Channels and categories inside Shopify admin, with direct messages for the things that are genuinely between two people, and roles deciding who can see each room.
A single channel is an excellent tool for three people. Past five or six it develops a specific failure: everyone applies one reading strategy to a stream carrying four different kinds of message, and that strategy becomes skimming.
Skimming does not distinguish between a rota question and a flagged order. The message that needed acting on gets scanned with the same attention as the one about lunch, which is why things start getting missed without anybody becoming less careful.
Rooms fix this by separating traffic that needs different responses. The split that survives contact with a busy week is by required response rather than by topic, because the category is obvious in the moment you are posting.
Rooms solve one problem and create a smaller one: past about eight of them, people are unsure where things belong.
Categories group related rooms so the sidebar stays readable. A fulfilment category holding picking, dispatch and returns reads as one thing rather than three, and collapsing it hides all three at once.
Categories can also be private, which is a different control from a private room. A private room is closed but visible: people know it exists and can ask to join. A private category is invisible to anyone outside it, which is the right tool for the narrow case where the existence of the conversation is itself the sensitive part.
Direct messages exist because some conversations genuinely are between two people. They are also the most common way a room structure quietly fails, because posting in a room feels like interrupting and a DM does not.
The cost is that decisions end up invisible and unsearchable, and the next person to handle the same situation starts from nothing.
A rule that holds: if the answer would be useful to anyone else, later, it belongs in a room. That covers nearly everything about orders, stock and customers, and leaves DMs for what they are actually for.
Search covers rooms and messages you have access to. Pins cover the things that should never need searching for: the returns policy exception, the supplier contact, the thing everyone asks in their first week.
The practical difference is that search rewards knowing what you are looking for, and pins help the person who does not yet know what exists.
Usually three or four to start, split by how quickly something needs a response rather than by topic. Topic-based rooms multiply until people are unsure where to post.
Yes. Roles decide which rooms each person can see, and private categories stay invisible to anyone outside them. Both are set per person rather than per invitation.
No. People are invited by email and given a role in the workspace. They can take part fully without being able to sign in to your Shopify admin.
The conversation stays. Removing a person removes their access, not the record, so the room history remains searchable for whoever picks up their work.
The free plan keeps 30 days. Paid plans keep unlimited history, which matters more than it sounds, because the archive is what you need during a dispute or a post-mortem.
Free for teams up to five, and about two minutes to connect your store.