How to choose an internal messaging app: 7 criteria and a comparison

One project team picked its own messaging tool; a few weeks later another team moved to a different one. At the end of the year, finding where a decision was written down means searching three apps; a former employee’s account is still active; work files sit in an employee’s personal account. None of the tools was bad; they were all fast and easy. What was missing was a link between the conversations and the company’s records, permissions and data structure. That is why choosing an internal messaging tool should not start from the question “which one does everyone use?” but from the criteria below.

An internal messaging app is software that handles employees’ one-to-one and group conversations and their file and image sharing on a platform under the organisation’s control; it is also called business messaging. The difference from a personal chat app is that conversations sit within the organisation’s structure rather than in the employee’s own account.

How do you choose an internal messaging app? Seven criteria

You can use the table below like a scorecard: give each candidate tool 0, 1 or 2 points on each row and compare the rows where it scores zero rather than the total. A tool that scores zero on a criterion your company cannot do without should be ruled out, however well it does on the other six.

Business messaging apps: three options side by side

The table does not say that one option is “better” or “worse” than the others; each suits a different need. What matters is deciding in advance which criteria your company considers essential. If you are only looking for quick chat, the first option may be enough. If decisions, approvals and files also travel through these conversations, the records and permissions criteria come to the fore.

If you are leaning towards a standalone business chat product, ask for written answers to these questions before signing: where are the conversations stored, in what format do you get your data back when the contract ends, can you manage users from your existing user list, and who closes a leaver’s account? These questions apply whatever the product, and a vague answer is information in itself.

When is a personal chat app enough, and when is it not?

In a team of five or ten people in the same office, where decisions that need records are kept somewhere else, a personal chat app is perfectly adequate; there is no need to impose a new tool on anyone. As the company grows, these problems start to appear:

• When and by whom a decision was made gets buried in the message stream and can only be found by searching.
• Work conversations and files remain on the phone of an employee who leaves.
• The company does not know who has been added to or removed from groups.
• Because employees use the same app for work and personal messages, expectations around out-of-hours messages become unclear.
• Field and production staff use different apps, and the same topic is discussed in several places.

Five things to decide within the company before choosing a tool

1. Scope: Will messaging be used only for team coordination, or will it also be a channel for decisions and files?
2. Rules: Which topics are discussed in messaging, and which are moved to a recorded workflow (leave, requests, approvals)?
3. Administration: Who opens and closes groups, and who removes a leaver’s access?
4. Hours: Is a reply expected outside working hours, and is there a separate channel for emergencies?
5. Transition: When will the old channel close, and how will the new tool be introduced to employees?

How do you run a small trial with candidate tools?

Before filling in the scorecard, try two candidate tools with one team on real work. A trial shows far more than screenshots.

1. Choose a pilot team. Include a few people from different roles: a manager, a field or production worker and an office employee.
2. Move a real piece of work. Run the weekly coordination or a project’s file sharing through the new tool.
3. Test the hard questions. If an employee leaves, where do the conversations stay? Who can see a conversation? Where do you find a file shared three weeks ago?
4. Remove a user. Close the account and watch what happens to the past conversations.
5. Ask employees one question. Would you like to give up the old way? The answer tells you more than the scorecard.

How does the KurumsalPortal Messaging Module meet these criteria?

In YazSis KurumsalPortal, the Messaging Module approaches the seven criteria as follows:

• Records: One-to-one and group conversations and shared files stay on record within the portal; even if an employee or team changes, work conversations remain in the company memory.
• Access: Only authorised people can access conversations; who can access the records is limited by permission settings.
• Files and images: Files and images can be shared in one-to-one conversations and team groups; the content stays in the conversation record.
• Unread messages and notifications: Users see their unread messages at a glance and receive notifications for new messages.
• Data location: The portal runs on the customer’s own server and data is not sent to a third-party cloud; the system runs on PHP and MySQL with standard cPanel hosting.
• Users and permissions: Messaging uses the same user, permission and notification infrastructure as the portal’s other modules; users and roles are managed in a single structure.
• Ease of use: Employees use the portal from their phone’s browser without installing an app.

The practical result of being under one roof is that messaging does not stand apart like an island. Because work such as leave, announcements and tasks also runs in the same user structure, employees sign in everywhere with one account; and because users and permissions are managed in one structure, there is no need to look for a leaver’s access in a separate messaging list. Approvals and requests that need records are better handled in their own modules rather than in messaging; messaging is for coordination and does not replace an approval process.

For details of the module, see the Messaging Module page; for the portal’s other modules, see the KurumsalPortal page.