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- Chat Privacy and Visibility
Chat Privacy and Visibility
Chat conversations in Astalty are visible to the people in them. Direct messages are private to the two team members involved, and group channels are visible to their members. There is no screen in Astalty that lets anyone browse, search, or open a conversation they are not a member of — including Admins.
Can an admin view all chat conversations?
No. Astalty does not provide any way in the app for an Admin, or any other role, to browse, search, or open chat conversations they are not a member of. There is no organisation-wide view of chat, and chat search only returns messages from conversations you are part of.
This applies to conversations other staff members have created, and to any chat you were not added to. If you need visibility of a conversation, you need to be a member of it. The options for achieving that are covered in How do I get visibility of team conversations? below.
Does "full messaging access" mean an admin can read my messages?
No. These are two different things, and it is a common point of confusion.
Full messaging access means an Admin can start a conversation with anyone in the organisation, without being limited by the Who Can Message Who rules in Chat Configuration. It does not give them access to conversations they are not part of.
Being able to message anyone is not the same as being able to read what anyone has written.
Who can see a direct message?
Only the two team members in the conversation. Members cannot be added to a direct message, so the pair of people who can see it never changes.
If a conversation needs to be visible to more people — for example, so the wider office team can pick it up when someone is on leave — start a group channel instead of a direct message.
Who can see a group channel?
Everyone who is a member of that channel. Members can be added or removed at any time by someone with the appropriate permission, and you can link User Groups to a channel so membership stays in sync automatically.
Whether a newly added member can read messages sent before they joined depends on the Show Message History to New Members setting in Chat Configuration. When it is enabled, new members see the full history. When it is disabled, they only see messages sent after they were added.
Why doesn't Astalty let admins read all conversations?
This is how workplace messaging tools generally work. Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace all keep private conversations out of the standard administrator screens. In each of those products, reaching a private conversation requires separate legal-discovery tooling, a separate administrator role, and a recorded reason — it is not something a general administrator can do from the everyday interface.
There is also a practical reason. Where staff believe their messages are being read, day-to-day conversation tends to move onto personal apps such as WhatsApp or SMS. The organisation then loses the record altogether, which is the opposite of what oversight is meant to achieve. Keeping team conversation inside Astalty, where a transcript can be exported when it is genuinely needed, keeps more of it on the record rather than less.
It is also worth being aware that monitoring staff communications is regulated in Australia. The rules differ between states, and in some — New South Wales, for example — an employer must give written notice a set period before any monitoring of staff computer use begins.
How do I get visibility of team conversations?
Astalty gives you several ways to make sure the right people can see the right conversations, without opening up private messages.
| What you need | How to do it |
|---|---|
| The wider team should be able to see and continue a conversation | Use a group channel rather than a direct message. Link a User Group so membership stays in sync as people join and leave |
| Share information without staff replying or derailing the thread | Use a read-only channel, and allow specific people to post |
| Control which roles can start conversations with which other roles | Use the Who Can Message Who matrix in Chat Configuration, along with Allowed Recipients and Allowed User Groups |
| A transcript for an HR file, complaint, or investigation | Export the conversation — see below |
| Care-related information kept on the participant's record | Record it in notes, incident reports, or the participant's record. Chat is for team communication, not the care record |
Exporting a conversation
Admins can export a transcript of any conversation they are a member of. The export includes sender names and timestamps, and does not include deleted messages.
To export a conversation:
- Open the conversation
- Click the Actions menu in the conversation header
- Select Export Conversation
- Optionally set a From and To date to limit the transcript to a period. Leave both empty to export the whole conversation
- Choose a Format — PDF or CSV
- Click Create Export
Your export will be prepared and made available on the Exports page, alongside your other Astalty exports. Every export records who created it, so there is a lasting record of who took a copy of a conversation and when.
If your organisation has export reasons turned on, you will also be asked to record why you are exporting the conversation, and that reason is stored with the export.