each participant uses in aiku. You read it in yours, they read it in theirs, and either side can tap original to see what was really written. Nobody needs to write in English.

Your My team list is the handful of people you talk to most. Add them with Add to my team and they sit at the top of the bar with their online dot. Online means the person has the app open and has done something in the last quarter of an hour; amber means idle.

Asking CRM or the warehouse about an order

This is what most staff chat traffic is. Some screens have a button that opens a conversation about that exact document, with the right people already in it:

  • Delivery note page: Ask CRM.
  • Order page: Ask warehouse and Ask CRM.
  • Picking session page: Ask CRM.
  • When a carrier refuses to make a shipping label, the shipment box shows the carrier's own error and an Ask CRM about this button. Tapping it posts the shipper and the error into the delivery note's CRM conversation for you, no typing.

The conversation is named after its document, for example CRM · AFR26782, so everyone can see what it is about before opening it. Pressing the button again later returns to the same conversation rather than starting a new one.

Nobody but you sees a fresh conversation until the first message is sent, so opening one by accident bothers no one. If there is nobody on the other side (an empty recipient list with no one holding the role), aiku tells you so instead of sending the message into an empty room.

Who receives "Ask CRM" and "Ask warehouse"

The recipients are a list you curate, not everyone who has ever been a customer service clerk. Each shop has its own lists, because a shop's customers are looked after by that shop's team:

  1. Open the shop's Settings and find the Staff chat section.
  2. Ask CRM goes to is the primary list. Ask CRM backup is used when nobody on the primary list is active right now.
  3. Ask warehouse goes to and Ask warehouse backup work the same way for questions going the other direction.

The organisation's Settings also have a Staff chat section, but only for the warehouse lists: they are the default when a shop has none of its own. Ask CRM is always per shop.

The rules aiku follows when the button is pressed:

  • If someone on the primary list is active, only the active ones are added.
  • Otherwise, the active people on the backup list.
  • If nobody on either list is active, everyone on both lists is added, so the question waits for the first person back.
  • If the shop has no lists at all, the question goes to everyone holding the customer service roles for that shop (or the warehouse roles for that warehouse).

So if a warehouse question reaches someone who should not get it, the fix is in the shop's Settings, not in the chat. Take them off the list, or give the shop a list if it had none.

Closing and housekeeping

Closing a conversation with X archives it for you only; it comes back by itself when someone writes in it again. You can also Leave this conversation for now from a group conversation. Nothing is deleted.

Staff chats are work conversations, not private ones. HR and organisation admins can read them from Human Resources → Staff chat, which lists conversations with their messages. The sysadmin page shows counts and who chats with whom, never the text.

Making it yours

In My profile you can set a Chat nickname, which replaces your name in the bar, and pick a chat theme for the bar's colours. Group admins can edit the quick replies in the group's Settings → Staff chat, one per line.

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