Run a channel: users, moderators and bans

To make a channel in Chat:

1. On the Chat page, click Browse channels at the bottom of the list, then New channel.
2. Give it a name and, if you like, a description of what it is for.
3. Leave Private off for a channel the whole team sees. Turn it on for a channel only its users see, and pick the Users. You are always one of them.
4. Click Save, and the channel is ready for its first message.

To rename a channel, change its description or make it private or public, open the channel and its settings. There you also delete it, with its messages. Only the channel's managers and the base's admins may do this (Make a user a channel manager or moderator); for everyone else the settings are not offered. To add or remove users, use the channel's Users (Join, leave and add users to a channel).

Choose who makes channels

An admin chooses who makes channels, in Settings › Chat. When Users can make public channels is off, only admins make a public channel or make a channel public. When Users can make private channels is off, only admins make a private channel or make a channel private. Both are on at first. Direct messages do not change.

A channel is public or private, and that sets who sees it:

• A public channel: every user of the base's team finds it in Browse channels, reads it and joins it to write in it.
• A private channel: only its users. Nobody else sees that it is there, in the base, through an API token or through an AI client. This includes the base's admins: an admin reads a private channel only when they are one of its users.

A private channel, a direct message and a group chat, with their messages, reactions and files, are read only by their users. Nothing else reads them: not a builder's SQL, such as a computed default or a row rule, not the base's code or its automations, and not an agent working by itself.

Every channel has its users: the people who joined it, in a public channel too. Your Chat page lists only the channels you joined, and only they count in your unread messages.

• Browse channels, at the bottom of the Chat page's list, lists the base's public channels. Open one to read it without joining: in place of the message box, a bar offers Join. Click it to write in the channel and to see it in your list.
• In a channel you joined, Leave is in the channel's menu. The channel goes from your list; a public one you may join again from Browse channels.
• The channel's header shows how many users it has. Click the number to open its Users, the list of them.

Add or remove users

The channel's managers and the base's admins find Add users and Remove in the channel's Users, and its moderators Remove (Make a user a channel manager or moderator). Pick users one by one, or add all users of a role at once: the users who hold the role now join, and a user who gets the role later does not. A user removed from a private channel no longer reads it; a user removed from a public channel may join it again.

Add or remove the assistant

The assistant can take part in a private channel, a group chat or a direct message. Who may add users to a private channel adds it there: Add the assistant in the channel's Users or in the channel's menu, or a message that mentions it. In a group chat and a direct message, each user adds it from the chat's menu or with a mention. The chat says who added it. From then on the assistant reads the messages of that chat and answers one when it can help, with the permissions of the person who wrote it; a change it proposes waits on a card that only that person applies. Any user of the chat removes it: Remove in Users, Remove the assistant in the menu, or a message such as "@Assistant, leave". Not needed under an answer nobody asked for removes that answer; after two in one chat within 30 days, the assistant leaves the chat. An agent of your base joins the same way: Add an agent in the chat's menu. It listens there as the assistant does: it answers a message that names it, and, where the assistant is not in the chat, the first agent added answers the other messages. Any user of the chat removes it with Remove and its name in the menu. In a thread where the assistant answered your mention, in any channel, it also answers your next messages there without a new mention. An admin turns all of this off for the base in Settings, AI settings, The assistant listens in chats.

In a public channel the assistant is present from the start: nobody adds it. When a question there gets no answer for 20 seconds and the base's data answers it, the assistant replies in the question's thread. When you ask the room for a change, such as "can someone mark order 55 as shipped?", it proposes the change on a card that only you can apply. When you write a new fact that belongs in the base, such as "Mrs Lin moved her Thursday booking to Monday 10am", it checks the base and proposes the record on a card that only you can apply, here and in a chat where a person added it. It changes nothing without your card. It reads only the words of the person it answers, and it stays silent when a colleague answered first. Not needed works as above; after two in 30 days it stops reading the channel for 30 days. Who manages the channel removes it with Remove the assistant in the channel's menu or Remove on its row in Users, and adds it back the same way.

Default channels

An admin may make a channel a default one: in the channel's settings, turn on Default channel. Each new user of the base then joins it, as they join every other default channel.

A user of a channel is its Manager, its Moderator or neither. The user who makes a channel is its first manager. The Users list shows each user's role beside their name.

• A manager renames the channel, changes its description, makes it private or public, sets Who can add users, Who can use @channel and @here and who posts and replies (Choose who posts and replies in a channel), adds and removes users, gives and takes roles, archives and restores the channel, keeps its bookmarks and deletes it.
• A moderator deletes another user's message and removes users from the channel. A moderator does not remove a manager and does not change the channel.
• An admin of the base may do what a manager does in each channel they read, with no role in it. A user who builds the base gets no right in a channel for that: what they may do there is their role in the channel.

Give or take a role

To give a channel role, open the channel's Users, open the menu beside a user and click Make manager or Make moderator. Remove role takes it back. A user holds one role at most, and a manager may give up their own role. A user who leaves the channel, or is removed from it, loses their role: when they join again, they have none.

Who can add users, in the channel's settings, sets who adds users to the channel: Managers only, at first, or Every user of the channel. Managers always add users.

Delete another user's message

To delete another user's message, a moderator, a manager or an admin opens the message's menu and clicks Delete, then says why: the reason is required. The message goes for everyone: it leaves the channel in front of you, and no pop-up message shows. Its author still sees it in place, as "A moderator deleted this message", with the reason, and gets a notification that links to the channel, counted beside Chat in the rail (Get notified of mentions and messages). Nobody else sees the reason.

Two switches in a channel's settings set who writes in the channel. Both are on at first.

• Users can post new messages lets every user of the channel post a new message. When it is off, only the managers post new messages.
• Users can reply to messages lets every user of the channel reply to messages in threads. When it is off, only the managers reply.

The channel's managers and the base's admins always post and reply. Only they change the two switches.

To make a channel only for announcements, turn off Users can post new messages. Keep Users can reply to messages on to let users ask questions in the thread of each announcement, or turn it off too.

When you may not post, a line takes the place of the box where you write: "Only managers can post new messages in this channel." In a thread where you may not reply, the line says "Only managers can reply in this channel." You can still read the channel, react, and edit and delete your own messages.

Archive a channel that is no longer in use. An archived channel is read only. It keeps its users, messages, pinned messages and bookmarks. Only the channel's managers and the base's admins archive and restore a channel.

1. Open the channel's menu and click Archive channel.
2. Confirm.

The archived channel goes from the Chat page and does not count in your unread messages. Browse channels lists it under Archived; open it there to read it. Nobody posts, replies, edits, deletes or reacts in it, and nobody pins messages or changes its bookmarks. Nobody joins it or adds users to it, and a new user of the base does not join it, also when it is a default channel. Its users can still leave it.

To use the channel again, open it and click Restore channel, in the channel's menu or in the line that takes the place of the box where you write. The channel comes back to the Chat page of its users.

A ban keeps a user out of a channel for a time, and a timeout keeps them quiet in it. The channel's managers and moderators, and an admin of the base in a channel they read, give them:

• A ban lasts 1 day, 7 days, 30 days or for good. The user leaves the channel and loses their role in it. While the ban lasts, they cannot join the channel again, and nobody can add them, also not with their role. They can still find and read a public channel, as every user who did not join it, but they cannot write in it.
• A timeout lasts 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day or a time that you set, up to 30 days. The user stays in the channel and reads it, but cannot send a message or a reply, edit their messages or react. They can still delete their own messages.

Give a ban or a timeout

1. Open the channel's Users, open the menu beside a user and click Ban… or Time out….
2. Pick how long and write the reason. The reason is required.
3. Confirm.

A moderator does not ban or time out a manager, and nobody bans or times out themselves or an admin of the base. To ban or time out a user of the base's team who did not join the channel, open Bans and timeouts in the channel's menu, click Ban… or Time out… and pick the user. To give a user a new ban or timeout, give it again: it takes the place of the one before.

What the user sees

The banned or timed-out user sees why and until when. In the channel, a notice takes the place of the box where they write: "You are timed out in this channel until …" or "You are banned from this channel until …", with the reason. In Browse channels, a channel they are banned from shows "Banned until …" or "Banned for good" and the reason, with no Join.

End a ban or a timeout

Bans and timeouts, in the channel's menu beside Moderation log, lists the active ones, each with the user, until when, the reason, and who gave it and when. Click End to end one before its time. When its time ends, a ban or a timeout stops by itself.

A ban is for one channel only. To keep a user out of all of the base's chat, remove them from the base.

Each channel keeps a moderation log of what was done in it, newest first: a role given or taken, a user added, a user removed by someone else, another user's message deleted, with the reason, a ban or a timeout given, with the reason and until when, or ended before its time, and a change of the channel's settings, with what changed. Each entry says who did it and when. Joining and leaving a channel are not in it.

The channel's managers and moderators, and the base's admins, find Moderation log in the channel's menu. It shows the latest entries; Load more shows older ones. Other users of the channel do not read it. When the channel is deleted, its log goes with it.

Report, in a message's menu, tells Base Captain that the message breaks the law or the rules. Pick a reason, add a note if you like, and click Send. The report sends us a copy of the message as you see it, a person reads it, and you hear back by email (Report abuse).

When a person leaves the base, their Chat messages stay where they were, with their text, files and reactions, but they read removed user in place of the person's name: in the base, through an API token and through an AI client.

Chat messages are kept until someone deletes them. An admin of the base may have them deleted after a time:

1. In Settings, Chat, turn on Delete old messages.
2. Enter a number of days, from 30 to 9999.
3. Save and confirm.

Base Captain asks to confirm each time the setting is turned on or its number goes down. It starts off, and while it is off, messages are kept. No assistant, agent or AI client changes it.

With Delete old messages on, every message older than that, in the base's channels, direct messages and group chats, is deleted once an hour, as if its author had deleted it: a message with replies keeps its place in the thread, and its old replies go too.

Whatever that setting, a deleted message is erased for good, with its files and its reactions, after the base's Erase deleted items after, 30 days unless the base's admins changed it (Restore a deleted item).

Export your data, in Settings, General (Download all of your base's data in one zip file), puts the channels in the zip too:

• _channels.json: the channels you may read, the private ones, direct messages and group chats you are a user of included;
• _comments.json: their messages and replies, with their reactions, and the comments of the items in the export;
• the messages' files, each under files/.

A private channel, a direct message or a group chat you are not a user of stays out of your export.

Import from Slack brings your team's history into Chat: its channels, their messages and their threads. The import is for the users who build the base.

1. In Slack, export your workspace from its settings. A Slack workspace's owners and admins do this, and get a zip file.
2. In Settings › Chat, click Import from Slack and pick the zip file.
3. The import runs while you wait, and then says how many channels and messages came in, and how many users were matched.

What the import does:

• Each Slack channel becomes a new public channel, its description the Slack channel's purpose.
• Each message keeps its time, and a reply stays in its thread.
• A person whose Slack email address is a user's writes as that user. Everyone else shows as removed user.
• A mention of a person becomes @ and their name.
• Joins and leaves are left out.
• Slack's files do not come in, as Slack gives them only to its own sign-in: their names are added to the text of their message.

Channels in Base Captain have these limits:

• Direct messages and group chats have no managers and no moderators.
• Direct messages and group chats have no bans and no timeouts.
• Direct messages and group chats are not archived.