03 Team Chat
Any thread becomes a call in one click.
Team messaging and video calls in the same window. Persistent channels, threads that keep the argument in one place, files up to 2 GB that stay where they were posted, and a call button on every thread that pulls exactly the people in it onto video.
What it costs
No chat line item.
Team Chat is included with any host licence. There is no per-message tier, no storage cap that switches on after ninety days, and nobody in the channel needs a licence just to type.
The licence itself is priced per host, per month, and the number of hosts follows from the meetings you run, not from how many people chat. A forty-person company with six people who actually run calls buys six host licences. The other thirty-four still get every channel, thread and file. Your proposal states this line by line.
- Price basis
- Included with any host licence
- Who needs a licence
- Only people who host meetings. Readers and writers in chat do not.
- File limit
- 2 GB per file, kept in the channel it was posted to
- Message history
- Kept for as long as the workspace retention policy says. Set by your admin, not by us.
- Guests
- Invited per channel. They cannot see the channel list.
- Contract
- Monthly on the first proposal. Annual only if you ask.
How the pieces fit
Channels hold the work. Threads hold the argument.
Persistent channels
A channel is a room that does not close when the call ends. One per project, per site, per client. People join, read back, leave. The history is there in the morning.
The failure we see most often is a company with 140 channels and eleven that anyone reads. Start with fewer. During rollout we suggest one channel per team plus one per live project, and an admin rule that archives a channel after 60 quiet days.
Threads
Reply to a message and the reply goes into a thread under it. The channel stays readable. The six people arguing about the delivery date argue there, and everyone else sees a single line saying the thread has 23 replies.
Threads can be followed or muted on their own. Muting a thread does not mute the channel.
Call from the thread
Every thread has a call button. Press it and the people who wrote in that thread get a ring, not the whole channel. The call opens as a normal Vebex meeting with the thread pinned beside the video, so the link someone pasted ten minutes ago is still on screen.
When the call ends, a short line goes back into the thread with the duration and who joined. If the call was recorded, the recording and transcript land in the same thread.
File sharing up to 2 GB
Drop a file into a channel and it stays in that channel. Drawings, site photos, a 1.4 GB export from the accounting system. The limit is 2 GB per file. Anything bigger belongs in your document store, and you can paste the link.
Files are searchable by name and by the channel they were posted to. They follow the same retention policy as messages, so deleting a channel on schedule deletes its files too. If you need files kept longer than messages, tell us in the inquiry; it changes the storage line.
Guest access
Contractors and clients come in as guests. A guest is invited to one or more named channels and sees nothing else: no channel list, no member directory, no files from other channels. Guests can join calls started from threads they are part of.
Admins can switch guest access off for the whole workspace in the admin console, and every guest invite is written to the audit log.
Away from the desk
Chat for people who stand up at work.
Plenty of people on a workspace never sit at a laptop. They read a thread on a tablet propped against a clamp, answer with a photo and go back to the job. So the mobile and tablet apps carry the same channels, the same call button and the same file limit as the desktop.
On a weak connection the app sends text first and queues photos until there is room. If a call from a thread will not hold video, it drops to audio before it drops the person. If there is no data at all, the meeting still has a phone dial-in number.
For a short update that does not need anyone live, record a clip instead. Video messages post straight into the thread.
From inquiry to first channel
Four steps, about two weeks.
The chat part of a rollout is the quick part. The slow part is agreeing what the channels are called.
You send the inquiry
Tell us how many people chat, how many host meetings, and whether outside guests need in. One working day for a written reply.
Written proposal
Host count, retention, guest policy and any import from your current tool. Monthly terms. No price is binding until you sign it.
Pilot with one team
One team, five to ten channels, real work. We check that calls from threads hold on their actual connections.
Cutover
Everyone else joins on a set date. The full rollout sequence covers training and the review after 30 days.
Before you ask
The questions buyers actually send.
Is Team Chat sold separately?
No. Team Chat is included with any host licence. Non-hosts can read and write in channels without a licence of their own.
Can we bring in people from outside the company?
Yes. Guests are invited to named channels only and cannot browse the rest of the workspace. An admin can switch guest access off for the whole workspace.
Do you read or score our messages?
No. There is no activity scoring and no read-time reporting for managers. Admins see audit events such as who changed a channel setting, not who read what.
Can we import history from our current chat tool?
Usually, if the current tool exports to a standard archive. Say which tool in your inquiry and we will tell you in the proposal what comes across and what does not. Reactions and custom emoji rarely survive the trip.
Who should not use Team Chat?
A team already settled on another chat tool that only wants Vebex for meetings. Running two chat tools splits every conversation in half. Keep the one you have and use our calendar links and API instead.
Ask for a proposal
Tell us who talks.
How many people chat, how many host calls, and whether guests need access. A person replies within one working day.