Shoutout again to the supreme @Darren_Murphy and @Robert_Petitto who helped me nail my presentation yesterday. Still so proud I managed to learn that much in a day. So some feedback questions I got were topics discussed here before but I don’t really see updated threads since 2020 so checking in about:
How can we create an announcements tab or feature that only admin can post to? I’m using the native chat screen (which we all know is limited I guess) but I’d like a separate place where admins can post a message/chat/topic whatever the correct lingo is and have it notify users via zapier until we get native push.
To add onto that separate place, since there are no notifications yet…how to display a popup alert message every time the user opens the app so they can see the latest announcement and clicking it will take them to the announcement. This would require that signed in user is established as having never seen the alert yet or already has read the alert, and if the latter will not be shown the popup. Alternatively I would also like to emulate…if anyone is familiar with Wix Spaces which also released their own app builder…to have a designated section on the home screen where announcements always are housed at the top of page…and each new announcement replaces the previous one? A see more or read more link will be link to screen. See attached Wix example (excuse redacted just to protect student names)
I have figured out basic private messaging thanks to Bob! But if there are any 2022 updates on similar Slack things like tap-to-replying to comments, deleting comments, reacting to comments/messages in a chat that would be great. Being able to add a heart at the minimum to messages and announcements would be ideal. Sending images in chat would be bonus.
Lastly I’ve seen earlier ‘20/‘21 templates but what is the latest on forum or group chat functionality that looks more modern than the native chat screen? I’d like our study groups to have their own discussion threads on a few topics if possible and then show all via inline list. So basically just list showing title of Discussion(ie. West Side Study, Group Hosts, etc) then underneath title display line of most recent message posted, and maybe date. Tapping titles will show thread.
I guess you just create a new tab, then have a table for admins to write announcements to. On posting a new row to the Announcements table, trigger your Zap to send out notifications, but beware of the number of email addresses you can send to in a single email to not go over the quota.
Getting a true pop-up is a bit of a hack with Glide Apps, and not available with Glide Pages. If you want to dive into it with CSS, read this.
Looks like it can be done as an inline list, and you make the right filter to show only the newest notifications/unread notifications. Use a user-specific column to determine whether the user has read the announcement or not, once they click on it, set the column to true.
Tap-to-reply: Doing it in the sort of a “comment tree” is more difficult (with context on what comment the user replied to), but basically it is about storing the ID of the original comment, and then decide how you want to show it in the front end.
Deleting comment: Pretty straightforward with a delete action if you build the chat flow yourself, not the native chat component.
Reacting: You can add a “favorite” heart overlay on a tiles/card layout.
Then just allow them to create Topics in a separate table I guess.
Oh wow, totally forgot you can add the Faves as an overlay on pretty much anything. Great point, I’ll try it now!
And for the topics…sorry how do I allow either admins or users to create new topics/chats? Still trying to find a visual guide that breaks down how to create new chats. I’ve been stuck there
Hey there! Just revisiting this as I have set up everything else but got stuck on this part. Can you let me know what type of column I need to add? I know it should be user specific but not sure of anything else. I have the inline list of notifications…now just need to put it all togther. Thank you!
It could be any type of column. The main point is that you change the value in the column when a user reads the announcement, and then use that as a filter. ie. “only show me announcements that I haven’t read”.
Thinh was suggesting a boolean column, and that’s a good choice for this use case. So by default the column will be empty (not checked), and when a user reads an announcement use a Set Column Values action to change it to true (checked). Then your Announcements filter becomes “where user specific column is not checked”.
I’m circling back on this custom action for deleting a comment, which I assume you mean to choose Delete Row? I tried that but realized maybe I need to alert the user first. Is there a way to add “are you sure you want to delete?” before it actually deletes to this action? Or something similar like a trash icon and they have to confirm first…the way it is in any other text exchange platform.
