---
title: How to use chat and tasks on your phone
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/phone/chat-and-tasks
description: The two things the phone is actually for, plus the analyst, and what each does differently from the web.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# How to use chat and tasks on your phone



Chat and tasks are what the phone is for. This page covers using them there and the handful of
places the phone behaves differently from a desk.

## Chat on a phone [#chat-on-a-phone]

The channel list is the whole screen, and tapping a channel opens it with a **Channels** back
link.

Everything important works: the conversation, the mention picker, entity chips, callback cards,
the image viewer and the per-channel notification setting.

Three differences worth knowing.

**Send with the button, not the keyboard.** The on-screen return key inserts a line break, so
the coral send button is how you post. That is deliberate, and it is why you never send half a
message from a phone.

**Formatting is a web feature.** Bold text sent from the web reads as literal asterisks on the
phone, so for anything the phone-carrying half of your team must read, plain sentences travel
better than heavy formatting. See <Ref to="chat/send-a-message" />.

**Direct messages are web-only.** To reach somebody who is on their phone, post in a channel
and tag them, per <Ref to="chat/mentions" />.

The phone's channel list also shows a sender and snippet preview, including a note when a
message is only photos, which the web sidebar does not.

You can record a decision from a message by long-pressing it, if you hold the permission for
it. See <Ref to="decisions/record-a-decision" />.

## Tasks on a phone [#tasks-on-a-phone]

Your list, your inbox, task detail, creating a task, attachments, related records and reminders.
Projects too, including creating a project or a cycle.

This is the phone's best feature, because a task reminder is genuinely useful away from a desk.
A reminder buzzes as one of **your assigned** tasks nears its due date, and from the notification
itself you can **snooze** it or **complete** the task without opening anything.

Snooze defaults to an hour and can be pushed out to a day.

Only tasks that are assigned to you, unfinished and carrying a **due date** produce reminders.
See <Ref to="notifications/task-stock-and-order-alerts" />.

## The analyst on a phone [#the-analyst-on-a-phone]

The sparkle button raises it from any tab, and it keeps your place when you close and reopen it.

This is the one to actually use. Standing in a warehouse asking "what is about to run out that
is also a strong seller" is a better use of a phone than any dashboard, and the digest cards and
your saved prompts are all there. See <Ref to="analyst" />.

## What is not on the phone? [#what-is-not-on-the-phone]

Configuration and the back office, on purpose: admin Settings, Documents, Customers, Approvals,
Purchase orders, Suppliers, Wholesale and custom Objects. Brief and Search show a coming-soon
screen.

None of that is a gap to work around. It is the split described in <Ref to="phone" />: the
phone carries the conversation and the work, and the web carries the configuration.

When you need one of those, the website works on a phone browser too.

## Does anything behave differently on permissions? [#does-anything-behave-differently-on-permissions]

No. Every action goes through the same checks as the web, so what you can do at your desk is
what you can do on your phone.

The **Store** tab disappears entirely if your workspace has the Store module switched off, and
the record-a-decision option only appears if you hold that permission.