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Welcoming new members with Onboarding

We all know how important it is to make a good first impression. When a new member joins your group chat or when someone is starting a conversation with you, just a few words can make a big difference.

The Onboarding feature allows you to set up a welcome message, the chat rules, and a few other things that will help new members get started in your chat.

Good to know:

  • Only members with the Manage Group permission can set up or edit the Onboarding for a group chat.
  • If you have Plus, you can set up your own Onboarding Screen for your direct messages.
  • For group chats, we will only show the Onboarding screen to members who joined by invite link. If you add someone manually, they won’t see the Onboarding screen.

Editing a group chat’s Onboarding

  1. Go to your group chat and tap the Group info button (it looks like an i in a circle) at the top right of the screen.

  2. Once you’re there, if you have the Manage Group permission, you’ll see the Set up/Edit Onboarding button. Tap it to edit the Onboarding.

Editing your personal Onboarding

  1. If you have Plus, you can set up your own Onboarding Screen. Go to your Privacy Settings and tap the Direct Messages option.

  2. Tap the Edit My Onboarding button to start editing your Onboarding.

  3. Now you’re in the Onboarding editor! Make sure to save your changes when you’re done.

Set up the chat rules

  1. Once you’re in the Onboarding editor, you can set up the chat rules. It’s the first section you’ll see.

  2. You can add rules by tapping the Add a rule button. There’s also some recommended rules you can add with just one tap.

  3. If you’re editing your personal Onboarding, here it’s a good place to set up your boundaries and let people know what you’re comfortable talking about.

  4. You can tap on Next to go to the next section when you’re done.

Set up the chat resources

  1. The next section is the chat resources. Here you can add links to important stuff, social media, or anything else you think is important for new members to know.

  2. You can add resources by tapping the Add a resource button.

  3. Edit the resource by tapping the pencil icon or delete it by tapping the trash icon.

  4. You can edit the link, the title, and an optional description and thumbnail for each resource.

  5. When you’re done making changes to a resource, tap the Save button.

  6. You can tap on Next to go to the next section when you’re done.

Set up a welcome message

  1. You can set up a welcome message for new members. It’s the next section after the chat resources.

  2. You’ll see a text box where you can write your welcome message. You can also type [@joi] to mention the name of the new member.

  3. When you’re done, tap Next to go to the next section.

Enabling or disabling the Onboarding

  1. This is the last section of the Onboarding editor. Here you can choose if you want to enable or disable the Onboarding for your chat.

  2. When editing a group chat’s Onboarding, you can also select the default role for new members.

  3. When you’re done making changes to the Onboarding, tap either Finish if it’s the first time you’re setting it up or Save changes if you’re editing it.