Chat & Messaging: How Access Works

Who can use this: Staff, board members, and property managers with access to the Communication / Inbox area.

URBI's chat lets you message residents and other staff directly from the Inbox. Here's how access works today.

What you can see

You see two kinds of chats in your Inbox:

• Chats you're a participant in: any chat you were added to, no matter who started it.
• Your property's chats: as a staff member, you also see chats happening on the properties you have access to, even ones you weren't added to directly.

Who you can message

You can start a chat with anyone in your building: other staff, board members, property managers, and residents.

Whether you can see and message residents specifically depends on one permission: the resident contact list permission. If that permission is turned on for your account (this is the default), resident names and units show up in the recipient search and you can message them directly. If it's turned off, residents are hidden from your recipient search, but you can still message other staff, board members, and PMs on the property, just not residents. If you expect to see a resident and don't, check with an admin (see "Troubleshooting" below).

Group chats with residents

You can create a group chat that includes more than one resident. Everyone added to the group can see the conversation.

Inside a group, residents can see the names of the other people in the chat, but never their contact details (no email, no phone number); that information stays private regardless of group size.

Private Messages vs. group thread

When starting a chat with multiple recipients, the Private Messages toggle controls how it's delivered:

• Off (default): everyone you added is in one shared group thread together.
• On: URBI sends an individual 1:1 chat to each recipient instead; nobody sees who else received it.

Read-Only chats

Turning on Read-Only when you start a chat means residents can't reply: it becomes a one-way notice from staff. Other staff and property members can still reply in a Read-Only chat; the restriction only applies to residents / non-staff recipients.

See "How to Start a Chat" for the step-by-step, and "Troubleshooting" for common access questions.