Messages threads are internal to your organization. Nothing you write here reaches anyone outside it.
That is the first thing to know, because the surface looks like it might do otherwise: you can link a thread to a contact, a booking or a performer. Those links are context labels only. Linking a contact does not email them. Linking a booking does not notify the performer. A thread on a saved performer's Messages tab is still a conversation between your own team about that performer.
To talk to the performer you've booked, use the booking's Messages with … tab instead — see Messaging the performer you've booked. On a booking that has one, this tab is labelled Team notes.
Find it under Relationships → Messages. You need the Messages permission to open it, Messages · Create to start a thread or post, and Messages · Edit to archive or reopen one.
Who can read a thread, and who gets told
There is no participant picker, and there is no private message or DM. Every thread belongs to the organization, so every member of your organization who has the Messages permission can read every thread. Write accordingly.
When you post, ARRIVE notifies every active member whose role grants Messages access, except you, through two channels:
- The in-app bell, written immediately and always.
- Email, sent best-effort. Team-thread emails always send; a member's Booking emails switch doesn't turn them off.
Notifications are best-effort throughout: if the bell or the email fails, your message still sends.
Starting a thread
New Thread asks for a Subject and, optionally, a contact to link, a booking to link, and a first message. You can post the first message later instead.
You can also start a thread from inside a record — an event, program, opportunity, booking or a saved performer all have their own Messages tab. A thread started there is pre-linked to that record and opens inline, so you stay in context. The Messages page shows all of them together, with the linked record's name as a chip on the thread.
Two details worth flagging:
- Contacts can be linked to a thread from the New Thread form, but a contact record has no Messages tab of its own.
- Starting or posting in a thread linked to a performer requires your organization's access to be active. Even then, nothing is sent to the performer — it remains an internal conversation.
Messages cannot be edited or deleted
Once posted, a message is permanent. There is no edit and no delete — not hidden behind a permission, simply not built, and the database grants members no way to do it either. Read your message before you send it.
Threads follow the same principle at their own level: Archive is the only way to retire one. An archived thread keeps its full history, drops out of the Open tab, and refuses new posts until someone with Messages · Edit reopens it. Archiving is enforced on the server, not just by a greyed-out composer.
Unread
A thread is unread for you if it has a message from someone else posted after the last time you opened it. Opening the thread clears it — including when you open it inline from a record's Messages tab. The Unread KPI counts threads in that state for you specifically.
ARRIVE AI is deliberately never used on Messages
Where every other surface in Organization OS offers an assistant, Messages offers a statement instead. In the product it reads:
AI isn't used on Messages
with the full version: "AI assistance isn't offered on Messages. Your team's message contents are never shared with ARRIVE AI."
The reason is structural rather than a matter of scheduling. Drafting or summarising a reply would require reading the text of your messages, and message bodies are excluded from what ARRIVE AI may ever be given — a rule that applies to every AI feature in the product, not just this one. No amount of message volume changes that.
So this is not a "Soon" chip and not a disabled button. Both of those would be promises, and the absence here is a deliberate privacy property rather than a gap waiting to be filled. See ARRIVE AI: what it does, how to switch it off, and what it keeps.
What Messages does not do yet
To save you looking: there is no search box (filter by the All / Open / Archived tabs), no sorting or pagination, and no way to rename a thread once created. Three tabs read Soon and do nothing — Mentions, Unread and Attachments — as do the Response Rate and Avg. Reply Time KPI cards. Inside a thread, Live updates, @Mentions, Attachments and Read receipts are all marked Soon; messages load when you open the thread rather than arriving live.
To attach a file to a record, use its Documents tab — see Your asset library. For the venues, sponsors and people behind your program, see Contacts.