View the Chats feed

The Chats feed displays chats to help you maintain awareness of all the communications taking place during a mission. Chat threads are shown in the order they are received, with the most recent displayed at the top. Users can choose to display all mission chats, or only those chats they took part in, by selecting the option at the top of the feed.

Note:

Because chats sometimes contain sketches paired with text and image attachments, they may be referred to as geomessages. These terms can be interchangeable, but the term geomessage is most often used to refer to a sketch that has been paired with text or other information.

Chats

Chat threads are displayed in the panel with the following information:

• Sender—The name of the mission member who sent the chat
• Time—The approximate time the message was sent
• Last Message—The most recent message sent as part of that chat thread

The chat feed allows users to send or reply to chats, which are detailed here. However, viewing sketches and attachments can be done from the feed as well.

Quick View messages

A quick sort or view of messages option allows you to quickly filter messages in the chat feed based on 4 categories: All Chats, My Chats, Important Chats, or Cached Chats. To filter the list do the following:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click My Chats menu and choose an option:
   • All Chats—displays all chats from the mission.
   • My Chats—displays only the chats that involve you.
   • Important Chats—displays only those chats marked as important
   • Cached Chats—displays all chats that have been cached to clean up the display
4. To switch to an additional view, continue to choose other options.

View a sketch inside the chat feed

Sketches appear on the mission map, but can also be accessed from the chat feed. To view a sketch from inside the chat feed, complete the following steps:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click a chat thread to expand the chat messages.
4. Click Sent a Sketch in the chat message.

   The map will zoom to the sketch, centering it and zooming to the maximum extent. A pop-up will also appear, displaying the message the sketch was sent with.

After you view the sketch you can respond to the chat message by clicking Reply or view another message in the chat, or view a different chat thread.

View an attachment inside the chat feed

From the mission analyst view, attachments sent with chats can only be accessed from the chat feed. To view an attachment, complete the following steps:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click a chat thread to expand the chat messages.
4. Click Sent an Image. If more than one attachment was sent with the same message click Sent X Images, where X is the number of attached images..

   The image viewer will open, displaying the attachments. You can view multiple attachments by scrolling through them in the image viewer.

5. Optionally, click to download the attachment to your device.
6. Click to close the image viewer and return to Chats.

Filter messages

The Filter Messages button allows you to organize the Chats feed based on specific members or teams. Selecting a mission member or team from the list displays only the message traffic associated with your filter in the Chats feed and mission map. This helps you to emphasize or isolate specific events of activity that occur in the mission. It also makes it easier to find a specific feed item, especially in missions with heavy feed traffic.

To filter the Chats feed, complete the following steps:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click Filter .

   The Filter Chats menu appears.

4. Click Member Filter to add mission participants to the filter.
5. Click Team Filter to add mission teams you want to filter.
6. Optionally, uncheck Apply filters to the map so your filter does not reflect in the mission map.
7. Click Apply to apply the filter. Alternatively, lick Clear All to remove all of the filters from the chat feed to see all chat threads in the mission.

   The filter is applied and only the chat threads that match the filter critera are shown in the feed.

Sort chats

Sort allows you to sort your messages based on key fields and in a specific sort direction. The Chats feed is sorted by date received with the most recent message on top by default.

To sort the Chats feed, complete the following steps:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click Sort .

   The sort menu appears.

4. Click a Sort by option:
   • Received
   • Sender
   • Unread
5. Optionally, choose the Sort direction:
   • Most Recent—for Received sort.
   • Least Recent—for Received sort.
   • Alphabetical—for Sender sort.
   • Reverse Aphabetical—for Sender sort.
   • Unread—for Unread sort.
   • Read—for Unread sort.

   The Chats feed updates with the new sort criteria.

Edit chat importance

Messages that have been marked as important may have a stale time where the message no longer holds important significance. Alternatively, there may be the need to make a previously standard chat important. To edit chat importance do the following:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click a chat thread to expand the chat messages.
4. Click the chat message to modify.

   A menu appears below the selected chat message.

5. Click Add (red flag)to mark the message as important.

   The chat message is updated with a red flag.

To clear message importance, click the message again, click Remove.

Cache chat message sketch

If you are the mission owner or mission lead, you have the option of caching sketches to remove them from the Chats feed and mission map for all mission members. To cache sketches, complete the following steps:

1. Open a mission in ArcGIS Mission Manager.
2. Click Chats to open the chats feed.
3. Click a chat thread to expand the chat messages.
4. Click the chat message with sketch, marked Sent a Sketch.

   A menu appears below the message.

5. Click Cache .

   A Cache Chat dialog appears to confirm that you want to hide this chat from other members of the mission.

6. Click Cache . Click Cancel if you do not want to hide the sketch.

   Your mission map and feed update by caching the message sketch.

View cached sketch messages

To view cached messages, complete the following steps:

1. Browse to the Quick View Messages option.
2. Click Cached Chats.
3. Find the chat you want to restore and click the Cache icon.

   A dialog box appears asking to confirm your action to restore the message back into the feed.

4. Click Restore.

   The Chats feed updates with the remaining cached messages.

More menu

The More menu contains the Mark All as Read and Collapse All tools. The Mark All as Read tool removes the unread indicator from all chats in your feed. The Collapse All option allows you to close all chat threads you have opened and display the chat feed in list form again.