Visual Space manual, Chat, Create And Summarize A Topic

This walkthrough takes an Activity Chat topic from an author-only draft to a focused live discussion and a durable summary. Use it when a group is beginning a distinct question, phase, or decision that should remain understandable after the rapid exchange has ended.

Before You Start

You must be the space owner or have Manage Chat permission to create an Activity Chat topic. Other joined members can take part after the topic is published, but they cannot publish your draft for you.

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Choose one outcome - Give the topic a boundary that someone could recognize later, such as a launch decision or a weekly review. Continue the current topic when the new message still serves its existing outcome.

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Choose the activity home - Put the topic in the activity that owns the work, participants, and follow-up. Activity topics cannot be created as general space- or subspace-level conversations.

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Plan the first summary - Prepare the purpose, known context, and question the group needs to resolve. The summary can develop as the discussion does; it does not need to predict the conclusion.

The topic title can contain up to 300 characters, but a short, specific name is easier to scan in a long feed. A title such as July onboarding review gives members a clearer starting point than a broad label such as Updates.

Create The Topic In The Right Activity

The starting action depends on where you are and whether the activity already has a published topic.

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Start from a space or subspace - Choose Add Topic, then use Choose your activity to select the activity where the conversation belongs. Selecting the activity takes you into that activity and opens the new topic editor.

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Start in an empty activity - In the Add Discussion Topic view, choose Add Topic to create the first draft.

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Start beside an existing discussion - Open the composer’s add menu and choose Start New Topic. The existing published topic stays active while you prepare the replacement.

Creating the topic also creates its connected summary as a draft. Only you, as the draft author, can see this draft topic in Chat. Other members keep seeing the published conversation. If the activity already has a published topic, messages continue there; if it has none, the composer remains unavailable until you publish the draft.

Name And Shape The Draft

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Enter a clear title - Select the field showing Enter title and name the outcome or question. Keep the title within 300 characters. If you try to publish without a title or exceed the limit, correct the validation shown by the editor.

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Write the starting summary - Use the summary area to explain why the topic exists, what the group already knows, and what needs to be decided. Add only the context that helps a reader understand the discussion.

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Keep detail proportional - A short coordination topic may need only a few lines. A consequential decision may need supporting links, evidence, and an explicit description of the choice in front of the group.

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Check the activity context - Before publishing, confirm that the selected activity is still the natural home. Moving is available later, but starting in the right place helps the right members notice and join the conversation.

The summary is the topic’s lasting explanation, not an advance copy of every message. At this point it can be an honest working brief; you will return to it after the discussion has produced decisions or useful findings.

Publish The Topic And Verify The Feed

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Publish with Add Topic - Choose Add Topic in the editor. This publishes the topic divider and its connected summary together.

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Find the new divider - Return to the activity conversation and confirm that the new title appears as the latest published topic. It is now the active topic for new messages.

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Check the composer - The field should say Type a message. If this was the activity’s first topic, its appearance confirms that the activity now has the published context required for conversation.

Publication changes the audience and message destination. The topic is no longer your private draft, and new messages belong to it. If the composer still says Publish the draft topic. Then you can type messages, reopen your draft divider and finish publication rather than continuing under an unclear state.

A published topic gives the activity feed a visible boundary and restores the message composer for the discussion.

Hold The Discussion

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Open with the intended outcome - Send a short message that tells participants what needs attention and what a useful result would look like. Mention the people who need to respond or add an accessible goal reference when it provides durable work context.

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Keep related work together - Use replies for local context, but leave the exchange in this topic while it continues serving the same result. Start another topic only when the group has genuinely moved to a different subject or phase.

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Share evidence in context - Add the links, files, or references that participants need to evaluate the question. Preserve essential evidence in the summary later so readers are not forced to reconstruct it from scrollback.

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Recognize completion - Pause when the group has reached a decision, documented a finding, or identified a clear next action. A lull by itself does not make the summary complete; the useful checkpoint is an outcome someone can understand and act on.

For the detailed composer, reply, mention, and goal-reference flow, see Messages and Replies.

Turn The Discussion Into A Useful Summary

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Open the connected summary - Select the published topic divider while you are inside its activity. From a space or subspace topic overview, first enter the owning activity; selecting the divider there opens the summary.

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Replace the working brief with the result - As the topic author, revise the summary so it leads with what changed or what the group concluded. Keep the reasoning that a later reader needs, but remove conversational detours.

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Preserve the durable pieces - Record the decision or finding, essential context, important evidence, and the next action when one was agreed. If a question remains open, name it directly instead of presenting an uncertain result as settled.

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Check the summary on its own - Read it as though you missed the live conversation. A successful summary explains the outcome without requiring the reader to inspect every message, while the message history remains available for deeper context.

Do not turn the summary into a transcript. Messages preserve the back-and-forth; the summary preserves the understanding that should survive it. Only the topic article’s author receives its ordinary editing access, so another chat manager can help with the discussion or move the topic but does not automatically become its summary editor.

The Resources topic opens its connected Helpful links article in the same space context.

Share The Result More Widely When It Helps

A completed summary can remain the durable record for the activity. When the decision or progress matters to people beyond the live discussion, it may also be published as a post in the wider feed.

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Judge the audience - Use a post for a meaningful milestone, decision, invitation, or result that the wider space should see. Keep routine coordination in the topic summary.

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Review before wider publication - Make the summary understandable outside the immediate chat context and confirm that its links and details are suitable for that broader audience.

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Use post publication when available - If your article controls and space permissions let you publish the summary to the wider feed, do so only after that review. Otherwise, keep the summary as the activity’s durable record. Do not use Publish as article on an individual message as a substitute; that creates article material from one message and is a separate workflow.

Whether or not you publish a post, the topic divider, summary, and messages continue to form one activity record.

Move The Complete Topic If Its Home Was Wrong

Move a published topic when its full discussion clearly belongs to another activity. The topic author, space owner, or a member with Manage Chat permission can make this change.

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Open the topic actions - Use the options control on the topic divider and choose Move.

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Choose the destination activity - Select an accessible, published activity in the same space. Draft, archived, inaccessible, or missing activities do not appear as valid destinations, and the current activity is excluded.

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Verify both sides - Confirm that the divider is no longer in the source activity and appears in the destination after Chat refreshes. Open it there to confirm that the connected summary and messages moved with it.

Moving changes the topic’s home; it does not create a copy. Do not delete and recreate a completed topic merely to correct its activity, because moving preserves the discussion and its summary together.

If Something Does Not Look Right

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No Add Topic action appears - Confirm that you are signed in and are either the space owner or have Manage Chat permission. Ordinary members join after publication but cannot create the activity topic.

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The editor will not publish - Add the required title, keep it within 300 characters, and resolve any validation shown in the editor before choosing Add Topic again.

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Other members cannot see the topic - It is probably still your author-only draft. Reopen its draft divider and publish it with Add Topic.

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Messages still belong to the previous topic - The new topic has not been published yet. Chat intentionally keeps the latest published topic active while you work on a draft.

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There is no message composer - The activity has no published topic yet, or your account does not currently have the required space access. Publish the draft first, then confirm that Type a message appears.

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A move destination is missing - Confirm that it is a published, accessible activity in the same space and is not archived or the current activity.

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The topic should no longer remain available - The topic author or space owner can use the confirmed delete action, but deletion removes the divider from active conversation reads and its summary from normal access. Prefer preserving or moving a completed topic when its record remains useful; Manage Chat permission by itself grants movement, not deletion.

The Completed Result

You now have a published Activity Chat topic in the right activity, a conversation attached to that topic, and a summary that preserves the result rather than the transcript. If the outcome deserved wider attention, it may also be available as a post; if the activity home changed, the complete topic moved without splitting its messages from its summary.

Continue with Topics and Summaries for the full topic model, Activity Chat for the surrounding workspace, or the Chat overview to place this workflow alongside Direct Messages and publishing choices.