Desk and field
The same product. A different first screen.
Office teams want search, threads and a wide layout. People outdoors, in gloves, in bright light, on a weak signal, want the thing that needs an answer. Comms is designed for both, because a tool that only suits one of them will not be used.
Alerts
Some messages are not chat.
An operational alert has a severity, an audience, and a required response. It looks and sounds different. It stays until someone acknowledges it. If they do not, it escalates on a ladder the organisation sets: another push, then SMS, then the supervisor.
- Acknowledgement on any path stops the ladder
- The sender sees who has received, read and responded
- The alert is kept as a record, not only as a line in a chat
- SMS is for these alerts, not for ordinary conversation
Bad coverage
Write it now. Send it when you can.
The message is saved on the phone before the network is asked to carry it. If the app is closed, or the phone restarts, it is still there. When coverage returns, queued text leaves quickly, and a broken upload continues from where it stopped.
- No duplicate if the same message is retried
- The sender can see that it is waiting, and can cancel it
- After a long shift offline, the phone catches up from where it left off
Personal phones
The company sees the app. Nothing else.
People use their own phones. There is no device management, and there does not need to be. Messages and keys sit in encrypted storage inside the app. If an admin removes someone, that organisation’s local data is deleted. The employer has no view of the rest of the phone.
- App lock with biometrics or a PIN, if the organisation requires it
- Quiet hours can follow a roster, so a night shift is not woken by a channel
- The app is not for use while driving