Chat

The Chat module is a team chat for convention staff: every department gets its own channel whose membership follows the department roster automatically, plus event-wide channels (such as All Staff), ad-hoc group chats, and direct messages between staff members.

Chat is staff-facing: attendees never see it. The module only appears in the navigation for people holding a staff position, and the administrative page requires a department that owns the Team Chat module (see HR management & module permissions).

Under the hood, Chat runs on the open Matrix protocol, which means you can also connect from third-party Matrix apps such as Element — signing in with your normal Midsummer account.

For staff

Channels, groups, and direct messages

Open Chat from the main navigation. The room list has three groups:

  • Channels — your department channels and event-wide channels like All Staff. You are added to your department’s channel automatically when you join the department, and removed when you leave it; there is nothing to join or configure.

  • Groups — ad-hoc group chats you create or are invited to.

  • Direct messages — one-on-one conversations with other staff members.

Use the new chat button to start a group or DM: search the staff directory, pick people, and go. Rooms support image and file attachments, @-mentions, and pinned messages (open a room’s pinned-messages dialog to see what leadership has pinned).

Note

Chat messages are stored on your event’s chat server and are not end-to-end encrypted — this is deliberate, so that operational conversations remain searchable and auditable by the organization. Treat channels like a shared workspace, not a private inbox.

Using other Matrix apps

Because Chat speaks the Matrix protocol, you can connect a third-party client such as Element (desktop or mobile):

  1. In the client, choose sign in with a custom homeserver and enter your event’s chat server address (ask your organizers or technical staff).

  2. The client redirects you to Midsummer’s normal sign-in (magic links and two-factor authentication work as usual).

  3. Your rooms appear exactly as they do in the built-in Chat page.

For event organizers

Setup

  1. Enable the Chat module for the event (Event Administration → Modules tab).

  2. In the HR dashboard, grant a department ownership of the Team Chat module. Leadership of that department can then open Chat Settings (Chat menu → Admin) to monitor and re-sync rooms.

Once enabled, department channels are created automatically for every active department, and their membership is kept in sync with the department rosters — adding someone to a department (manually, by invitation, or through an approved job application) adds them to the channel within moments, and removing them removes the channel access too.

Note

Chat requires the event’s hosting to include a chat server. If the Chat module does not appear even after enabling it, contact your technical staff or support@midsummer.cloud.

What you do not manage

  • You never manage channel membership by hand — fix the department roster and the channel follows.

  • Group chats and DMs belong to their participants; they are not tied to departments and are not administered from Midsummer.

For event technical staff

  • Room membership is reconciled automatically every few minutes. If a roster change has not propagated, open Chat Settings (requires admin on the Team Chat module) and trigger a manual re-sync; the same page shows sync status.

  • Third-party clients sign in through Midsummer’s single sign-on — if SSO fails in Element but the built-in Chat page works, the chat server’s SSO configuration is the first thing to check with the Midsummer team.

  • Chat availability depends on the deployment: the chat server (Matrix Synapse) is hosted alongside Midsummer and may not be enabled in every installation. If it is down, the rest of Midsummer is unaffected.