Messages

1. 1Open Studio settings → the Messages tab.
2. 2Flip the Messages switch on.
3. 3Messages appears in the sidebar for your team and your families, plus the header shortcut with your unread count.

Every conversation is one of two kinds. A direct message is a private thread between your studio and one family — any staff member can take part, and the family sees it simply as chatting with the studio. A group chat reaches a set of people at once, and you choose who that is: every family in the studio, families of dancers on a recurring program, only the families you pick, families in a saved Comms group, or just your staff. A program group chat follows that program's roster — a family sees it while they have a dancer on the program, and loses it when they don't.

Group chats also set how posting works: a discussion lets everyone in the chat reply, while an announcement-only chat is one-way — staff post, families read. Each group can wear its own square icon — upload one when you create the chat, or later by clicking the conversation title at the top of the thread, or from Manage → Name and description — so the list is easy to scan. Without one, it stays a letter circle. The first time your studio uses Messages, three group chats are created to start you off: Community (announcements every family can see), Members (a discussion for families you add), and Staff Internal (private to your team).

1. 1Open Messages and click the + button.
2. 2Search for a family, pick them, and press Message — that opens (or reopens) your direct message with that family.
3. 3Pick several families instead and, as an admin, press Start group chat — a name is suggested, or type your own.
4. 4For the full setup, admins can choose 'Create group chat…' instead: add a description, upload a square icon, make it announcement-only, and decide who can see it — every family, a recurring program, a saved Comms group, selected families, or staff only. Change or remove that icon later by clicking the conversation title at the top of the thread, or from Manage → Name and description. Without one, the group keeps its letter circle.

Type and press Enter to send. Hover a message to reply to it, copy it, edit your own, or delete it — staff can remove any message, and an edited message is marked 'edited' so nobody is confused. The + button beside the message box opens the attach menu: take a photo, record a video, choose from your photos and videos, or attach a file such as a PDF or Word document. Videos play right in the conversation — tap to watch, the same way they do in iMessage. The clip shows up right away; if it came from an iPhone or Chrome, Ida prepares it so it plays on phones and computers. Finished clips can be up to 64MB (a short clip). On the web you can attach several at once — up to ten photos, videos, and files in a single message — or skip the menu entirely: drag files onto the conversation or the message box, or paste a screenshot straight into the box. Click a photo in a thread and it opens full screen, with arrows to flip through the conversation's other photos and videos.

Share a link and a small preview card appears under your message — the page's title, description, and picture — so the person on the other end sees what they are opening before they tap. And a message you started but didn't send stays in the box for that conversation: leave, come back later, even reload the page or reopen the app, and your draft is right where you left it.

Each conversation's ⋯ menu can mute its notifications or mark it unread so you remember to come back, and a 'new messages' line marks where you left off in a thread. Unread conversations count up on the Messages icon in the header.

What you send appears in the thread the moment you send it, on the web and in the iPhone app alike. If a message can't go out — a dropped connection, say — it stays in the thread marked 'Not delivered · Tap to retry', with your words kept safe; tap it to send it again, and retrying can never post the same message twice. And when a new message can't reach you as a push notification, Ida emails you instead — the email shows the conversation, the sender, and the message itself, with a button that opens that very conversation so you can reply. A lively chat never floods your inbox, muted conversations stay silent, and these emails have their own switch on the Notifications page (user menu → Notifications).

Type @ in the message box and a list of the people in the conversation appears — your staff with their roles, and the families in the chat. Keep typing to narrow it down, then pick a name (arrow keys and Enter on the web, a tap in the app) and it lands in your message as a highlighted @name everyone can see.

A mention is a tap on the shoulder: instead of the ordinary new-message alert, the person you name gets their own — '… mentioned you' — and it reaches them even if they have muted the conversation. Mentions work anywhere you can write, for staff and families alike — direct messages, group chats, and your thread with the Ida founders, where you can @ the founders themselves. It works the same on the web and in the iPhone app.

Not every message needs a reply. Point at a message on the web — or press and hold it in the app — and pick one of six quick reactions: 👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 🎉. Reactions gather under the message as little chips, with a count when several people choose the same one, and they appear for everyone in the conversation the moment they are added. Every reaction has names attached: rest your pointer on a chip on the web — or press and hold a chip in the app — to see exactly who reacted, with your own name shown first as 'You'. Tap a chip you added to take it back, or tap someone else's to join in.

Messages tells you what is happening at both ends of a conversation. While someone is writing to you, a typing indicator with their name appears at the bottom of the thread. Your own newest message carries its status underneath: Sending… while it goes out, Delivered once it is safely in the conversation, and — in a direct message — Read, with the time the other side saw it. Staff see when the family has read their message; a family sees when the studio has.

In group chats, staff see who has caught up ('Read by Sarah and James'); hover or tap the line to see everyone and when they first read. Families see their message as delivered, without read receipts.

The search box above your conversations — at the top of Messages in the app — finds more than conversation names: type a couple of characters and it also searches the words inside every message in every conversation you are part of. Matches appear beneath the conversation list as snippets with your search highlighted; choose one and the conversation opens right at that message, however far back it was, with a Jump to latest button to bring you back to the newest messages.

A conversation can always tell you who it reaches. Click the chat's name at the top of the thread — or tap it in the iPhone app — and its details open: what the chat is for, who can see it, and how posting works. Group chats show the people themselves: for staff on the web, that is every household in a studio-wide chat or exactly the families that were picked for a smaller one, each with their photo, and a staff-only chat lists your team with each person's role. In the app the same view belongs to families too, so a parent can always see who is reading along — and it gathers the conversation's shared photos and videos in the same place.

Admins manage a group chat from the ⋮ menu inside the thread: edit its name, its square icon, and the description people see when they open its details, change who can see it, switch between open discussion and announcement-only, or close replies to keep the chat readable while stopping new posts. Archiving hides a chat from the active list — it waits under Archived and can be restored anytime — while deleting permanently removes the chat and its messages.

Alongside your own conversations, every studio's Messages includes a group chat called 'Jon, Arman, Ian (Ida Founders)' — a private, staff-only thread straight to the people who build Ida. Ask a question, report something that looks off, or tell us what you wish Ida did next; the founders reply as themselves, right in the thread, and their answers count toward your unread badge like any other conversation. It works the same on the web and in the iPhone app.

Because this chat is looked after by Ida, it has no manage menu on your side — it can't be renamed, archived, or deleted, and its name is reserved so no other group chat can take it. Families never see this thread; it is for your team only. Ordinarily every staff member is part of it, but a studio that prefers to keep this line private can ask the Ida team to limit it to the studio's owners — the chat's details always show exactly who it reaches.

The founders thread keeps track of itself. An Issues line sits at the top of the thread — on the web and in the app — counting what is open, what is waiting on the founders, and what has been resolved. Open it and every question, bug report, and request raised in the thread is there, sorted into Open and Done tabs you can search — on the web, laid out as the same table the Ida team itself works from. Each one carries its status in plain words — 'Up next', 'On the list', 'We're on it', 'Waiting on Ida', or 'Done' — along with its kind (bug, question, or feature), how long ago it was raised, and whether a photo went with it. A Bucket column shows how the Ida team has sized each issue up — 'Blocks studio' for something stopping your studio, 'Broken for someone' when a thing misbehaves for one person, or 'Wanted / labeling' for improvements you'd like — so you can see at a glance which of your reports are being treated as blocking and which are queued for later (an issue not yet sorted simply shows none). In the app, the same bucket leads each issue's card and shows again when you open it. Open an issue to see the details and jump back to the message where it started. The list is kept for you — you can't edit it — and it updates on its own as things move. And when the founders finish something, you find out where the conversation lives: the moment an issue is marked done — or set aside — a note appears right in the thread saying who did it and which issue, with no refresh needed, and the list updates itself.

When something needs a human, press Escalate to founders at the top of the thread (in the app, tap the conversation's name and Escalate to founders is right there in its details). The issue is marked 'Waiting on founders', a note lands in the thread so your team can see it has been raised, and the founders take it from there.

Some studios also have Ida answering in this thread. When the Ida team has turned it on for your studio, product questions — 'how do I set up autopay?' — get an answer right in the chat: replies appear from 'Ida AI', drawn from this guide and, when the question is about your own studio, from your studio's records, with the same role boundaries as everywhere else — an instructor never sees money. Attach a screenshot of an error and Ida reads it. A question Ida answers completely is marked resolved on the issue list; a bug or anything Ida isn't sure about stays open for the founders. The Issues line on the thread does not say whether Ida is answering — write here the same way either way.

The issue list isn't limited to the founders thread, either. When your studio shares another conversation with the Ida team — a group chat for a project you're working on together, say — the Ida team can switch the same Issues line on for that thread. Everyone in the conversation sees the same list, kept up to date the same way, with each issue linking back to the message where it started. Escalation and Ida's answers stay in the founders thread.

Messages opens from the Messages icon at the top of the app, with your unread count on it — and that count carries through to the app icon's badge on your home screen, with muted conversations left out. The badge is the same number wherever you look, and it keeps itself honest: every message notification carries the up-to-date count, so the number on the icon stays right even while the app is closed — and once you catch up on a conversation anywhere (in the app, on the web, on another device), your phone's badge and any waiting message notifications clear on their own, right away while you're in the app or the next time you open it. Tapping a message notification takes you straight into that conversation. Staff tap the compose button to pick a family and message them directly — or select several families to start a group chat on the spot (admins). Admins can also switch New message to Program and start a group chat for the families on a recurring program — it follows that program's roster from then on. While setting either kind up, tap the letter circle to give the new group its own square icon from your photos. Families tap Message studio to reach you.

The + beside the message box opens the attach tray — Camera to take a photo, Video to record a clip, Photos and Choose video for your library, or Files — and a long-press on it jumps straight to your photo library. A message that arrives with several photos, videos, or files — sent from the web, where up to ten go in one message — shows every one of them in the bubble; tap any to open that one. Press and hold any message to react with an emoji, reply, copy, edit, or delete it. Tap the conversation's name at the top of a thread and its details slide up: who's in the chat — with staff roles shown — what it's for, and the photos and videos shared there, the most recent in a grid with See all opening the full Shared media collection, newest first, where a long-press jumps back to the moment something was sent. Admins manage a group chat from that same details view: the group's icon sits at the top — tap it to pick a square photo from your library, or press Remove to go back to the letter circle — and Manage group chat covers the icon too, along with the chat's name and description, posting rules, who can see it, and — tucked under 'Archive and delete', each with a confirmation — archiving or permanently deleting it. Setting up a group chat for every family, a Comms group, or staff only is done on the web dashboard.

No signal? Send anyway: the message stays in the thread marked 'Waiting to send…' and goes out on its own the moment your connection returns — even if you left the conversation or closed the app in between. Tap it to try right away, or press and hold it to send now or remove it; a message the studio's settings turned away (a closed announcement chat, say) shows 'Not delivered · Tap to retry' instead. And when the keyboard is in the way, swipe down over the conversation to tuck it away.