The Chat

Hi Laura!

We have started using chat extensively since the January

Is there anything specific you would like to know

I am interested in some user experience too. 

We are struggling a little bit trying to implement it in our workflow.

Thanks.

Here are the current thoughts:

We have implemented Chat to move away from the e-mail communication channel between PMs and Vendors.

It is hard to tell exactly how satisfied the Vendors are - I have not received any complaints thus far, the rate of people active in a Chat is high and the exchange of information is frequent. We consider this a success.

From the PM's perspective, it is a bit of a mixed bag. 

The main value it is supposed to bring is nailed on. The live chat makes it more seamless and we need to switch the systems less.

The UX is quite poor though, you cannot search for a project, which makes it inconvenient if you are managing a lot of projects. The workaround is to use the CTRL+F function of the browser... This is not ideal because there are multiple places in which Project ID exists.

There is no way to put projects with unread messages on the top as well, which probably would fix the above issue to some degree as well.

In general, PMs like it better than e-mails, it would be perfect if there would be some QOL changes to the Chat but I reached out to XTRF and I was told there are no plans to improve that product currently.

Sometimes the invitations also (especially for PMs) take a day or so to create a correct token to join the workspace, which means that whoever is in charge of maintenance of XTRF will need to monitor it for the first few days.

I forgot to mention, we are using Smart Projects