Mana uses active centre roles and key-educator assignments to connect staff with the relevant enabled family chats.
Who is automatically added?
Child chats: the child’s key educators/teachers and the centre’s Managers and Owners join the child’s family conversation.
Room/group family chats: the room’s assigned key educators/teachers and the centre’s Managers and Owners join room updates. These updates are read-only for families.
Managers and Owners are included across these enabled channels within their centre. Other educators’ child and room family conversations follow their assignments, so communication stays with the staff responsible for those relationships.
You can assign multiple key educators to each child or room. See assigning key educators to children and room allocations.
Centre-wide updates and internal staff chats have separate membership. Chat access and notification preferences are also separate: being added does not mean every message generates an alert.
Using the Search Bar
You’ll find the search bar right at the top of your chat screen.
It’s designed to help you quickly find channels by their name
Note: The search bar doesn’t look inside messages- just channel names- so try to remember the name of the group you’re looking for.
All Chats
The “All” section is your home base- it shows every chat you’re part of, all in one place.
This includes chats with families, staff, and any announcements.
Announcements
Announcements are for sharing important updates with families.
These can be sent to specific rooms or to all families at your centre.
Only educators and centre managers can send announcements- families can read them, but can’t reply.
Look for the purple icon to spot announcement channels easily.
Families
Here you’ll find chats with individual children’s families.
Each family chat is marked with the child’s icon/photo, so you can quickly see who you’re talking to.
Use these channels for direct, personal communication with families.
Staff
Staff channels are just for you and your colleagues.
These can be for specific rooms or for all staff at your centre.
Look for the blue icon to find staff-only chats.
New Feature: We’ve introduced “Room channels” just for staff, so you can keep internal conversations separate from room family chats.
