Chat, groups, and communities

Chat brings your event team and registered attendees with a FireVue account into the same conversation space. Organizers can use Chat in the event dashboard, while attendees use the native participants app. Both sides see the same conversations and messages in real time.

Choose the right kind of chat

Direct messages are platform-wide, not tied to one event or organization. If you start a 1:1 chat with someone from one event and later meet them in another, FireVue reuses the same conversation.

Groups and communities are event-wide. Their membership, settings, and message history stay with that event. A group is private and invitation-only; a community appears under Discover, where people in the event can join it themselves. Communities you've joined stay listed there too (with Open instead of Join) and also appear in your chats.

The event channel is created automatically and uses the event's name. Everyone in the event can read it. By default, only organizers can post, making it suitable for announcements.

Start a conversation

1. Open Chat in the event dashboard or open the Chat tab in the participants app.
2. Select New chat.
3. Choose Direct message, New group, or New community.
4. Search for an attendee or team member. For a group or community, enter a name, select initial members, and decide whether only admins may send messages.

The people search is based on the current event: it includes event team members, organization owners and admins with access to the event, and registered attendees who have a FireVue account.

Control who can send messages

For a group or community, its admins can open the conversation menu and select Chat settings. Use Only admins can send messages — the same switch you see when creating the group — to choose between:

• On — everyone can still read, but only group admins can send messages.
• Off — every member can send messages.

For the automatic event channel, an event organizer can change the same setting. Here, On means only the event team can send. Regular members cannot change this permission.

In a community's Chat settings, its admins can also change the name and the Description that people see in the Discover tab.

Group admins can also open Members to add or remove people and promote another member to admin. Every group member can view the member list and leave the group. The only remaining admin must promote someone else or delete the group before leaving.

💡 Moderation pattern: Keep the event channel organizer-only for official updates, use private groups for selected people, and use communities when attendees should be able to opt in themselves.

Send photos and files

In the dashboard, select the paperclip next to the message field, drag files onto the conversation, or paste an image. In the participants app, tap the paperclip and choose Photo library, Camera, or File. You can add a caption and send up to 5 attachments in one message.

• Photos are resized to at most 2048 pixels on the longest side and compressed on the device before they are uploaded. This keeps uploads fast and removes embedded metadata such as the location where a photo was taken. GIFs are sent unchanged.
• Files such as PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and iWork documents, text and CSV files, calendar invitations (.ics), contact cards, audio, short videos, and ZIP archives can be up to 10 MB each. Web pages, scripts, and programs can't be sent.

Photos appear as previews in the conversation; select one to view it in full size, or save it to your photos in the app. PDFs open directly, and other files download or open in your device's share sheet.

Attachments are private to the conversation: only its members can open them, through links that expire after a short time. They don't count toward your organization's storage.

ℹ️ Attachments are kept for 90 days. After that, the photo or file is deleted automatically and the message shows Photo no longer available or File no longer available. The message text stays. Deleting a message or a whole conversation removes its attachments right away.

To prevent abuse, each person can send up to 50 attachments per day.

Delete a message

Open a message's action menu — or long-press the message in the app — and select Delete.

• Everyone can delete their own messages.
• A group or community admin can delete any message in that group or community.
• Event team members can delete any message in the automatic event channel.
• In a direct message, each person can delete only their own messages.

Deletion applies for everyone and cannot be undone. The message content, including any photos or files, is removed, but a This message was deleted placeholder remains in the conversation so replies and the timeline still make sense.

Group admins can also delete an entire group or community from its conversation menu. This permanently removes the conversation and all of its messages for everyone.

In the participants app, anyone can remove a chat from their own list: swipe the chat to the left in the chat overview and confirm Delete. While other people are still in the chat, this just makes you leave it; if you were a group's only admin, the longest-standing member becomes admin. When you are the last person in the chat, it is deleted completely, including its messages. A direct message comes back as soon as either person writes in it again or starts a new direct message with the other. The automatic event channel can't be deleted.

Use chat in the participants app

Chat is a native screen in the participants app. To make it easy to reach:

1. Open Mobile App in the event dashboard and enable the app if needed.
2. Add or edit a tab in the tab-bar settings.
3. Choose Native App Chat, select an icon, add the label for each event language, and save.

The mobile app is available only for events whose plan includes it. See The participants mobile app for setup, page, and tab-bar details.

Notifications and unread messages

When participants allow notifications, the app sends a push notification for new messages. Tapping it opens the relevant conversation; a platform-wide direct message opens in the currently active event. The app does not show a duplicate notification for the conversation already on screen, and opening the app clears old chat notifications from the device's notification tray.

To silence one conversation without leaving it, open its Chat settings in the app and turn off Receive notifications. Muting affects only push notifications: new messages still arrive in real time, remain in the history, and count as unread until opened. The sender never receives a notification for their own message.

Unread badges in the dashboard and app help team members and attendees see which conversations need attention.