Messages
In-app messaging lets you talk to people in your school by role, and for gamers it allows messaging only with players they have actually played with.
Messages are encrypted at rest. Use HTTPS in production so traffic is encrypted in transit.
Starting a direct message
Go to Messages → New message. For direct messages:
- Choose a school. If you have one school it is preselected; webmasters pick from their schools.
- Choose Students or Faculty. Students = student role; Faculty = principals, co-principals, school staff, and teachers.
- Select one or more people. Use the checkboxes to pick recipients. You can send one message to multiple people in a single group conversation.
- Write your message and send.
Principals: message everyone and reply style
Principals and co-principals can use "Message everyone in this list" to start one group conversation with all students or all faculty in the chosen school.
When you message multiple people (or everyone), you choose how replies work:
- Group: Everyone in the conversation sees all replies in the same thread.
- Private: Replies stay between you and each person. When someone replies, they are taken to a private 1:1 thread with you so only you and that person see the reply.
Support / Feedback
Any user can start a Support / Feedback thread. Messages go to site administrators (superadmin and admin). Replies stay in that thread.
Blocking and reporting
In a direct (one-to-one) conversation, you can block the other person. After that, you will not see that direct thread in your inbox, and neither of you can send new messages in that 1:1 thread until the block is removed. Group conversations with more than two people are not hidden by a pairwise block—use report if something in a group needs attention.
You can submit a report from the conversation screen (reason and optional details). Reports are reviewed by site administrators. To limit abuse, reporting is rate-limited.
Links and trust
Staff accounts may share clickable links in chat. If you are a student and a staff member sends a message that includes a web link, the app shows a short reminder to only open links you trust.
Administrators and school staff
Site administrators (superadmin and admin) can open Admin → Messages to view conversations when needed for safety or support. Each time an admin opens a conversation there, an audit log entry is recorded. Superadmins and admins can also review message reports under Admin → Message reports.
Teachers and other school roles may have access to an admin messages list scoped to their school, consistent with your organization’s policies.
Gamer messaging rules
Gamer users can message only players they have actually played with. Pending invite-only relationships do not unlock messaging.
Privacy and encryption
Message content is encrypted at rest: stored in the database in encrypted form so that viewing the database directly does not reveal message text. The application decrypts content only when displaying it to participants (or to site admins for support).
In production, the site should be served over HTTPS so that all traffic between the browser and the server is encrypted in transit.
Where to find it
- Messages: "Messages" in the main navigation (or sidebar) opens your conversation list and New message.