Project chat
Talk to your project team inside the project. Channels keep the conversation organized, @mentions get someone's attention, and files shared in chat can become project Documents.
Project Chat is a conversation space that lives inside a project, next to its meetings, reports, and documents. Use it for the day-to-day back-and-forth that doesn't belong in an email thread: a quick question about a detail, a photo from site, a heads-up before an OAC meeting.
Everyone with access to the project sees the same channels and the same history. Project Viewers can read everything but cannot post.
Before you start
Chat must be turned on for the project. If you don't see a Chat entry in the project sidebar, ask a project owner or an organization admin to turn it on. See Setting up project chat.
Chat is part of the web app at app.cogram.com. It is not part of the Cogram mobile app.
Opening chat
Open your project from the Projects page.
Select Chat in the project sidebar.
The chat pane has a list of channels down the left and the selected channel's conversation on the right. The channel name (for example #general) appears at the top, with the search box beside it.
Every chat-enabled project starts with a #general channel. A project owner can add more channels for separate conversations, for example #site-updates or #curtain-wall. See Setting up project chat.
Posting a message
Select a channel.
Type in the box at the bottom (Message #channel-name).
Press Enter to send, or select Send.
Press Shift + Enter for a line break within the same message.
While a colleague is composing, a line above the box tells you so ("Kate is typing…", or "Several people are typing…" once four or more people are at it).
An empty channel shows "No messages yet. Start the conversation."
Formatting
Messages accept a small amount of Markdown:
Bold
**bold**
Italic
*italic*
Inline code
`code`
A code block
Three backticks on their own line, the code, then three backticks
A link
[label](https://example.com)
Web addresses and email addresses you type are turned into links automatically. Anything else, such as a # heading or a | table, stays exactly as you typed it, because chat is prose.
Emoji
Type a colon followed by at least two letters, for example :sweat, and a list of matching emoji opens. Use the arrow keys to choose, then Enter or Tab to insert; Esc dismisses the list. Typing a complete shortcode such as :tada: converts it in place without the list.
You can also select the Add emoji button under the message box to browse or search the full set.
Mentioning someone
Type @, or select the Mention someone button under the message box, and pick the person from the list that opens. Only a name picked from the list counts as a mention: typing @Kate by hand is plain text and notifies nobody.
Anyone with access to the project can be mentioned, including Viewers and colleagues from another firm who were given access to the project. Mentioning yourself does not notify you.
A mention reaches the person in two places:
Notification bell: a notification that opens the message when selected. See Notification bell.
Email: on by default. Mention emails are batched rather than sent one per mention, and are skipped entirely if you have already read the channel in the meantime. Turn the email off under Account Settings > Notifications, in the Mentions category. See Notification preferences.
Reading the channel clears your mention notifications for it.
Pointing to another channel
Type #, or select the Reference a channel button under the message box, and pick a channel from the list. In the posted message the reference becomes a chip that opens that channel when selected — handy for "let's take this to #site-updates".
Unlike mentions, a channel name typed out by hand works too, as long as it matches one of the project's channels. A channel reference notifies nobody; it is a signpost, not a mention.
Reacting to a message
Hover over the message and select Add reaction.
Pick an emoji, or search for one by name.
Your most recently used emoji appear under Recently used at the top of the picker.
Reactions gather into chips under the message with a count. Select an existing chip to add your own reaction to it, and select it again to take yours away; the chip disappears when the last person removes theirs. Chips you are part of are outlined. Hover a chip to see who reacted.
Editing and deleting your messages
Hovering over your own message shows a small toolbar with Add reaction, Edit, and Delete:
Edit opens the message for editing in place. Select Save to confirm. Edited messages are marked "(edited)"; the previous wording is not kept.
Delete removes the message from the channel. Deletion cannot be undone. If the message carried files, the confirmation says how many go with it.
You can only edit your own messages. Project owners and organization admins or owners can delete anyone's message.
Sharing files
Attach files to a message with the paperclip button (Attach files), or drag them onto the chat pane and drop them.
Up to 10 files per message.
Up to 100 MB per file.
A file that is too large is left behind with a note under the box, and the rest still attach. The same happens when you pick more than ten files at once.
Images and PDFs show a preview under the message. Select the preview, or the attachment itself, to open the file full size — PDFs open in a viewer with pages and zoom, and Word (.docx) and text files open as a readable preview. For other file types, selecting the attachment downloads it. Download is always available in the attachment's actions menu.
Adding a chat file to project Documents
A file shared in chat stays in chat unless you promote it. Promoting puts it in the project's Documents list without making a second copy.
Select the actions button beside the attachment (Actions for filename).
Select Add to project documents.
The attachment then carries an In documents badge, and the file appears in the project's Documents list with a chat icon next to its filename. Hovering that icon shows View in #channel; selecting it jumps to the original message.
To reverse this, select Remove from project documents on the same menu. The file stays in chat; only the entry in Documents goes away.
Deleting a file, and what happens to the document
You can delete a single file from your own message with Delete file, without deleting the message.
If the file is also a project document, Cogram asks what should happen to the document. Each promoted file gets its own choice:
Keep as document (the default)
The file leaves chat and stays in the project's Documents list as an ordinary document.
Delete the document too
The file leaves both chat and Documents.
The same question appears when you delete a whole message that carries promoted files: the dialog lists each promoted file with its own choice, so you can keep one and delete another. Files that were never promoted are simply deleted with the message.
Because Keep as document is preselected, confirming without changing anything never removes a document.
The reverse also holds: deleting a promoted file from the Documents list does not touch the message in chat, and the file remains downloadable there.
Keeping up with what's new
Cogram tracks where you left off in each channel, so you don't have to.
The channel list shows a count beside any channel with messages you haven't seen.
The Chat entry in the project sidebar shows a dot when any channel of the project has something new.
The project's Overview page has a Chat section that counts your unread messages, with Open chat → taking you straight in.
Opening a channel with unread messages takes you to the New messages line rather than to the bottom, so you pick up where you stopped.
Messages count as read as they scroll into view, so a long backlog is not marked read just because you opened the channel. Posting a message marks the channel read up to your own message.
To go further back in a channel, select Load earlier messages at the top of the conversation. History is kept in full.
Searching the conversation
Select the search box in the channel header, or press / to jump to it.
Type at least two characters.
Results appear below the box, each showing the channel, the author, when it was posted, and a snippet with your search term highlighted. Select a result to jump to that message in its channel; the message is briefly tinted so you can spot it.
Search covers every active channel in the project, not just the one you have open. Archived channels are not searched. Select Load more for further results, or press Esc to close the results.
If nothing matches, the panel says "No messages found."
Who can do what
Read channels, history, and search
✓
✓
✓
✓
Be mentioned and notified
✓
✓
✓
✓
Post messages
✓
✓
✓
React to messages
✓
✓
✓
Attach files
✓
✓
✓
Add files to project Documents, or remove them
✓
✓
✓
Edit own messages
✓
✓
✓
Delete own messages
✓
✓
✓
Delete anyone's message
✓
✓
Create, rename, or archive channels
✓
✓
Turn chat on or off for the project
✓
✓
Viewers see the conversation, the files, and the search box, but no message box and no reaction buttons. See Project roles.
Colleagues from another firm
On a project shared with another organization, guests take part according to the project role they were granted: a guest with Member access posts, reacts, and attaches files; a guest with Viewer access reads. Turning chat on or off, and managing channels, stay with the project's own owners and their organization's admins. An admin at the guest firm gets no extra powers on your project.
To bring someone from another firm into the conversation, project owners see an Invite a collaborator button at the bottom of the channel list. See Inviting external collaborators.
Troubleshooting
There is no Chat entry in the project sidebar
Likely cause: chat has not been turned on for that project, or the project you're looking at isn't the one you think it is.
Fix: confirm the project in the sidebar header, then ask a project owner or organization admin to turn chat on. See Setting up project chat.
You typed @Kate but Kate wasn't notified
Likely cause: the name was typed rather than picked from the list, so it is plain text.
Fix: delete it, type
@, and select the person from the list that opens.
You can read the channel but there is no message box
Likely cause: your role on the project is Viewer, which is read-only.
Fix: ask a project owner to change your role. See Project roles.
A channel you used before is gone
Likely cause: it was archived. Archived channels leave the chat pane and are excluded from search; nothing is deleted.
Fix: a project owner or organization admin can unarchive it from project settings. See Setting up project chat.
A file you shared is no longer in chat, but colleagues still find it in Documents
Likely cause: the file had been added to project Documents, and whoever deleted it chose Keep as document.
Fix: nothing to do; that is the intended outcome. Delete the document from the Documents list if it should be gone entirely.
A search finds nothing you know was posted
Likely cause: the message is in an archived channel, or was deleted.
Fix: ask a project owner to unarchive the channel, then search again.
Chat doesn't appear in the mobile app
Chat is a web-app feature. Open the project at app.cogram.com from a browser.
Next steps
Setting up project chat: turn chat on and manage channels
Notification bell: what arrives in the bell and how to act on it
Notification preferences: turn mention emails on or off
Project roles: what Owners, Members, and Viewers can do
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