Glip's interface is divided into
three (3) panes: the
left pane, the
conversation stream, and the
right pane. Click on each pane to know about them in more detail.
Left paneConversation streamRight Pane (Shelf)
The primary function of the left pane is to allow you to switch from one conversation to another, but it also provides access to other important parts of Glip like all of the apps, the Dashboard, Preferences, and Administration.Glip has sections that you can reorder on the left pane as you see fit. Want easy access to the Calendar? Just drag that section to the top.
The Company Menu
Search
Dashboard
People
Teams
Groups
Apps
Integrations
The first section of the left pane is exposed by clicking on your company name, or if you haven't set one, the Glip logo. This menu is divided into different sections. The first is where you can find more information about Glip, including links to this help guide and Glip's mobile and desktop applications. The second is specific to your company and provides a link to administrative features, as well as links to subscribe or renamed your company on Glip. The last section is all about you, including links to a list of where you've been @mentioned, your profile page, and preferences. This is also where you can set your status to "Away" (or a custom message of your choosing!) so that you'll start receiving email/mobile notifications based on your settings on the Preferences page.
NOTE: Your guests will not see your company's name here, as they will see their own company's name.
Search
One of the great things about Glip is that all content is kept forever, and can always be found via search. As you start to type matches on people and teams are displayed instantly.
Click on the Search Glip... row or hit Enter, to search for content matches. The results will be displayed on a separate page where you can further refine your search or filter the results as necessary.
If you are currently in a conversation stream or in one of the apps (i.e., Tasks, Files, etc.), you'll notice, in addition to the regular Search Glip... option, there's also an option to limit your search to the current conversation/app. You can always filter your results after the fact, but this allows you to get directly to what you're looking for more quickly.
The Dashboard is all about you!
The Dashboard is a summary of what you've got going on. There's a snapshot of your calendar for the current week and your task list (i.e., all tasks assigned to you across all conversations, and tasks you've assigned to yourself here on the Dashboard), and a list of where you've recently been @mentioned.
TIP: While most tasks are posted in the context of a conversation, you can assign yourself tasks on the Dashboard and they will not be seen by anyone else.
The People section of the left pane is where your active one-on-one (i.e., you and one other person) conversations are listed. Any time a new message is posted to a one-on-one conversation, that conversation immediately pops to the top of the list in the People section and the number of unread messages is displayed to the right. Once you click on the conversation, that unread message indicator will get cleared.
The People section displays up to 10 one-on-one conversations (configurable under Preferences), although all conversations with unread messages are always included. Need to chat with someone who isn't already listed in the People section? Just click on the People link itself to see the complete list, or you can use search. You can add people via the People page (including both co-workers and guests) as well, or just click the + button to the right.
The Teams section of the left pane is where your active team conversations are listed. Teams can be used for projects you're working on, functional areas in your company, or even the company softball team.
Click on the Teams link to see the complete list of teams. In addition to all of the teams you're already in, any public teams (i.e., that anyone can join) are listed here. You can create a new team via the Teams page as well, or just click the + button to the right.
Groups are ad-hoc conversations between three or more people. Sometimes you need to chat with more than just one other person, but its not a conversation that needs to be formalized with a name (i.e., like a team) and the membership will never change (i.e., you won't need to add or remove people). That's when you would use a group.
Click on the Groups link to start a group conversation, or just click the + button to the right.
While the focus on Glip is very much on the conversation stream, sometimes you need to look at content across conversations or work in an interface more tailored for a specific content type. That's where the apps come into play. There's an app for every type of content, other than chat, that you can share on Glip. The Calendar app, for example, presents all events that you have access to (i.e., across all of your conversations) in a traditional calendar view.
The Tasks app shows all tasks across all of your conversations, in an interface that is well suited to doing serious task/project management. If you need to manage tasks across various projects or get a high-level view of where things stand, this is the place to do it.
At the top of the page are options for filtering and grouping the display of content on the page. For example, you could look at all tasks for a particular team, grouped by section. Or you could look at all tasks assigned to a specific person, grouped by due date.
Glip integrates with a number of external applications and services. Glip's basic integrations allow you to receive email and mobile push notifications, post to Glip via email, have your calendar events show up in your calendar application and share files from Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.
There are also more advanced integrations that allow you to bring data from external services right into your Glip conversation streams. Instead of email notifications for JIRA tickets, GitHub commits, Stripe payments or Zendesk support requests, you can have those messages flow into the Glip conversation of your choice. Other integrations include DoneDone, Harvest, Trello, and MailChimp. There's even a custom webhooks integration to bring in content from your own data sources.
The goal with Glip is to keep you in the conversation stream, and out of your email inbox, as much as possible. Group-based communication is simply more efficient in a real-time free-flowing conversation stream. Glip's conversations should feel familiar. The key elements are similar to chat services you have used in the past. What sets Glip apart, and what makes the conversations more collaborative and productive, is the ability to actually get work done right in the stream.
The Conversation Stream features the following:
Video chat
Replies
Interactive Viewer
Note Viewer
Details View
Start a video chat, schedule a calendar event, assign tasks, share links, compose a rich-text note, and share files (from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox or Box)....all right from within your conversation stream.
No need to open up a separate project management tool to assign tasks, you can do it right from within Glip.
Not only is it more convenient, but the tasks are created in the context of the conversations that inspired them.
Unlike other communication tools, such as email or newsfeed-based services, most communication on Glip is not based on message threads. The free-flowing conversation streams create more efficient communication that allows everyone to get things done more quickly. There are occasions, however, where there is value in being able to make an explicit connection to something previously posted on Glip. Especially when that item is no longer part of the active conversation.
In these situations, you can post a message as a direct reply to an item on Glip (i.e., event, task, file, note or link). Replies work differently for images and notes than they do for non-image files and all other content types.
Click on an image in the stream or from the right pane or Files app and it will be displayed in Glip's Interactive Viewer. In addition to displaying the image in large format, the Interactive Viewer allows you to post replies to the image that serve as annotations.
Just click anywhere on the image to add an annotation, which could be just a quick message, a file, or even a task. Think about how this might be useful if you were reviewing and providing feedback on some creative work. Instead of just letting someone know that you'd like to see a different color used in the image, you can attach that comment to the specific spot where the color needs to be changed, assign a task to make sure the work gets done, and even upload a file with an example of the desired color.
As with all messages posted to Glip, the replies appear right in the conversation stream, with a reference to the image itself.
Click on that link and it will open the image in the Interactive Viewer with the pin corresponding to this reply already selected.
Click on a note in the stream or from the right pane or Notes app and it will be displayed in Glip's Note Viewer. In addition to displaying the note full-screen, the Note Viewer allows you to post replies to specific areas in the note.
Click anywhere on the note to add a reply, be it a quick comment, task or file, and as with the Interactive Viewer, the reply will appear right in the conversation stream, with a reference to the note.
Click on that link and it will open the note in the Note Viewer with the pin corresponding to this reply already selected.
For items that aren't an image or note, you can post replies from the Details view. Just select the "View Details" option from the gear menu in the stream or, for tasks and events, just click on the task/event title. You can also click on any item in either the right pane of a conversation or one of the apps.
Whether you're in a conversation or one of the apps, the Details view for the given item slides in over the right pane. For example, say you're looking at one of your active projects in the Tasks app. If you click on one of the tasks, the Details view slides in from the right and you'll be able to see all of the task's details (e.g., description, attachments, etc.) as well as its activity history (e.g.,date posted, date completed, etc.) and any replies. From here you can take some common actions on the given item (e.g., edit, delete, favorite, etc.), ask a follow-up question, or post a status update (“Almost done, I swear!”).
Click x at the top-right to dismiss the Details view, or just hit the Esc key.
Replies get posted to the stream just like any other message, but are clearly labeled as replies and reference the original item.
The Shelf is a snapshot of the recently posted and important items in the current conversation. The first section depicts all of the people that are participating in the conversation. The colored dots represent the person's online status, with green being Online, yellow being Inactive, and black being Offline. Click on someone's picture to start a one-on-one conversation or view their profile.
The Events section shows all events that have been scheduled in this conversation for the next seven days. The Tasks sections shows all pending tasks. Click on an event or a task and its Details view will slide it over the right pane.
NOTE: For tasks, clicking on the checkbox to its left will mark the task complete.
The Pinned, Links, Notes and Files sections all show the ten most recently posted items of each of those content types. Click on any item to view its Details. Click on the arrow icon to the right of a link to open the link in a new browser window. Click on the down-arrow icon to the right of a file to download the file (or open it in Google Drive, Dropbox, Box or Evernote).
Click on the gear icon next to a section's heading (except for Events) to change the sorting of the section, or to jump to the corresponding app, pre-filtered to the given conversation. For example, jump straight into the Tasks app to start managing tasks for one of your project teams.
If you need more space for your conversation streams or just want a simpler view, you can collapse the right pane by clicking on the arrow at the top-right corner.
