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The audio on a job won’t play. Rather than composing an email that starts by explaining which job you mean, open that job’s thread and say so — staff see your message with the case, the job number and your role already attached, and every file on the job is one @ away. A thread belongs to one job and to you. If you’re on three proceedings, you have three threads.
A thread is between you and the agency’s staff. Customers are never in it — attorneys and their firms have no access to threads at all and never see anything you write here. Anything the customer needs to receive goes through the job itself: the deliverable, the worksheet, the exhibit set.

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Opening the thread for a job

There is no way to start a thread out of nowhere, and you don’t need one — you start from the job.
  • On a proceeding or transcription detail page, use Open Thread in the header. It carries a counter when there are unread messages on that job.
  • From a list, Open Thread sits in the row’s options menu — on Proceedings → Active and Past, on Transcription → Active, and on your Action Required cards.
Either way the thread opens and stays scoped to that job. The message icon in the top header opens the thread list instead, with a red badge showing unread messages across every job.

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Move the panel out of your way

Wherever the chat is open, the header carries icons for three layouts, and your choice sticks across visits. Drawer is the default — a panel over the right of the screen. Pin to side docks it as a permanent column beside your work, and only appears on a wide enough window. Pop out to widget floats it as a window you drag by its header and resize from any edge, so you can keep the thread open next to a worksheet or the transcript editor.

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Getting a file to staff

Two different things, and picking the wrong one is the usual mistake.

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Point at a file already on the job

Type @ in the composer. A list of the job’s files appears, grouped by where they live — Media and Attachments on a transcription, Files, Worksheet Files and Recordings on a proceeding. Pick one and it drops into your message as a chip staff can download straight from the thread. Nothing is copied or re-uploaded; it’s a pointer to the file that’s already there.
The @ list is scoped to what you can reach. On a transcription it only offers media and attachments while the job is in Transcribing or Editing. On a proceeding, court reporters get every file on the job and videographers get the deposition files; both also get the Zoom recordings and their own worksheet files. Interpreters have no job files to mention, so @ returns nothing for them.

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Send something that isn’t on the job yet

Attach it: click the paperclip, or drag files onto the composer and drop them on the overlay. Each attachment can be up to 10 GB. They upload one at a time, showing a progress bar in a chip above the composer, and you can keep typing while they run. The message won’t send until they finish; a failed one gets a retry control on its chip, and if some succeed and some fail, the message sends with the ones that made it.
A chat attachment stays in the thread. It is not added to the job’s files, so it will never reach the customer and it won’t show up in the Exhibits Manager or on the Files tab. If the file belongs to the job — an exhibit, a worksheet document, a finished transcript — upload it to the job itself and mention it with @.

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Writing the message

The composer is a rich-text field capped at 1,000 characters. Bold with Ctrl/Cmd + B or **text**, italic with Ctrl/Cmd + I or *text*, underline with Ctrl/Cmd + U, strikethrough with ~~text~~. Start a line with - for a bulleted list or 1. for a numbered one. Links and email addresses are detected as you type. Enter sends; Shift + Enter starts a new line. To answer a specific message, hover or double-click it and choose Reply — your message quotes it so a long thread stays readable. Use the menu on one of your own messages to edit or delete it; an edit shows inline, and a delete leaves a “Message deleted” placeholder rather than removing the message from the history. Escape cancels a reply or an edit without losing what you’ve typed. A message that fails to send stays in place marked “Failed to send”, with Retry and Discard in its menu.
You won’t see read receipts on your messages. Staff read as a pool, so a check mark would only tell you that somebody in the office opened the thread — which isn’t the same as the person handling your job having seen it. If something is urgent, say it’s urgent.

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What lands in a thread without you writing it

Some of the notes you already write during a job post themselves into that job’s thread, each as its own card rather than a plain message, so staff can reply to them in context:
  • The note you attach when you upload and submit a transcription document.
  • The note you attach when you submit a proceeding order for review — it posts only once the order actually leaves your hands.
  • The special instructions and feedback on your worksheet. This one is a single live card: edit the worksheet feedback later and the card updates in place, and clearing it removes the card.
Two arrive from the other direction. If staff move a transcription back a step, their reason posts to your thread. If staff return a proceeding order to you for corrections, the return note posts there too — that note is the fastest way to find out what needs fixing. Declining an assignment is the exception. Your decline reason goes on the assignment record for staff to read, not into a thread.
Staff can also post notes visible only to other staff. Those never appear in your thread and are never counted in your unread badge, so a thread that looks quiet may still be moving on their side.

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Keeping up with messages

New messages arrive without reloading. Opening a thread marks it read; Mark all as read in the thread list header clears everything at once. When a message arrives and the thread isn’t open, a toast drops in at the top of the screen with the sender, a preview and the job, and a sound plays. Click the toast to jump into the thread. Up to three stack at a time. The speaker icon in the thread list header mutes and unmutes. Hover it and choose Configure… to pick from seven sounds — each previews as you select it — set the volume, and turn toasts off independently of sound. These settings are stored per device, so muting on your laptop leaves your phone alone.

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Finding an older thread

The list shows open threads only. Search by job ID, case name, case number or the text of a message and closed threads are searched too; Load older at the bottom of the list walks back through closed threads a page at a time.

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When a thread closes

Threads close automatically about five days after the job completes or is canceled. A closed thread keeps its full history and stays searchable, and the header tells you which of the two happened, but the composer is replaced by a locked banner — nothing new can be posted, and you can no longer edit or delete your old messages there.
If a job is wrapping up and something still needs saying — a correction, a billing question, a file you meant to send — say it before the job closes out. Once the thread locks, the only route left is email or a phone call.