Case messaging: talk to the case team in chat

Case messaging in Case Chat keeps the conversation next to the case record in Cympha dental lab case management software, so clinic and lab discuss the work where the files live.

Audience: Anyone who participates in a case in Cympha — the clinician who submitted it, the assigned lab manager, the designer or intaker currently working it, or a doctor messaging a patient on a clinical case.

You'll come away knowing: where the in-case chat panel lives, who is in each chat conversation, when an email goes out, and how chat differs from the case-wide activity log.

Time required: Less than a minute per message once you know where the panel is.

Before you start

You need:

A case you can open in Cympha. Open it from the case list or the URL.
To be a participant on the case. Chat is for the people working the case — if the case was merely shared with you (you'll see a Shared badge in the case header), your access is read-only: you can view the case and its files, but you can't post in chat, upload files, or change status.

Who is in the conversation

Chat is not a case-wide broadcast. Each case has one chat conversation, and who's in it depends on the kind of case:

Lab cases — the chat connects three people: the doctor who submitted the case, the assigned lab manager, and whoever currently holds the case (the designer or intaker working it). It's a three-way working conversation.
Clinical cases — the chat connects the doctor with the patient the treatment plan was shared with. No lab staff can see or join this conversation.

Patients never see lab-case chat, and lab staff never see the patient↔doctor conversation.

Step 1 — Open the case detail page

Open the case from your case list. The case detail page has two panels:

Left — the activity log and the chat panel.
Right — patient info, case details, files.

Scroll the left column to the section titled Case Chat. It sits just below the Activity Log section.

Step 2 — Type and send

The chat panel has a multi-line text box at the bottom labeled "Type a message... (Shift+Enter for new line)". Type your message there.

Enter sends the message.
Shift + Enter adds a new line without sending.
The box grows up to a few lines tall as you type, then scrolls.
Messages are capped at 2000 characters — long enough for any working note; split anything longer.

Next to the input are two icon buttons:

A mail icon — toggles "also send as email". When on, the same message is also delivered by email to the other people in the chat conversation (everyone in the channel except you). Use this when you want to be sure the message gets seen (e.g. a question to the doctor at the end of the day). Leave it off for routine back-and-forth — the recipient sees it the next time they open the case, with no inbox noise.
A send icon — posts the message immediately. Disabled until the textarea has content.

Step 3 — Confirm it posted

Your message appears at the bottom of the chat panel as a chat bubble with your name, avatar, and the timestamp. Your own messages render on the right; everyone else's render on the left, so you can tell at a glance who said what.

What happens next

Who sees the message:

The other participants in the chat conversation see it the next time they open the case, and immediately if they're already on the page — the case page updates live.
On a lab case that means the doctor, the lab manager, and the current worker. On a clinical case it means the doctor and the patient.
It does not include patients you've shared a lab case with via Share to Patient — that's a separate, narrower workspace — and it does not include colleagues the case was shared with.

When emails go out:

If you toggled the mail icon on, the other participants in the conversation receive your message by email as well.
If you left it off, no email is sent — the message is in-app only.
The lab side has an additional Email Customer button in the activity-log composer (the larger compose area above the chat). That sends a formal email to the doctor on the case and is logged as a "Message from <lab>" entry the doctor sees both in their inbox and on the case. Use it for "please re-take the CBCT" kind of communication; use chat for everyday questions.

Translation:

Chat is built for cross-language teams. Messages carry a Translate / Original toggle — read a colleague's message in your own language, and flip back to Original any time to see exactly what they typed.

Difference between chat and the activity log composer

They serve different purposes:

Chat panel (this doc) — quick, conversational. The textarea is small. Enter sends. No subject, no rich text. Optional "also send as email" toggle. This is where back-and-forth between the people working the case lives.
Activity log composer — a richer compose area for posting comments onto the case's audit trail, with a Visible to customer toggle on internal comments (lab side only — internal comments are hidden from the doctor unless this is on), and the Email Customer action. Use this when you're posting a substantive update that belongs in the case record.

You can use both on the same case. The choice is mostly about whether you're having a conversation or putting an update on the record.

Troubleshooting

The chat panel says "No messages yet." Nobody on the case has posted yet. You're the first.

My Send button is greyed out. The textarea is empty — whitespace-only counts as empty.

I posted but the other person says they never saw it. Check whether you toggled the email icon. Without the email toggle, the message is in-app only — if the recipient never opened the case, they wouldn't know. Repost with the toggle on, or use Email Customer in the activity log composer for a formal nudge.

A colleague the case was shared with can't post. That's expected. Colleague shares are read-only — the recipient can view the case and its files, but chat is reserved for the case participants.