Team chat: a shout across the yard — no archive, no record

What the chat is for — and what it is not for

“Running ten minutes late.” — “Can someone bring cable ties?” — “Table 4 has a reservation but won’t arrive until eight.” That is the team chat: the quick arrangement that used to run through a WhatsApp group on private phones. It replaces the shout across the yard, not the notice board.

A message has at most 1,000 characters. Anyone who wants to write more is told that longer content belongs in an announcement.

That is why, in every group, the retention period is shown above the history together with the sentence: “No sick notes and no health information — that is what absences are for.” The input field itself carries the note “no sick notes”. The reason is not pedantry: “Off sick, back again” is health data under Art. 9 GDPR, and it comes up in the chat in passing. Zeitflex cannot prevent that — but it can name it. How to report sick properly is explained under Recording a sick note.

Why the chat is off by default

Unlike announcements and documents, the team chat is switched off in a new business. The owner switches it on deliberately:

1. Open Settings → Business → Modules.
2. Switch on Team chat.
3. Read the notice that now appears and confirm it.

The notice appears only when switching on. Switching off is possible at any time and never asks for confirmation.

A module that switched itself on would take away from the business exactly the decision it has to make. Hence the switch.

Creating a group

The owner and shift managers may create groups.

1. Open Chat on the left and choose Create group at the top. The “New group” window opens.
2. Enter a Name — at most 40 characters. It appears on lock screens, so keep it short and without a subject line (“Early shift”, not “Early shift arrangements week 36”).
3. What is the group for? is optional, at most 120 characters.
4. Who is in it? — at least three people. The person creating the group is always included; creating a group you are not in would be a silent observation post.
5. How long are messages kept? — 7, 30 or 90 days. Default: 30.
6. Create group.

A business has at most 30 groups. The tax adviser can never be a member, not even by mistake: their access is intended for payroll and export, not for internal business matters.

Commitment 1: At least three people — later too

There are no one-to-one conversations. Three people prevent the chat from becoming a channel for pressure behind closed doors — for the sentence that reaches only one person and that nobody else ever sees.

The rule also applies after creation: if someone leaves the group and fewer than three remain, the group is closed. The history stays readable until the retention period ends; no more messages can be written. Leaving itself is never refused — forcing people to take part would be the worse solution.

Commitment 2: A retention period instead of an archive

When creating the group, management chooses how long messages are kept: 7, 30 or 90 days. There is nothing longer than 90 days — not for the owner either, not even for an extra charge. The 90 days are the maximum period from the privacy policy; all other periods in Zeitflex are statutory minimum periods that the business may extend. This one works the other way round.

What happens in practice:

Above every history, this sentence appears with the retention period of the respective group: “Messages here are arrangements, not records. They are deleted after 30 days, and from the nightly backup copies no later than 30 days after that.” Keeping quiet about the backup copies would go against our own product line — which is why the number is stated there.

Later, only the owner may change the retention period, via Manage in the header of the history; the group sees the change as a line in the history. A shorter period applies retroactively: older messages disappear in the next nightly deletion run.

Commitment 3: No silent reading along

The owner sees the names of all groups in the business and the number of their members — there are no secret groups. But the owner does not see what is written in them, nor when something was last written there.

If the owner wants to read along, they join. Joining creates the line “… has joined the group”, visible to everyone, and the history starts for them from that moment — nothing from before. This applies to the new temp just as much as to the owner. Even the number of unread messages does not tell a person who has just joined how much was said before.

What else does not exist: no “read by”, no “last online”, no “typing”, no search. Each of these indicators would be behavioural information about colleagues. The only thing stored is up to which message you yourself have read — for the number next to the group name.

Who may do what?

Every role in the business may write. A coordination channel in which the temp can only read would not be a channel but a second notice board.

Everything in this table can be done in the web interface. Anything beyond reading, writing and withdrawing is behind Manage in the header of the history: changing name and purpose, swapping members, setting the retention period, muting, closing or leaving the group. Only what your role is allowed to do is shown there.

Quiet hours: 21 to 6 is quiet time

A fixed quiet period from 21:00 to 6:00 (German time) applies to the chat. During this time no notification is delivered — regardless of what anyone has set personally. The reason is § 5 ArbZG (German Working Hours Act): in practice, work instructions go through the chat, and the eleven-hour rest period is not the sender’s choice. You can write at any time; the message then reaches the others in the morning.

Your personal quiet hours from the notifications come on top: anyone who has set 20 to 8 gets them for the chat as well.

Two rules for push messages are fixed: the message text never appears in the notification, only “3 new messages” — a push lands on the lock screen of a private phone and runs via Apple and Google. And several messages are bundled over 15 minutes instead of each ringing individually.

The one exception: complaints

If the owner removes someone else’s message — because of harassment, an insult, because it ended up in the wrong channel, by mistake or for any other reason — the group sees the line “A message was removed by management.” There is no moderation without joining: whoever intervenes is in the group, visible to everyone.

The wording of the removed message is preserved for six months and is then gone. This is the only place where a chat text outlives its retention period.

Only the owner sees the preserved messages, and every look at them is logged. Evidence that can be viewed unnoticed would also be an archive. Messages are removed via the remove link on someone else’s message; the list is at the bottom of the chat page under Removed messages and only opens on click — that too is intentional, so nobody reads along in passing.

Announcement or chat?

In short: announcement = record, one direction, stays. Chat = shout-out, fleeting, not a record.

Still stuck?

If a group cannot be created or a retention period does not fit, the support team can help. What belongs in an announcement is explained under Announcements; what the works council has a say in, under Works council and co-determination.