Chat gives your property team a direct, real-time messaging channel with your tenants, available on both the dashboard and the mobile app. Whether you need to notify a tenant about a maintenance window affecting their floor or give tenants a faster way to reach your team than email, Chat keeps those conversations in one place and accessible at any time.
Conversations are organized by tenant organization, so each tenant has its own dedicated thread. Each conversation in your list shows:
- The tenant name
- The time of the last message
- A preview of the most recent message with the sender's name
Your full message history is always available when you return, and read status syncs across devices. If you read a message on the dashboard, it will appear as read on mobile as well.
Both property team members and tenant users need to be designated as Chat Contacts on their user profiles before they can participate in conversations. Building Admins and Building Managers can start new conversations with one or more tenant organizations. Tenant Chat Contacts can also start conversations with the property team. Any user role can be set as a Chat Contact, including Tenant Admins, Regular Users, and building team members.
👉 To see what the Chat experience looks like from the tenant view, please see the Chat: Tenants article.
Setting Up Chat Contacts
Before anyone can participate in Chat, the Chat Contact checkbox must be enabled on their user profile. This applies to both property team members and tenant users.
- Navigate to the Directory and click on a User or Staff profile.
- Scroll down to Is Chat Contact? and check the box.
- Click Save.
Note: This setting is only available when Chat is enabled at your site.Reach out to your Customer Success Manager or techsupport@cove.is to learn more about turning this feature on.
Starting a New Conversation
Dashboard
- From the Chat page, click + New Chat in the upper right corner.
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A form will open with two fields.
- The Message field is where you write your opening message
- The Select Tenants dropdown is where you choose one or more tenant organizations to include.
- Click Save to send.
Mobile
- From the Chat page, click +New Chat
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A form will open with two fields.
- The Message field is where you write your opening message
- The Select Tenants dropdown is where you choose one or more tenant organizations to include.
- Click Save to send.
Each tenant organization you select receives its own separate conversation thread. All users from that tenant who are set as Chat Contacts are included automatically. To continue an existing conversation, select it from your Chats list at any time. Your full message history is preserved in each thread.
Receiving Messages
When a tenant sends a message, it will appear in the conversation thread for their organization. On the dashboard, tenant messages appear on the left side of the conversation with the sender's first name and timestamp displayed beneath each message. On mobile, tenant messages appear as grey bubbles on the left.
Tenant users see the conversation from their side as well. Property team messages appear to tenants without individual attribution, so tenants see messages from your team as coming from the building rather than from a specific person. Tenants can reply directly in the thread, and their replies will appear in your Chats list with a message preview and updated timestamp.
Notifications
On the dashboard and app, a badge on the Chat navigation item shows the number of unread messages across all of your conversations. The badge updates in real time as new messages arrive and clears as you open conversations.
Read status syncs across devices. If you read a message on the dashboard, it will appear as read on mobile as well.