How to Send Messages to Coworkers in ElderSuite

📝 Overview

Messages lets the employees of one center pass short messages to each other without leaving ElderSuite. Instead of a sticky note or a hallway search, a staff member picks a coworker, types a few lines, and sends. Each conversation is between two employees, and a message can point straight at the client it concerns.

Every message stays inside the center. It is kept in the center’s own ElderSuite database with the rest of its records, nothing is sent by email, and only employees of the same center can be written to. Because messages are part of the center’s records, the account administrator can read them back in Message History.

Messages is on for every employee to begin with. An administrator can turn it off for one person from the employee’s permissions in the Provider Center.

⚙ How It Works

1. Open Messages From the Status Bar

Click Messages in the status bar at the bottom of the ElderSuite main window, just left of the connection status, or press F9 anywhere in ElderSuite. Messages opens as a tab inside the main window, the same way other ElderSuite windows do. It is not opened from a Center.

While messages are waiting, Messages in the status bar turns bold and shows the unread count in brackets. Opening it goes straight to the person whose unread message is newest. When a message arrives while you are working elsewhere, a Message from <name> notice slides in at the bottom right of the screen; click it to open that conversation. If messages arrived while you were signed out, a single notice after you sign in tells you how many are unread.

Closing the Messages tab does not stop anything. Messages keep arriving, and the status bar keeps counting them until you sign out.

2. Get Started the First Time

Until an employee opens Messages for the first time, the status bar reads Messages (1) even though nobody has written to them. That number is a nudge so the new feature gets noticed, not a real message. On their first sign-in, a one-time notice at the bottom right reads “New: send messages to your coworkers. Click to see.” When messages are already waiting, the unread notice appears instead.

The first time Messages opens, a Welcome to Messages box explains the window and closes with: “Messages stay in your center’s records, and your account administrator can review them.” Click OK. The nudge clears, and from then on the status bar shows the real unread count. The first opening is recorded against the employee, so neither the notice nor the Welcome box comes back on another computer.

3. Find a Coworker in the People List

The left side of the window lists every active employee of the center who is allowed to use Messages. Your own name is not in the list. Type part of a name in the Find a person box to shorten it.

The dot beside each name shows whether that person is signed in. Green means signed in and Available, amber means Away, red means Do Not Disturb, and gray means not signed in. A blue number shows how many of that person’s messages you have not read yet. Signed-in people sort to the top, then people with unread messages, then everyone else by name.

Set your own status in the My status box at the top left. ElderSuite also sets you to Away after a stretch with no keyboard or mouse input and switches you back to Available as soon as you return. A status you chose yourself is left alone.

4. Send a Message

Click the person’s name, type in the box along the bottom, and press Enter or click Send. Press Shift+Enter to start a new line inside the same message. There is no Save button: a message is written to the ElderSuite database the moment it is sent and reaches a signed-in coworker within a few seconds.

A message can hold up to 2,000 characters. A counter appears under Send as you near the limit, and the box stops accepting characters when you reach it. A message sent to someone who is not signed in waits for them and is counted the next time they sign in.

Your own messages appear on the right in blue and the other person’s on the left in green, each headed with the sender and the time. Times are shown in the local time of the computer you are looking at. Long conversations open on the newest messages; click Show earlier messages above the conversation to load older ones, and keep clicking until the button disappears to see the whole conversation.

5. Point a Message at a Client

To tie a message to a client, pick the client in the About a client (optional) box above the typing box before you send. Typing part of a name searches the list. The bubble then carries an About: line with the client’s name drawn as a link, and one click on that link, or Open Client Record on the bubble’s right-click menu, opens the client’s record. The picker clears after every send, so each message names a client only when one is picked for it.

Opening the client record from a message follows the same Edit Clients permission that controls editing clients elsewhere in ElderSuite. A client who was just added to ElderSuite appears in the picker the next time the Messages tab is opened.

A message is a quick pointer, not the client’s record. Anything the record should hold belongs in the record itself, such as a client note.

6. Delete a Message You Sent

Messages cannot be edited after they are sent. To take one back, right-click your own bubble, choose Delete Message, and answer Yes when ElderSuite asks “Delete this message? The other person will see that a message was deleted.” The bubble stays in place, grayed, and reads “This message was deleted.” on your screen at once and on the other person’s screen the next time they open the conversation.

You can delete only your own messages. To correct something, delete it if needed and send a new message with the correction.

7. Control Notices and Sound

Click Options at the top right of the Messages tab to set two switches for yourself on that computer. Uncheck Play a sound for new messages to silence the sound. Uncheck Show the message in the notification and the notice reads “Click to open the conversation.” instead of showing the message itself, which is useful on a computer in a shared area. Both choices stay in place after you sign out.

To pause interruptions for a while, set My status to Do Not Disturb. No notices or sound are shown to you, but the count in the status bar still climbs, so nothing is missed. Set it back to Available when you are free.

8. Turn Messages Off for an Employee

Administrators control Messages one employee at a time with the Use Messages permission on the Provider Center tab of the employee’s Manage Permissions, reached from Manage Employees. For how employee records and permissions are set up, see How to Add Employees and Set Permissions in ElderSuite.

The box is checked for every employee to begin with, including records saved before Messages existed, so saving an unrelated change does not switch Messages off. Uncheck Use Messages and click Save & Close, and that employee loses Messages from the status bar, F9 stops working for them, and they drop out of everyone’s people list. The change takes effect within five minutes on the next screen they open, or at once after they sign out and back in. Checking the box again brings them back the same way.

9. Review Conversations in Message History

The account administrator, and any login that is not Limited Access, sees Message History... on the Options menu of the Messages tab. No permission check box grants it; it follows the login’s access level. For a Limited Access login, the item is not on the menu.

Message History opens as a tab with every conversation in the center on the left and, for the conversation selected, every message on the right in the order it was sent, with who sent it, the client it named, and when it was deleted if it was. It is read-only from end to end: nothing can be edited, deleted, printed, or exported. Deleted messages appear in full, marked with the time they were deleted.

10. Check the Usual Causes When Something Is Missing

If Messages is not in the status bar and F9 does nothing, Use Messages has been unchecked on that employee’s record. If a coworker is missing from the people list, their employee record may be marked Inactive, or Use Messages may be unchecked for them. Employees of other centers are not listed.

If no notice or sound appears, check My status and the two switches under Options. A message also counts as read on arrival when its conversation is already open on the Messages tab in front of you. If a time looks wrong, check the Windows date, time, and time zone on that computer, since every message is shown in that computer’s local time.

⚠ Deleted Messages Stay on Record

Deleting a message hides it from the two people in the conversation, not from the center’s records. Message History still shows the message in full, along with when it was sent and when it was deleted. Write every message as part of the center’s records, and keep anything a client’s record should hold in the record rather than in a message.

💡 Need More Help?

For step-by-step instructions, click Ask Eddie from within ElderSuite.