Chat

Real-time direct messages and group chats with @mentions, presence, and search.

MangoApps

Overview

Pusher-powered real-time chat with one-to-one DMs, group rooms, @mentions feeding the existing Notification system, per-room presence, and PostgreSQL full-text search. Built on the same business-scoping and authentication patterns as the rest of the platform — every message is searchable, auditable, and tenant-isolated.

Productivity Utility

Highlights

Real-time direct messages and group conversations powered by Pusher Channels.

Built on PostgreSQL — every message is searchable, auditable, and tenant-isolated.

Per-room presence shows who is online without flooding a global presence channel.

@mentions feed the existing Notification system for cross-app continuity.

Configurable per-business retention, attachment size limits, and feature toggles.

Mobile clients reuse the same authenticated WebSocket flow — no separate transport.

Capabilities

Conversations

One-to-one direct messages
Group rooms with role-based admin/member
Public business channels Phase 2
Threaded replies Phase 3
Message edit and delete

Real-time Delivery

Sub-second message fan-out via Pusher Channels
Per-room presence (Pusher presence channels) Phase 2
Typing indicators Phase 3
Global online status (cache-based heartbeat) Phase 3

Notifications & Discovery

Unread message counts per room Phase 2
Read receipts Phase 2
@mention notifications via Notification Phase 2
PostgreSQL full-text search Phase 2
Semantic search via pgvector Phase 3

Files & Reactions

File attachments via Active Storage Phase 3
Emoji reactions on messages Phase 3

Admin Controls

Toggle direct messages globally
Toggle group chats globally
Configurable retention policy
Configurable max attachment size
Per-business feature flags

Limits & Specs

Real-time transport: Pusher Channels (Premium / Growth tier)
Message storage: PostgreSQL (single non-partitioned table — partitioned at ~100M rows)
Default retention: Forever (admin-configurable in days)
Default max attachment size: 25 MB (admin-configurable)
Mobile support: iOS & Android via the same Pusher endpoint
Pricing: Included with MangoApps Workforce

Use cases

Quick coordination

Send a direct message to a teammate without leaving the workforce platform.

Project group chat

Spin up a group room scoped to a specific project with persistent searchable history.

Mention-driven follow-up

@mention a teammate to pull them into a conversation; the existing Notification system carries the alert through email and mobile push.

Compliance recordkeeping

All messages live in PostgreSQL alongside the rest of the platform, so exports, GDPR deletion, and audit trails reuse existing infrastructure.

FAQ

Pusher Channels handles fan-out. The browser subscribes to a per-room private channel; Rails authorizes the subscription against business and room membership before signing the auth response.

Messages still persist to PostgreSQL via the standard HTTP request/response. Real-time delivery resumes when Pusher recovers; a refresh shows the missed messages.

Yes. Pusher's Premium and Growth tiers handle 10k+ concurrent connections per cluster. The Rails layer only handles auth at subscription time, not the WebSocket itself, so it scales independently.

Three layers: channel-name regex, business membership check, and room membership check — all run inside the Pusher auth endpoint before signing. Pusher itself never touches business data.