Starting a Conversation

When you are viewing the screen that displays the list of conversations, you can start a new conversation.

1. Do one of the following:

   • In the Home screen, tap the Chat icon at the bottom of the screen.

     

   • In the Menu screen, tap Staff Directory.

     

   The Start A Chat screen appears. Tap Staff in the green ribbon at the top of the screen (if it is not already selected) to display your department and your list of favorites.

   

   If your department is not visible, your administrator has configured your system to not display your department on this screen.

   Note: You can tap Patients to start a conversation related to a specific patient if your administrator has granted you permission to view patient data. See Starting a Patient Conversation for details on how to do this.

   When you see the Start A Chat screen for the first time, a tooltip reminds you that you can tap the profile picture or initials of a contact to call that contact:

   

   Tap the X icon to hide the tooltip. When the tooltip is hidden, it remains hidden until you log out and log in again. For more information on calling a contact using this method, see Calling from a Profile Picture.

2. Select the contact with which you want to have a conversation:

   

   	Tap the search icon and type search text consisting of some or all of the contact's name. All contacts matching this search text are displayed. Tap the name of the contact with which you want to start a conversation.
   	If the contact is a member of a group, tap the group to display the contacts that are members of the group, then tap a member name to start a conversation with that group member. If the group contains subgroups, tap a subgroup name to display its members.
   	If the contact is defined as a favorite, tap the contact name to start the conversation. (See About Favorites for more information on Favorites.)

   The color dot at the top right of the contact's profile picture or initials indicates the contact's availability:

   

   • Green: the contact is online.
   • Gray: the contact is offline.
   • Red: the contact is online but is unavailable. See Setting Presence and Availability for more information on presence and availability.
3. When you have selected a message participant, the chat screen appears, and you can start the conversation. See Adding a Message for information on how to do this.