Our team of around 50 people wants to move from Slack to another tool. Right now I’m searching for an alternative. Maybe Discourse is a better place for us.
We are using chat threads in direct messages all the time. Around 50% of conversations take place in direct messages for our team.
It seems that I can only enable chat threading for public channels. Is it possible to enable threading for DM’s?
If not, could you please add threading for DMs?
Right now chat threads is disabled by default. I would also like an option to enable threads by default for all public channels and/or DMs inside admin/site_settings/category/chat.
Feel free to close or merge this topic if a related topic already exists. I searched if someone else already askes this question, but could not find related topics. https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=discourse%20chat%20threads%20dm
Thanks for the quick response and the information. It’s great to know that the infrastructure for chat threads in DMs is already in place.
Could you provide any details on whether there is a plan or timeline for implementing the UI and settings for DM threading? It would be really helpful to understand the next steps and if this feature is already on the roadmap.
We’re considering making the switch to Discourse, and having threading in DMs would be a significant factor for us.
You might find the ability to switch to personal messages for richer content (and separate threads) between two people would meet this need already. It is a great way to leverage the powerful forum features of Discourse privately.
Thanks for reaching out, happy to share where we’re at with this:
While we don’t have a current plan or timeline in place for adding DM threading, it’s definitely something we’re interested in adding in the future — but at the moment the team is busy with other projects.
Could you share a little more about why this would be a significant factor for you in considering Discourse? Specific stories about how certain features make your community better are super helpful.
Thanks for your replies. It feels great to participate in this community.
I appreciate it that personal messages are available. However our users have something in common: My users love simple! But for some people, personal messages are easy, and for others chat dm’s are easy…
Obviously people who are using Discourse for years are really used to personal messages. They don’t have to think how to use it, because they already know it.
If I wanted to move the heaviest users of Discourse personal messages from Discourse to Slack, it would be easier to move them if Slack provided a graphic user interface that looked like the interface of Discourse.
If I wanted to move users from Slack to Discourse, it would be easier to move them if Discourse provided a graphic user interface that looks like the interface of Slack for direct messages.
It would also help if system messages and other messages like badge notifications could be delivered inside Discourse dm’s / direct messages instead of personal messages.
Because change can be hard for my team. Some don’t want to move to another platform. They are using Slack for years and want to keep using it.
If we’re moving from Slack to Discourse right now, everything would be different.
public and private Slack channels would be converted into public and private Discourse categories. Some of our users feel this as a big difference.
I don’t know if we would convert Slack DMs – right now there’s not a good alternative inside Discourse in my opinion.
If we’re moving from Slack to Discourse and DM threading would be enabled, 50% would be different. Around 50% of the conversations in our Slack Workspace take place inside direct messages. If chat threads for DMs would be available we would do this:
public and private Slack channels would be converted into public and private Discourse categories. Some of our users feel this as a big difference.
all Slack DMs would be converted into Discourse Chat DMs. As this is a familiar interface, I expect that people can use it right away when they know how to use Slack direct messages.
I think the Discourse team did a great job with Introducing chat threads! We would like to use chat threads for DMs too. Enabling this would make the gap between Slack and Discourse smaller.
Is it possible to add chat threads for DM’s with a plugin? If that’s not possible – is it possible to hire a developer that can add this to the core of Discourse? Or is it better if we wait until the Discourse team implemented this into the core of Discourse?
Thanks for sharing — I can understand the benefit of making Discourse feel more familiar to your users who have become accustomed to how chat works in Slack. Change is hard and new can be scary, so it makes sense that you’d want to do what you can to ease this transition.
I think it depends on your sense of urgency. I feel comfortable saying that will add threads to DMs but I can’t promise when that will happen. Let me touch base with my team though…this one has been on our minds for a while and this might be the nudge we need to knock it out. I’ll check back in next week.
Thanks for sharing this with the team! That is great.
One important detail is that threading is currently disabled by default. An option to enable threading (for all DM’s) by default would help.
It’s good to know that this feature has been on your radar, and I’m glad that the conversation is helping to move things forward. Looking forward to any updates you have next week.
Reporting back a bit later than I expected, but with good news — we are planning to implement this feature to allow threads in DMs! I don’t have an ETA for you yet, but we’ll check back in once this work begins.
Yes, there will be a setting in each DM / group chat where you can turn threading off or on. Our current plan is to enable threads in DMs / group chats by default.
Thank you so much for the update, Lindsey! This is great news, and I really appreciate you taking the time to check in with your team. It’s exciting to hear that threaded DMs are on the roadmap, even if there’s no ETA yet. I’ll keep an eye out for further updates. In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do on my end to support or provide feedback during the process, feel free to let me know.
But for some people, personal messages are easy, and for others chat dm’s are easy…