Teams: Staff Chat — User Guide
Every practice runs on quick internal chatter: "Mrs Hartley is running 15 minutes late", "the autoclave tech is here", "can someone sign off the sterilisation logs?". Until now that lived in sticky notes, hallway conversations, or a third-party app like WhatsApp — outside the system where your patients, tasks and appointments actually live.
Teams is Zavy's built-in staff chat: instant messaging between the staff at your practice, in the same window as everything else. You can message one person directly, pull a few people into a group, or set up standing team channels (Front Desk, Clinical, All Staff) that every member of that team sees automatically. Because it's inside Zavy, you can attach images and files, @mention colleagues, and link a chat message straight to a patient record or a task.
Nothing in Teams is ever visible to patients — it is internal to your practice's staff.
Opening Teams
Click Teams (the speech-bubble icon) in the top bar — it's available on every page. A badge on the icon shows your total unread messages across all conversations.
Teams opens as a full-screen overlay with three panes:
Left — your conversations, split into a Teams section (standing team channels) and a Chats section (direct messages and groups), each sorted by most recent activity. Filter chips at the top switch between All, Unread, and Teams, and the magnifier opens message search.
Middle — the conversation: the message thread with the composer at the bottom.
Right — Details: members, shared files, and linked records for the open conversation (toggle it with the panel icon in the conversation header).
Close the overlay with the X top-left — you'll drop back exactly where you were in Zavy, and the unread badge keeps updating in the background.
Starting a chat
Click New chat (top-right of the Teams window).
Direct message: pick one person under Staff and press Start chat. Direct chats are named after the other person automatically. If the two of you already have a chat, it reopens rather than creating a duplicate.
Group chat: pick two or more people (and/or tick a team to include all of its members) and press Create group. The group name is optional — leave it blank and the chat is named after its members ("Kate Morrison, Megan Taylor"); type a name if the group has a purpose ("Sterilisation Audit Prep").
The chat opens immediately, ready to type.
Renaming a group
Open the group, open the Details panel, and click Rename. Any member can rename a group; leave the field blank to go back to the automatic member-names title. Everyone in the group sees the new name instantly. (Direct chats and team channels can't be renamed this way — directs are always named after the other person, and a team channel takes its name from the team.)
Teams (standing channels)
A team is a named, durable group — Front Desk, Clinical, All Staff — with its own always-there channel. Unlike a group chat, a team's membership is managed in one place: add someone to the team and they're in the channel with the full history; remove them and they're out.
Create a team: on the Teams filter tab in the sidebar, click New team (also available from inside the New chat panel). Give it a name, an optional description, and members. You're included automatically as the creator — no need to add yourself.
Manage a team: open its channel and click Manage team in the Details panel to rename it, edit the description, change members, or archive it when it's no longer needed.
Creating and managing teams are permission-controlled (the Create Team / Manage Team permissions). If you don't see these buttons, ask your practice manager.
Messages
Type in the composer and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a new line). Hover over any message for its actions:
React — add an emoji reaction; reactions stack up with a count, and clicking the same emoji again removes yours.
Reply (under the ⋯ menu) — quote-reply, showing a snippet of the original above your message. Click the quoted snippet later to jump back to the original.
Edit — fix your own message; it's marked (edited).
Delete — remove your own message (group admins can also delete others'). A "message deleted" placeholder remains so the conversation still reads sensibly.
Photos and files
Attach files with the paperclip, or paste/drag an image straight into the composer. Images show as previews right in the thread — click to open full size. Everything shared in a conversation is also collected under Shared files in the Details panel, so you don't have to scroll back through history to find that X-ray from last week.
@mentions
Type @ and start typing a name to mention a colleague — or a whole team. Mentions notify the person directly, even if they've muted the conversation, so use them when you specifically need someone's eyes.
Linking patients and tasks
Click the link icon in the composer to attach a patient record or a task to your message. It appears as a chip the reader can click to jump straight to that patient or task — "can someone call this patient back?" with the actual record attached. Linked records also collect in the Details panel.
Privacy note: linked patient chips are permission-aware. A staff member who can't access that patient sees a redacted "no access" chip instead of the patient's details.
Search
Click the magnifier at the top of the conversation list and type. With a conversation open you can search This conversation or All chats; results show the matching text highlighted, and clicking one takes you to that conversation.
Staying on top of it: unread, notifications, mute
Unread counts appear per conversation and roll up into the topbar badge. Opening a conversation marks it read; the Unread filter chip shows only what needs your attention.
Notifications: a new message pops a toast and lands in your notification bell (unless you're actively viewing that conversation). Clicking the notification — toast or bell — opens the chat on that conversation.
Mute: the bell icon in a conversation's header silences its notifications for you. You'll still see unread counts, and an @mention still gets through.
Quick reference
I want to… | Do this |
Message one person | New chat → pick one person → Start chat |
Start a group | New chat → pick several people → Create group |
Name / rename a group | Group name field on create, or Details → Rename |
Create a standing channel | Teams tab → New team |
Rename / archive a team | Open the channel → Details → Manage team |
Add someone to a group | Details → Add staff |
Leave a group | Details → hover your own row → Leave |
Share a photo or file | Paperclip in the composer (or paste/drag) |
Get someone's attention | @mention them |
Attach a patient or task | Link icon in the composer |
Find an old message | Magnifier above the conversation list |
Silence a busy channel | Bell icon in the conversation header |
FAQ
Can patients see any of this? No. Teams is strictly staff-to-staff; nothing in it is ever exposed to patients or the patient portal.
Who can see a team channel? Every current member of the team, including the full history from before they joined. Group chats likewise show full history to people added later.
What's the difference between a group chat and a team? A group is ad-hoc — you pick the people each time, and it lives only as that chat. A team is a durable, named unit whose membership is managed centrally; its channel follows the membership automatically. Rule of thumb: one-off topic → group; a real unit of your practice → team.
Do deleted messages disappear completely? They're removed from view (a placeholder remains) and drop out of search. For audit purposes the practice retains a record of what was sent.
Why can't I create a team? Team creation and management are gated by staff permissions — an owner or practice manager can grant them.