Chat - Admin and Moderation

Workvivo Chat gives your organisation a rich set of admin and moderation tools so you can manage channels, control who has access to chat, moderate content, and keep conversations running smoothly. This article walks through every admin and moderation capability, from channel management to data export.

Device(s): Web and Mobile

Roles / Permissions: System Admin, Chat Manager, Channel Moderator 

Availability: Chat is a paid add-on. To learn more, please reach out to Sales or your Workvivo point-of-contact.

Chat Roles & Permissions

The admin and moderation features covered in this article are available to users with specific chat roles. The table below outlines which roles have access to the relevant capabilities.

Managing Chat Channels

As a Chat Admin, you have full visibility over all chat channels in your organisation directly from the Chat Admin panel. From here you can view channel members, assign or remove channel operators, join channels, and archive or unarchive channels.

Assigning and Removing Channel Operators

Keeping the right people in charge of each channel is important for day-to-day moderation. From the Chat Admin panel you can:

• View all channels and their members.
• Assign Admin role to any channel member - no need to raise a support request.
• Remove Admin role from a member when it is no longer needed.

This is especially useful when an Admin leaves the organisation, as it prevents channels from becoming unmanaged.

Removing People from Channels

Channel Moderators can remove members directly from a channel. When someone is removed they are immediately taken out of the group but not blocked, so they can be added back later if needed.

To remove a member:

1. Open the channel you want to manage.
2. Open the channel information to view the list of participants.
3. Find the member you wish to remove and select the three-dot menu (⋯) next to their name.
4. Choose Remove and confirm when prompted.

Note: If you are the only Admin in a channel, you will need to assign another Admin before you can leave the channel yourself. This ensures continued ownership and moderation.

Archiving and Unarchiving Channels

Channel Admins can archive a chat channel when it is no longer active. Archiving moves the channel out of the main conversation list and sets it to read-only, so the conversation history is preserved but no new messages can be sent.

On web, open the channel, click the Info & Settings menu, and select Archive. Confirm that you wish to archive the channel when prompted.

On mobile, the same option is available from the channel menu. Once archived, the channel appears under the Archived tab. Users viewing an archived channel will see a banner indicating the conversation is read-only.

If a channel needs to be reactivated, an Admin can unarchive it at any time, restoring full messaging functionality.

Disabling Chat for Specific Users

Chat is enabled by default for all users in your organisation's Workvivo. If you need to remove a specific user from being searchable in the chat feature, you can do so from the Administration Panel:

1. Navigate to Administration Panel > People and select Edit on the relevant user.
2. Check the "Exclude from Chat user list" checkbox.
3. Click Save.

This removes the user from being searched or selected when someone starts a new chat. Please note that excluded users can still start their own chats - they are simply hidden from the search and selection list.

Enabling Chat per Team

For organisations that want more granular control, chat access can be managed at the team level rather than globally. When this feature is enabled, System Admins can selectively enable or disable chat for specific teams via the Chat Admin panel. 

This is ideal for:

• Phased rollouts of chat across the organisation.
• Limiting chat to certain departments, locations, or business units.
• Managing chat adoption more strategically.

When team-level chat control is active, only members of enabled teams will have access to the chat feature.

If you wish to enable this feature, reach out to your Workvivo Customer Success Manager or Workvivo Support.

Restricting Channel Creation

By default, any user with chat access can create new channels. If your organisation requires tighter control channel creation can be restricted to Chat Admins only. 

When this restriction is enabled:

• General users can still participate in existing channels but cannot create new ones.
• A complementary setting can also restrict the ability to add members to a channel, limiting it to the channel admin or operator only.

Note: These restrictions do not apply to chatbots.

If you wish to enable this feature, reach out to your Workvivo Customer Success Manager or Workvivo Support.

Improved Channel Creation UI

When creating new channels, Chat Admins can select members based on existing Teams or Spaces, making it faster to set up channels for established groups.

Content Moderation

Workvivo Chat provides multiple layers of content moderation to help keep conversations safe and appropriate. Keyword-based filtering can proactively prevent certain language from being posted, and users can flag individual messages for admin review. Together, these tools give your organisation both preventative and reactive moderation capabilities.

Keyword-Based Moderation

Workvivo Chat has built-in content moderation that works in the same way as keyword-based flagging of inappropriate content elsewhere on the platform. If a keyword has been added to the moderation menu, the user is prevented from publishing the message until they remove that word or phrase.

Reporting Messages

Users can report a message in any chat channel - whether it is a 1:1 conversation or a group channel, on both web and mobile. 

To report a message:

1. Hover over (web) or long-press (mobile) the message you want to report.
2. Select the three-dot menu (⋯) next to the message and choose Report.
3. A modal will appear asking you to select a Reporting Context (e.g., Spam, Harassment) and optionally add more detail about why you are reporting the message.
4. You also have the option to Report anonymously.
5. Click Save to submit the report.

Once submitted, a confirmation message will appear to let you know the report has been sent.

Reviewing and Actioning Reported Messages

When a message is reported, the Admin receives both an in-app notification and an email notification.

Clicking the notification navigates to the Reported Chats tab in the Chat Admin panel. This tab shows all reported messages - both those pending review and those already actioned. You can filter by status or by timestamp.

To review a reported message:

1. Navigate to the Chat Admin tab in the Admin Panel.
2. Select the Reported Chats tab.
3. Click Review next to the reported item.
4. On the Reported by tab, you can see the report details: who reported the message (unless it was anonymous), the reporting context, the date, and any additional comments provided.
5. On the Content tab, you can view the reported message in context, including messages sent before and after it, so you can make an informed decision. 
6. On the Admin Management tab, you can also add optional feedback as an audit record of your decision.
7. To action the report you can choose the following options:
   • Allow: Dismisses the report and leaves the message in the channel.
   • Delete: Removes the reported message from the channel.

Chat Data Export

For compliance and audit purposes, Chat Admins can export chat data directly from the Chat Admin panel - no need to raise a support request. To extract this data, users are require to have both the Admin and Chat Moderator roles

To export chat data:

1. Navigate to the Chat Admin tab in the Admin panel.
2. Select the Data Export tab.
3. Select the Request Export button.
4. Enter the desired timeframe and filter by sender or channel.
5. Select one or more channels and define a date range (up to 90 days at a time). You can use a custom range or select a pre-defined period.
6. Submit the request. The extraction runs in the background - you do not need to wait.
7. Once complete, you will receive an email and/or in-app notification with a download link.

The exported data is delivered as a .zip file containing .json or .csv files per channel, including message timestamps, sender details, message type, and reactions. An audit log entry is created for every extraction request.