Chatting with People
Chats are interactive, real-time text conversations. Use chat if you need to ask a question or start a discussion.
You can send chat messages to anyone who has an Active or Away online status. People who are Away can see your messages once they return to their computers.
Note Chats with regular users are automatically secured with encryption if all participants use Sametime 1.5 or higher. If any participant uses an earlier version of Sametime (version 1.0 or earlier), the chat is not encrypted. Chats with external users are not encrypted.
End users can control the default location on a screen in which a chat windows pops up when the user participates in a chat session. End users can also control the size the chat window will have when it pops up on the screen. The administrator must enable this feature before it is available for end users.
Sending a Chat Message
Follow these steps to start a chat with a single person. If you are sending a chat message to multiple people, see "Starting an Instant Meeting from Sametime Connect" for instructions.
Tip To send a chat message to someone in the Participant List of an active meeting, double-click a name, enter your message, and press Enter. You can also select a name, choose Meeting - People - New Chat, enter your message, and press Enter.
- Do one of the following:
- Double-click a name.
- Select a name and click the "Instant chat meeting" icon.
- Right-click a name and choose Chat from the shortcut menu.
- Select a name and choose Meeting - Chat.
- In the Send Message dialog box, type your message and click Send or press Enter.
Tip Press CTRL+ENTER to start a new line in a chat message.
- (Optional) While chatting, you can do any of the following:
- Use the Edit menu to edit your messages before sending them.
- Choose Meeting - Add Tools and choose tools to add to the chat. See "Tools: How to Get Your Work Done" for more information about the available tools.
- Invite others to join the chat.
- Add a name to your contact list. If you are chatting with one other person, choose Meeting - "Add to List." If you are chatting with more than one other person, choose Meeting - People - "Add to List." Select or enter a personal group name in the Add New User dialog box and click OK.
- You can leave the chat at any time in any of the following ways:
- Click Close if you are in a chat with one person. Click Leave if you are in a chat with multiple people.
- Choose Meeting - Close in a chat with one person. In a chat with multiple people, choose Meeting - Leave.
- Click the close button in the upper right corner of the chat window.
Tip If you use Sametime Connect for the desktop, you can save a transcript, or text log, of the chat conversation to your computer. For more information, see the following:
Chatting with External Users
The following information applies to chats with external users:
- Chat messages are not encrypted.
- You cannot include multiple external users in a single instant chat meeting.
- You cannot include external users in chats with regular users.
- You cannot invite other people to a chat that is in progress.
- You cannot add tools to a chat.
- You cannot send announcements.
- You cannot use Sametime to transfer files to external users.