Messaging
The Care Connect Web application allows you to send and receive messages to other users on Spok Mobile or Care Connect Web. Care Connect Web uses the contact information from your site’s directory to enable you to send text messages, videos, pictures, and PDF documents to other users and their devices.
For example, if you would like to quickly send a picture of a patient’s medical record, sending a picture of that information through the Care Connect Web application ensures that the information remains private and is sent securely, keeping confidential information private.
Sending videos, photos, and documents is helpful if you want to communicate information like test results or x-rays. Files with the following format can be sent and received in Care Connect Web messages:
- .jpg / .jpeg
- .png
- .gif
- .mp4
As an added security feature, the Care Connect Web application prevents users from copying received pictures, saving received pictures, or setting received pictures as the default image for a device background. This ensures that confidential, private pictures cannot be shared or viewed outside of the secure Care Connect Web application.
The Care Connect Web application limits the size and the number of attachments that can be included per message. Up to 10 attachments can be added to a single message, and the maximum combined size for all of the attachments on a single message is 500 MB.
Viewing Your Chats and Messages
The Messages inbox displays all of your chats and messages. The inbox is opened by default when you log into Care Connect Web, and can also be accessed by clicking on the drawer icon 
and selecting Messages.
When a new individual chat or a new group chat is created, the chat will be added to each chat member's inbox. Messages that are sent to the chat will be delivered to all members of the chat. The incoming messages display as standard, chat-style messages where all messages are included in one message thread.
When you receive a message, the chat containing the new, unread message will display in bold to indicate that the message has not been read. The chat will also be highlighted in red, turquoise, or blue to indicate the priority of the most recent unread message.
Each chat displays the first part of the text of the most recent message, the time that message was sent, and the site that the chat is from. Individual chats also display the user's icon and name, while group chats display the group icon and the name of the group:
Messages that were originally received on an earlier Spok Mobile version may have some differences in appearance after they are synced to the new inbox, such as displaying a user's contact method instead of their name (e.g., their email address).
To view a chat, simply click the chat in the Messages inbox. Within a chat, you can easily view the details of each message's status:
Your chats and messages are unified across all of your devices. If you are signed into multiple devices, new chats and messages will be received and displayed on each device simultaneously.
Message Notifications
When the Care Connect Web app is running on your device, it will let you know when you have an incoming message. When a new message is received on your device, the alert tone is activated to notify you that you have a new message. When the message is opened, you can view the message text, the message status, the time the message was sent, and other information in the Message screen.
Care Connect Web messages can also display links to URLs. If a link displays in an incoming message, you can click on the link to open the URL in your web browser.
Message Priority Indicators
Chats include visual indicators which show the priority of the first message in the chat, as well as the priority of the most recent unread message.
If the first message in the chat is High priority or Low priority, then the chat will display 
or 
in the bottom-left corner. This helps to distinguish conversations which are urgent from conversations which are less time-sensitive.
Likewise, chats with unread messages will be highlighted to indicate the priority of the most recent unread message:
| If the most recent unread message is... | ... then the chat will be highlighted in: |
| High priority | Red |
| Medium priority | Turquoise |
| Low priority | Blue |
Both of these indicators can be present simultaneously. For example, the following image shows a chat where the first message was high priority (indicated by the high priority tag in the bottom-left corner), but where the most recent unread message is low priority (indicated by the chat being highlighted in blue):
Message Delivery Notifications
Message delivery notifications provide detailed information about the delivery status of messages in your chats. When enabled, message delivery notifications appear below each message in a chat, as shown in the image below:
The following table describes the message delivery notifications that can display:
|
Delivery Notification |
What it Means |
|
Read |
The message has been read by the recipient(s) in the chat. NOTE: In a group chat, this will appear with a number indicating how many recipients have read the message (e.g., "Read 2" if two recipients have read it). |
|
Delivered |
A message that you sent has been delivered to the recipient(s) in the chat. |
| Failed | A message that you sent has encountered an error, and was not delivered to the recipient(s). |
|
Sending... |
A message that you sent is in the process of being delivered. |
By default, message delivery notifications do not automatically display when a message is read or delivered. To enable these delivery notifications, select Read and/or Delivered in the Message Delivery Notifications section of the Settings page. See Settings for more information.
Each message also displays a timestamp in the form: mm/dd/yy, hh:mm AM/PM (for example, 01/04/25, 12:45 PM). This indicates when the message was first sent.
Viewing Chat Members
You can use the Chat Members feature to view a full list of the members of a chat:
- Open a chat in your inbox.
- Click the More actions
icon in the upper-right corner of the chat, then select Chat members. A pop-up will display with a list of chat members:
Chat members who are available will have a green circle at the bottom-left corner of their name, while unavailable chat members will have a gray circle.
Viewing Message Info
You can also use the Message info feature to view more information about a message, including which users have read the message:
- Open a chat in your inbox.
- Hover your cursor over a message. A bar displaying the More actions icon
will display next to the message. - Click the More actions icon, then select Message info. The message info pop-up will display:
Creating New Chats and Messages
This section describes how to create a new individual or group chat, how to send messages to an existing chat, how to add an attachment to a message, and how to forward a message to a new or existing chat.
Starting a New Chat
To start a new individual or group chat:
- Navigate to the Messages inbox.
- Click the Compose Message button. The Start a new chat screen will display:
- Enter text into the Search field to search your site's directory. Any matching recipients will automatically display.
NOTE: Recipients can match your search based on their name, or on other information in your site's directory (such as their on-call schedule or directory group). Deployments that use Smart Suite can now also match the role and name of the on-call user for each on-call schedule. In general, the information that is available to match in the search field will depend on how your site's directory is stored and configured. For example, in the sample image above, both name and department information are available to search on, so you could find Amanda Bracken in the Cardiology department by entering either "amanda" or "cardiology". - Select the recipient(s) you wish to add to the chat. You can select one recipient to create an individual chat, or more than one recipient to create a group chat. Up to 50 recipients can be selected.
NOTE: You cannot start a new individual chat with a recipient who is currently unavailable. However, you can start a group chat with one or more unavailable recipients. Note also that empty on-call schedules or directory groups will be flagged as unavailable. - If you have selected exactly 1 recipient, click Start Chat to create a new individual chat. Otherwise, follow the steps below to finish creating a new group chat:
- Click Next to open the Add chat picture and name (optional) screen.
- (Optional) Enter a name for the chat into the Chat name field. The chat name can be up to 25 characters long.
NOTE: The chat name you enter will be visible to all members of the chat. - (Optional) Upload a picture for the chat by clicking the Upload Picture button, or by dragging a picture onto the picture
icon . The chat picture may be any JPG or PNG file up to 2 MB. For best results, the image should be a square image that is at least 200 x 200 pixels large. For more information on adding pictures, see the Adding an attachment section below. - Click Start Chat to create a new group chat.
- The new individual or group chat will be created and added to each chat member's inbox.
After creating a chat, select the chat in your inbox to send your first message to the users in the chat. See Sending a message below for more information.
Sending a Message
Messages can be sent to any chat in your inbox. Once a message has been sent, it will be delivered to each member of the chat. Chats with new messages display as bold in each chat member's inbox to indicate that a new message has been received.
To send a new message:
- Navigate to the Messages inbox.
- Click a chat to select it. Note that the chat must be either an individual chat with an available recipient, or a group chat. Messages cannot be sent to individual chats when the recipient is unavailable.
- Enter a message into the text field at the bottom of the screen:
- (Optional) Click the Priority drop-down to select a priority for your message. The available options are High, Medium, or Low. By default, the message priority is set to Medium.
- (Optional) Click the Attachment icon
to add an attachment. See Adding an attachment below for more information. - Click the Send Message icon
to send your message.
Adding an Attachment
You can add an attachment to your message by clicking the Attachment icon . Up to 10 attachments can be added to a single message, and the maximum combined size for all of the attachments on a single message is 500 MB. Attachments can be images (.jpg / .jpeg, .png, .gif), videos (.mp4), and documents (.pdf).
To add an attachment:
- Click the Attachment icon . Your device's standard file selector screen will open.
- Navigate to the folder containing the file you wish to attach.
- Select the file, then click Open. The file will be attached to your message.
- Click the Send Message icon
to send the attachment.
Forwarding a Message
Messages can be forwarded to other users, including both message text and message attachments. Forwarding messages allows you to quickly and easily send an exact copy of these items to another user.
To forward a message:
- Access the chat which contains the message that you would like to forward.
- Hover over the message text or attachment that you would like to forward. The More actions icon will display.
- Click the More Actions icon , then select Forward message.
- Select To existing chat to forward the message to an existing chat, or To new chat to forward the message to a new chat.
- If you selected to forward the message to an existing chat: Use the Select a chat to forward a message screen to select the existing chat that you would like to forward the message to. You can enter text into the Search field to filter the list of existing chats, or click a chat to select it. Once a chat has been selected, click the Forward Message button to forward the message to the selected chat.
- If you selected to forward the message to a new chat: Use the Start a new chat screen to create a new chat. For more information, see the Starting a New Chat section above.
- Once you are done, the chat that you forwarded the message to will open, with the forwarded message added as an attachment on your next message:
- (Optional) Change the message priority, enter message text, or add additional attachments.
- Click the Send Message icon
to send the forwarded message.
Alert Messages
Depending on your site's settings, you may see an Alert Message when you receive a message from a non-Spok Mobile/Care Connect Web user (e.g., a message from a console). The options for replying to alert messages will vary based by site, but may include accept and decline buttons and/or a line for entering a reply. The following image shows a sample alert message:
Users can respond to an alert message with some or all of the following response options:
- Accept: When the Accept button is available, click the button to indicate that you received the message and you accept the message’s content. This will send an "Accepted" response to the sender, notifying them that you accepted the message.
- Decline: When the Decline button is available, click the button to indicate that you received the message, but you do not accept the message’s content. This will send a "Decline" response to the sender, notifying them that you declined the message.
- Reply: When the Type a message field is available, type a message as usual then hit the Send message icon to reply. This will send your message to the sender.