Messages is team messaging built into Include GO. It is where the day-to-day back-and-forth happens — a quick question to one person, a standing channel for a department, or the running conversation attached to a specific task or project. Because it lives inside GO, a message about a job sits next to the job itself: you can open the task from the conversation, and open the conversation from the task grid.
Messages replaces the old SMS feature. If you used GO to text customers from a task, read What happened to SMS below — the short version is that the text-message buttons are gone, your old SMS history is still readable, and email replies took over that job.
Navigation: click the speech-bubble icon in the top-right header bar, next to the notification bell. Messages has no entry in the left sidebar.
Where to find Messages
Messages is a floating window, not a page. Click the speech-bubble icon in the header and a resizable window opens on top of whatever you were doing, so you never lose your place. A red badge on the icon shows your total unread count across every conversation (it caps at 99+).
What you see in the Messages window
| Area | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sidebar (left) | Your conversations, grouped into Channels, Direct messages, and Archived. A search box at the top filters the list by title. Unread conversations show in bold with a count badge; read ones show the time of the last message instead. |
| Thread area (right) | The conversation you have selected — its history at the top, the composer at the bottom. Until you pick one it reads "Select a thread." |
| Thread header | The conversation's name, a badge for its type, and the member count. Click the member count to see the roster with online dots. |
| Divider | Drag the line between the sidebar and the thread to resize either side. |
You can open more than one Messages window at a time — each click of the header icon opens another, and they cascade so they do not land exactly on top of each other. That lets you keep a channel open beside a direct message. Windows can be dragged, resized, and closed independently.
The full-page view
There is also a full-page version of Messages at Dashboard → Messages (reached by URL or from a link in a notification email, since there is no sidebar entry). It shows the same sidebar full-height; clicking a conversation opens it in a floating window on top. Notification emails link straight to the relevant conversation here.
The three kinds of conversation
Every conversation in GO is one of five types. Three you create yourself; two are created for you by the work.
| Type | Icon | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | Avatar | A private 1:1 conversation between you and one other person. Nobody else can be added — the pair of people is the conversation's identity, so GO always reopens the same thread for the same two people rather than starting a new one. |
| Group | People | A private conversation between three or more people you pick. Not discoverable — only the people added can see it. It can be given an optional name. |
| Channel | # | A public, named conversation anyone in the business unit can find and join from Browse channels. Use these for standing topics — a department, a location, a season. |
| Task | Checklist | The conversation attached to one task. Created automatically the first time someone opens it from the task grid. Titled with the task's name. |
| Project | Folder | The conversation attached to one project, created the same way. |
Task and project conversations behave differently from the other three in two ways — they offer an internal note mode, and task conversations add an email reply tab. Both are covered below.
Starting a direct message or group
Click the + next to Direct messages in the sidebar. The New message dialog opens.
- Choose Private ("Only people you add") or Public ("Anyone can find and join"). Starting from the Direct messages + preselects Private.
- Type a name in Add people… and click a result to add them. Add as many as you need; each appears as a chip you can remove.
- Pick one person and the button reads Message {name} — you get a direct conversation. Pick two or more and it reads Start group, and a name field appears (optional for a group).
- Optionally use Link to task and Link to project to tie the new conversation to a specific job. Search and pick; the link shows the task or project name and can be cleared with the ×.
- Click the button to create and open it.
The people search covers every active user in your business unit, not just people you have messaged before.
Creating a channel
Click the + next to Channels in the sidebar. Same dialog, but it opens with Public preselected and the Channel name field is required — a channel has to be named to be findable. Everyone you add is a founding member; anyone else can join later from Browse channels.
Browsing and joining channels
Click the … button next to Channels to open Browse channels. It lists every active channel in the business unit, whether or not you are in it, with each channel's member count and description. Search filters the list by name.
- A channel you are not in shows a Join button. Click it and you join immediately and the channel opens — its full history is there waiting for you.
- A channel you are already in shows a green Joined badge; click the row to open it.
- If nothing matches, a Create a channel button offers to make one instead.
Channels are not private. Anyone with permission to view Messages can see that a channel exists, see its member list, join it, and read everything posted in it from the beginning. Put anything that should stay between specific people in a private group, not a channel.
Leaving and archiving
Two buttons sit at the top-right of the thread header, depending on the conversation:
- Leave channel (arrow icon) — appears on any channel. You leave; the conversation drops out of your sidebar. You can rejoin later from Browse channels.
- Archive thread (box icon) — appears only on a group or channel you created. Archiving moves it into the Archived section of the sidebar for everyone. The same button then reads Restore thread.
The Archived section is collapsed by default and only loads when you expand it. Your channels/direct/archived expand-collapse choices are remembered between visits.
Writing a message
The composer sits at the bottom of the thread. It is a rich-text editor — bold, italics, lists and the rest — not a plain text box.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enter | Sends the message. |
| Shift + Enter | Starts a new line without sending. |
Three small buttons stack to the left of the editor:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Paperclip — Attach files | Attaches files to the message, up to 10 at a time. Each shows as a pill with its name and size; images show a thumbnail. Click the × on a pill to drop it. A message can be attachments only, with no text. |
| Bell — Send silently | Toggles silent mode. A silent message still appears in the conversation and still counts toward the unread badge, but nobody is notified — no toast, no sound, no email. The button turns into a crossed-out bell while it is on. |
| Calendar — Schedule | Opens a Send at date-and-time picker. Pick a future time and the send button becomes a clock icon; the message is held and delivered then. Scheduled messages waiting to go out are listed above the composer, each with a Cancel link. |
Scheduled times are read in your business unit's timezone, so "9:00 AM" means 9am for the business no matter where the sender is. A time in the past is sent immediately rather than being silently scheduled backwards. Scheduled messages are delivered every minute, so a message lands within the minute you picked.
Mentioning someone
Type @ followed by a name and a picker appears above the composer showing matching people with their email addresses. Use the arrow keys and Enter (or Tab, or a click) to insert the name. Everyone you have mentioned shows as a chip above the composer, and each chip has an × to un-mention them.
A mention does three things:
- It notifies that person directly — they get a "{your name} mentioned you in {conversation}" notification instead of the ordinary new-message one.
- It adds them to the conversation if they were not already in it. In a channel or group, mentioning someone joins them so they can see the reply. This does not happen in a direct message — a 1:1 conversation stays between the two of you.
- It highlights their name in the message everyone reads.
If you type an @-name and then delete or edit it out before sending, that person is not notified — the text you actually send is what counts. In a direct message, mentions are ignored for notification purposes: the other person is already getting the message.
Reply threads
Hover any message and a small Reply in thread button appears at its top-right corner. Click it and the composer shows a Replying to {name} banner with a preview of what you are answering; the × on the banner cancels the reply and sends to the main conversation instead.
Replies do not clutter the main stream. Instead the message you replied to grows a "3 replies" link underneath it — click that to expand or collapse the reply panel. Replies load only when you open a panel, so a busy conversation stays fast, and long reply threads offer Load more replies.
Two separate controls, deliberately: the count reads (opens the panel), the hover button writes (starts a reply).
Internal notes
On a task or project conversation, a Message / Note toggle appears in the bar above the history. Switch to Note and the composer turns amber, with the reminder: "Internal team note. Nobody is notified."
A note is plain text — no rich formatting, no mentions, no attachments — and it notifies nobody, ever. It is a record on the record, not a message. On a task it lands on that task's Timeline; on a project it stays as an internal record. Notes show in the conversation with an amber Note badge. Press Ctrl + Enter (or Cmd + Enter) to save one quickly.
Replying by email from a task
A conversation attached to a task also offers an In-App / Email switch. Choose Email and the composer becomes an email form — To, Cc, an optional Subject, a rich-text body, and file attachments — for replying to the customer directly from the conversation.
- To and Cc are prefilled from the task where GO can work them out. Both take comma-separated addresses.
- If your business unit has canned responses set up for the task, a Canned response… picker appears at the top right. Choosing one replaces whatever is in the body — it is a starting point, not an insertion. Ctrl+Z undoes it.
- Sent emails appear in the conversation history like any other message, labelled with the sender's address.
Reading a conversation
Messages arrive live — you do not need to refresh. Consecutive messages from the same person within about two minutes group under a single name-and-time header. Each header shows the date and time (e.g. Aug 4 · 3:08 PM), and hovering a sender's name shows what time it is where they are, which is useful across time zones.
A filter bar sits above the history whenever there are messages:
- Search messages — filters the conversation to matching messages. Press Escape or click the × to clear.
- From — a sender dropdown, shown only when the conversation has more than two people. Pick a person to see only their messages.
- Clear — drops both filters at once.
Scroll to the top to load older messages. Opening a conversation marks it read, which clears its unread badge and updates the count on the header icon.
Attachments render inline: images as thumbnails you can click to open full size, other files as a pill with the name, size, and a download arrow.
Who is online
Messages shows presence — a small dot on people's avatars with two states, Online (green) and Away (grey). There is no "busy" or "do not disturb."
- On a direct message, the dot sits on the other person's avatar in the thread header.
- On a channel or group, click the member count in the header to open the Members list — every member with their dot, you first, then everyone alphabetically, with email addresses.
"Online" means signed in to GO with a tab open. GO checks in roughly every minute and treats someone as away after about two and a half minutes of silence, so the dot can lag by a couple of minutes. Multiple tabs are handled correctly — closing one of two tabs does not mark you away.
Presence matters for more than the dot: it decides whether GO emails you. See below.
Notifications and the email digest
GO deliberately does not email you for a message you are sitting there watching. What happens depends on whether you are online.
| Situation | What you get |
|---|---|
| You are online and the conversation is not open | A toast pop-up naming the sender and the conversation, plus a notification sound. Mentions skip the sound. |
| You are online and the conversation is open | Nothing extra — the message just appears. |
| You are mentioned and offline | An email straight away: subject "{name} mentioned you in {conversation}". |
| You are offline and not mentioned | An email digest, roughly two minutes later — see below. |
| Any of the above | An in-app notification in the bell menu, either way. |
How the email digest works
The digest is not a daily summary — it is a short grace period so a burst of messages becomes one email instead of ten.
When someone sends you a message while you are away, GO waits about two minutes and then checks again. If you came back and read it in the meantime, no email is sent. If you are still away, one email goes out covering everything you have not read in that conversation since then.
| Messages | Subject line | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| One | New message from {sender} in {conversation} | Who sent it and the message body, with a View Messages button. |
| Several | {count} new messages in {conversation} | One line per message as "{sender}: {message}", up to ten, then "…and N more." Same View Messages button. |
Previews are trimmed to about 200 characters; a message with only an attachment shows as (attachment). When every message in the digest is from the same person, the email is signed as them.
Some things never reach your inbox: internal notes, replies inside a reply thread, your own messages, and anything sent silently. These still count toward the unread badge — the digest is deliberately kept in step with what the badge counts.
Turning the emails off
Go to your Profile → Notifications tab and switch Email off. Note this is a single, global switch — it silences all GO email notifications, not just messages. There is no per-conversation mute and no digest-only setting.
Where Messages shows up elsewhere
The Tasks grid Messages column
The Tasks grid has a Messages column with a speech-bubble icon on every row. Click it to open that task's conversation in a Messages window — GO creates the conversation the first time and reuses it after that. Clicking twice does not open two windows; the one already on screen comes forward.
When a task's conversation is created, GO adds the task's responsible person and the active members of its assigned team automatically, so the right people are in from the start. A project's conversation seeds its project manager, project lead, and sales rep the same way. This happens once, when the conversation is first created — changing the team afterwards does not add or remove anyone.
The column is hidden entirely for users without permission to view Messages.
The Timeline tab in a task
Open a task's detail dialog and go to the Timeline tab. Above the feed sits a row of filter chips — All, Changes, Team Notes, and Messages — each with a count. Click Messages to see just the conversation on that task, with internal notes filtered out (those have their own Team Notes chip). Two small buttons beside the chips let you add a New message or a New team note without leaving the tab.
The Inbound tab in Tasks
On the Tasks page's Inbound view, right-click any row and choose Open Chat to jump straight into that ticket's conversation.
The Projects right-click menu
Right-click any row in the Projects grid and two Messages items appear at the bottom of the menu:
- Compose Message — opens the New message dialog with the project already filled into Link to project, so whatever you start is tied to that job.
- Messages — opens a list of every conversation already linked to that project, each with its type, its latest message, and its unread count. Click one to open it.
The Messages tab in a project
Open a project's detail dialog and the last tab is Messages, with a count of how many it holds. This is a different thing from the Messages window, and it is easy to confuse the two.
The tab is a correspondence log for the project: a grid with Date, Dir (direction), Channel, From, Task, Message, and Status columns, plus a compose panel. You pick a person, choose Email or In-App, type a message, and click Send Message. Right-click a row and choose Reply to answer it — the button then reads Send Reply.
Use the tab when you want the project's paper trail in one grid. Use the Messages window when you want a live conversation.
The dashboard widgets
Two dashboard widgets report on messages, if your role has them enabled:
- Messages Requiring Response — a count of conversations awaiting reply, then a list of up to 25 with the sender, subject, and how many hours ago. Empty state: "No messages awaiting response."
- Flagged Messages — messages flagged for attention, with a priority.
The notification bell
Message notifications also land in the bell menu next to the Messages icon, alongside the rest of GO's notifications. Clicking one takes you to the conversation.
What happened to SMS
GO used to let you send a text message to a customer from a task. That was removed when Messages was built.
- You can no longer send an SMS from anywhere in GO. The SMS option is gone from the task activity tab, the project messages tab, and the new Messages composer. Where the old channel picker offered In-App / Email / SMS, it now offers In-App and Email only.
- Your history is intact. Text messages sent before the change are still in the conversation, marked with an SMS badge so you can tell them apart. Nothing was deleted.
- Replying to an old SMS sends an email. Because there is no SMS composer any more, a reply to a historical text message goes out by email instead.
- There is no inbound SMS. GO does not receive text messages. Inbound email to a task does work and is a separate feature.
- The SMS notification preference is gone from your Profile → Notifications tab, since nothing sends text messages any more.
If your team relied on texting customers from a task, use the Email tab on the task's conversation instead — it prefills the customer's address, supports canned responses and attachments, and files the reply into the same conversation.
Permissions
Messages permissions live under the Messaging group in Settings → Roles & Permissions.
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| View Messages | See conversations and read them. Without it, the Messages window opens empty, the Tasks grid Messages column is hidden, and online dots never appear. This is the base permission — everything else builds on it. |
| Send Messages | Send messages, add notes, schedule and cancel scheduled messages, and start a direct message. |
| Create Group Messages | Start a private group. Requires Send Messages as well. |
| Create Channels | Create a new channel. Requires Send Messages as well. |
| Join Channels | Join and leave channels from Browse channels. |
Two things worth knowing:
- Task conversations follow task access. Anyone who can view tasks can read and post in a task's conversation, even without being added to it — posting joins them automatically. Project conversations work the same way for people who can view that project.
- Archiving does not have its own permission. Only the person who created a group or channel can archive it.
Good to know
- Channels are fully public. Anyone with View Messages can find any channel, see its members, join it, and read its entire history. Use a private group for anything sensitive.
- Mentioning adds people. In a channel or group, @-mentioning someone who is not a member joins them — and they can then read everything already posted. Direct messages are exempt.
- Silent is not invisible. A silent message skips every notification but still appears in the conversation and still adds to the unread badge. It is quiet, not hidden.
- Notes are never sent anywhere. An internal note notifies nobody, is excluded from every email, and cannot be sent by accident — the composer turns amber and the button reads Add note.
- A workflow can switch messaging off for a task. If a task's workflow locks messaging in its current state, the Message tab is disabled and a banner reads "Messaging is turned off for this task by its workflow. Notes are still allowed." Notes stay available on purpose, so the record can still be kept. Ask an administrator to change the workflow's field lock for the state the task is in.
- A direct message can never become a group. Add a third person and you get a separate group conversation; the 1:1 stays as it was.
- Multiple windows are intentional. Open as many as you like. The one exception: clicking a task's Messages icon twice brings the existing window forward instead of opening a second.
- You can message anyone in the business unit. The people picker and the @-mention picker both search every active user, not just people you already talk to.
- Scheduled messages are checked at send time. If a task's workflow locks messaging between when you scheduled a message and when it was due, the message is held rather than delivered — and you can still cancel it.
Common questions
Why can I not find Messages in the sidebar? There is no sidebar entry by design. Messages opens from the speech-bubble icon in the top-right header bar, next to the notification bell, and it is available from every page.
Why did I get an email about a message I have already read? You should not — GO checks again after about two minutes and skips the email if you have read it by then. If you are getting them anyway, your browser may not be reporting you as online; try reloading the page.
Why is everyone showing as Away? Online dots depend on a live connection to GO. If the connection is unavailable, everyone reads as Away. Notifications still work correctly — the email fallback uses a separate check — so this affects the dots, not who gets emailed. Reloading the page usually restores it; if it persists across users, tell your administrator.
Can I delete or edit a message? No. Messages cannot be edited or deleted once sent. If a message is still scheduled, you can cancel it before it goes out.
Can I un-send a mention? Not after sending. Before you send, click the × on the person's chip above the composer, or delete the @name from the text — either one drops them from the notification.
Someone left a channel. Did their messages go too? No. Leaving a channel removes you from it going forward; everything you posted stays in the conversation for the remaining members.
Why does a conversation show a member I never added? Either they joined a public channel themselves, someone @-mentioned them into it, or it is a task or project conversation, where the responsible person and team (or the project's manager, lead, and sales rep) are added automatically when it is first created.
A project has a Messages tab and a Messages right-click item. Which do I use? They are two different things. The right-click → Messages item lists the live conversations linked to that project and opens them in the Messages window. The Messages tab inside the project dialog is a correspondence log — a grid of sent and received messages with a compose box. Use the window to talk to people; use the tab to review the paper trail.
What is the difference between the Message tab and the Note tab? A message is a conversation — people are notified and can reply. A note is an internal record on the task or project — nobody is notified and it never leaves GO.
Can I still text a customer? No. Use the Email tab on the task's conversation instead. See What happened to SMS.
Related topics
- Tasks — the Messages column in the task grid, and the task conversations it opens.
- Projects — the Compose Message and Messages right-click actions.
- Workflows — where an administrator can lock or unlock messaging for a task state.
- Roles & Permissions — where the Messaging permissions are assigned.