Comms — Getting Started

Written By Timothy Murenzi

Last updated 8 days ago

Workroom Comms is your real-time collaboration surface for client + team conversation, design review, and product approvals — built directly into the project where the work happens. No Slack switching, no email threading.

Where to find it

Sidebar → Comms

The Comms home page shows three things:

  • Inbox — every conversation with unread activity, surfaced at the top

  • Channels list — every channel you have access to, grouped by project

  • Direct Messages — 1:1 conversations with team members and clients

The pieces

Comms has four conversation types:

Type Who's in it What it's for

Project channel

Designer + invited clients/team for a specific project

Day-to-day project chatter, document sharing, approvals

Team channel

Internal designers only

Studio-wide conversation, no client visibility

DM

One-to-one

Side-bar questions without cluttering a project channel

Design Board (paid add-on)

Project channel, special channel type

Pan/zoom visual review with @mentions on pins

Each type carries its own rules around who can see what — covered in the dedicated articles below.

What lives inside a conversation

Every message can include:

  • Plain text — typed messages with @mentions to ping someone

  • File attachments — drag-and-drop any file; previews for images and PDFs

  • Embedded Estimates / Invoices — paste an Estimate or Invoice link and it expands inline with totals + status

  • Embedded Products — paste a Product link and it expands with image + pricing + spec

  • Product Selection Approvals — special card asking the client to approve / decline a product

The same conversation history is visible to everyone in the channel — no hidden side conversations.

Where Comms shows up across the app

  • Sidebar → Comms — the main inbox

  • Project Overview — sidebar link straight into that project's channel

  • Client Portal — clients see Comms channels they've been added to

  • Notifications — the bell icon flashes when you have unread messages

Good to know

  • Real-time. Messages land instantly via WebSocket — no refresh needed.

  • Always-on history. Everything you've ever said in a channel stays in the channel. No retention limits.

  • Per-project access. Clients only see channels for their own projects. Other clients are walled off.

  • Search across channels. The top-bar search hits message text + filenames across every channel you have access to.

  • Mobile-friendly. The Comms surface works on phone-sized screens; the layout collapses to a single column under 820px wide.