Messages & Announcements

Danvas has two distinct communication features that share the "Messages" name in the sidebar: Board (/board) for company-wide announcements, and routed messages reviewed in the Operations Inbox (/inbox). Message creation and detail remain available through /messages/new and /messages/[id]; the legacy /messages list path redirects to the Inbox. They're different products with different audiences and lifecycles.

Canonical source: Message Management feature contract. This page describes the user workflow; the contract owns the detailed state, authorization, and notification behavior.

Board AnnouncementsCopy Anchor Link

The Board is a company-wide feed. Admins and managers post; everyone in scope reads and acknowledges. Announcements support categories, scheduled publication, markdown, media attachments, and read receipts.

Creating an AnnouncementCopy Anchor Link

1. Navigate to Board in the sidebar.
2. Click New Announcement (admin/manager only).
3. Fill in the dialog:
   • Title — up to 200 characters.
   • Body — markdown editor (bold, lists, links, code).
   • Category — General, Policy, Shift, Incident, or Emergency. Emergency is visually destructive and triggers the highest notification priority.
   • Location — pick a single location, or leave as All locations to broadcast across the team.
   • Schedule (optional) — pick a future date/time. Scheduled announcements appear in the Scheduled section at the top of the page (visible only to admins/managers) and auto-publish via a Vercel cron route.
   • Attachments — up to 4 media URLs (images and short video). The shared uploader auto-converts HEIC photos to JPEG.
4. Click Post Announcement (or Post Emergency if the category is Emergency).

The button label changes to Post Emergency for the emergency category so you don't accidentally fire a high-priority notification.

CategoriesCopy Anchor Link

Categories are filterable from the filter bar above the list. Click any category chip to scope the feed.

Reading & AcknowledgingCopy Anchor Link

• The ReadTracker component uses an IntersectionObserver — when an announcement card is 50% visible for 1 second, it marks the announcement as read for your account. The read receipt also captures your response (if any).
• Each card has Acknowledge and Ask a question buttons:
  • Acknowledge — confirms you've seen it. Optional comment (up to 500 chars).
  • Ask a question — posts the question to the announcement thread; admins/managers see it in the read summary.
• Admins and managers see a collapsible read-status list per announcement, with per-user checkmarks and any responses.

Editing & ArchivalCopy Anchor Link

• Edit — title, body, location, attachments, and category are editable after publication. An Edited [date] indicator appears below the creator line. Editing does not reset read receipts.
• Pin — pinned announcements stay at the top of the feed. Toggle pin from the card menu (admin/manager only).
• Auto-archive — non-pinned announcements automatically archive 14 days after publication. Admins/managers can toggle Show Archived to view the archive.

NotificationsCopy Anchor Link

When an announcement publishes, two fan-outs happen (all async, via the notification queue):

1. Web Push — sends a browser push to subscribed staff devices.
2. Slack — posts to the location's configured Slack channel (or all location channels for global announcements).

Emergency-category announcements use the highest-priority notification channel and bypass quiet hours. The markdown body is what fans out — no truncation, so keep it tight.

Staff MessagesCopy Anchor Link

The Messages module is for routed guest messages and manager notes — anything that needs an owner, an audit trail, and a clear handoff. Typical use: a guest calls asking for the manager, a host takes a message in person, a manager-to-manager note that needs acknowledgement.

Creating a MessageCopy Anchor Link

1. Open the Operations Inbox in the sidebar.
2. Choose New Message (the creation route is /messages/new).
3. Fill in the form:
   • Type — Phone Message, In-Person, or Message for Manager. Determines the default contact mode and the card label downstream.
   • Audience — Management (default) routes the message to admins/managers at the location; Individual routes it to a specific staff member.
   • Recipient — required when audience is Individual. Lists active team members at the location.
   • Contact — attach an existing contact from the directory, capture a one-off guest (name + phone/email/notes), create a new contact, or mark the contact as Unavailable (valid only for phone_message).
   • Subject (1–200 chars) and Message (1–5000 chars).
   • Urgency — low, normal, high, or urgent. Drives the badge color and notification priority; it does not suppress the required Slack event.
   • Media — optional attachments. Same HEIC auto-conversion as everywhere else.
4. Click Send Message.

The form autosaves drafts to the device (key draft-message-${locationId}); a recovery banner restores unfinished work on the next visit.

WorkflowCopy Anchor Link

Messages have two parallel fields, both of which move through states:

• State (new → in_progress → archived) — the working state. New messages move to in_progress when an owner is assigned or a workflow transition is made. Archiving is final unless explicitly unarchived.
• Response Status (pending → investigating → responded | no_response_needed) — tracks whether the message has been actioned. responded and no_response_needed both require notes.

When a management message is assigned an owner, the state auto-advances from new to in_progress.

Ownership & RoutingCopy Anchor Link

Anyone with management access at the location can claim a management-audience message. individual-audience messages route to the named recipient. The owner is displayed on the detail card and any workflow transition is recorded in the audit log.

Linked incidents — when a message escalates into a real safety or operational issue, you can convert it into an incident from the message detail page. The link is preserved both ways: the message detail shows the linked incident, and the incident detail shows the source message.

NotificationsCopy Anchor Link

When a message is created, the notification policy resolves the named recipient or management audience:

• A best-effort Web Push attempt is made for active subscriptions.
• The Operations Inbox reflects the message and its unread state.

A Slack notification is accepted for the message.created event for every urgency; Web Push is best effort according to the notification policy. Escalating a message into an incident adds the incident notification workflow.

Database ReferenceCopy Anchor Link

RelatedCopy Anchor Link