Help > User > Group Chats
Understanding public and private group chats
| This information covers Trillian-to-Trillian group chats only, and does not relate to the various third-party IM services where Trillian also supports group chats (e.g. IRC, XMPP). |
Group chats are many-to-many conversations that persist on the server. Use them to bring groups together into a single place that encourages collaborative and focused communication. There are two types of group chats supported on the Trillian network:
- Public group chats. Available to Trillian for Business users only, public group chats are named chats that users can join and leave as they please. Use them for a fun company watercooler, division-oriented chats, location-specific chats, or for any other purpose you see fit. Public chats can either be created and controlled by administrators or created by users, and will appear in a directory when users look for group chats to join.
- Private, ad-hoc group chats. Available to both business and personal users, private group chats empower you to communicate in a group at any time. Private chats are user-created, invite-only, and never visible in any form of public directory.
Group chat settings
Members of a group chat may have two optional statuses associated with them: operator status and voice status. Operator status is automatically assigned to the first user to join a group chat and operators can op one or more other members at any time. There are a handful of different settings exposed to operators:
- Chat name may only be set by operators. If enabled, the name of this group chat can only be changed by operators.
- Do not allow new members to join on their own. If enabled, only operators can add new members to this group chat.
- Do not allow members to leave on their own. If enabled, only operators can remove members from this group chat.
- Do not show group chat in list. If enabled, this group chat will be hidden from public view when users request a list of group chats.
- Only approved members may talk. If enabled, only operators and members specifically given permission to speak (voiced members) may send messages in this group chat.
- Topics may only be set by operators. If enabled, only operators can change the topic of this group chat.