Project Channels, Section Channels, and Private Channels

A channel is a room with a scope. The scope decides who is in it. Dayzen has four scopes: the workspace, one project, one section, or a custom list of members. Pick the smallest room that still includes everyone who must hear the conversation. A custom list is how you make a private channel. It is not a direct message feature with an inbox of its own.

Where to write, channel versus task comment, is project chat versus task comments. This page is only about who can be in the room.

Workspace

A workspace channel is the widest room in that workspace. Use it for something every member of the workspace should see, which is rare. Most "everyone" messages are actually one project. A workspace room fills up with work other people cannot act on, and then people mute the habit of reading it.

Members who are not in the workspace are not in this room. Guests you have not added are not in it either.

Project

A project channel is the default room for that outcome. Standups, date changes, and "the review moved" belong here when they are about the project as a whole. People who cannot open the project should not be in the channel. If a client should hear only part of this, do not use the project channel for the part they should not hear. Use a section or a custom room, and share the matching work.

One project does not need five project-level rooms with vague names. Start with the project channel the product scope already gives you. Add another scope when the membership must differ.

Section

A section channel follows a section in the project. The section is an area of work, as in how to organize a project into sections. The channel is the conversation for that area: design questions in the design section, not in the project room where launch and billing-adjacent notes would also sit. There is still no billing in the project tool. The point is topic and membership, not invoices.

Use a section channel when the people on that area are a subset, or when the project channel has become too noisy to find this area's decisions. Do not create a section only to get a channel. Create the section because the tasks belong together, then use the channel if you need the room.

A share on the section and a channel on the section are related ideas and not the same switch. Sharing lets someone see the tasks. The channel lets members of that room talk. Check both before you assume a guest can read the design thread. Client access is the share. This article will not grant it.

Custom, which is the private case

A custom channel has the members you add. Use it when the conversation is not the whole project and not one section: two leads deciding a date before they tell the project, or a small group that is not a section. Add people on purpose. Remove them when they should leave the topic. The member list is the privacy.

This is as close as the product gets to a private channel. It is still a channel: messages, replies, mentions of people in the room. It is not a direct-message product. Two members in a custom channel can talk, and you created that room. There is no separate personal inbox, no presence, and no reaction tray to describe.

Do not create a custom channel to hide tasks. Tasks are hidden by access, not by chatting elsewhere. A private conversation about a task the whole project can see does not make the task private.

Choosing

Who must hear it?	Scope
Every member of the workspace	Workspace, rarely
The people on one project	Project
The people on one area	Section
A list you name	Custom

If you cannot name the people, you do not know the scope yet. Put the message on the task if it is really about one card, instead of opening another room.

Names and archive

Project and section channels are identified by that project or section. A custom channel needs a name that says what the room is for. "Random" and "Quick" become junk. Archive a custom channel when the topic is over, so it does not sit beside live rooms. Archiving is not a delete of the project's tasks.

Do not duplicate the same discussion in two scopes. Pick the room, and if the decision changes a task, also comment on the task or edit the field. The channel is not a second system of record for dates.

Opening a room for one sensitive decision

Two people need to discuss a date before the project hears it. Create a custom channel, add those two, and name it with the decision, not "Private." Have the conversation there. When the date is chosen, edit the task, tell the project channel in one sentence, and archive the custom room if it has no further job. Leaving it open means a third person gets added "for context" and the private list becomes a shadow project channel.

Do not do this for every decision. Most dates can be set on the task in the open. A custom room is for the case where the project channel is the wrong audience, not for status theater.

A section channel is the better tool when the audience is everyone working in that area, every week. Design questions that recur belong there, so you are not creating a custom room called Design that duplicates the section. If the section membership and the people who should talk are the same, use the section scope. Custom is for a list the section does not already describe.

Workspace channels need the opposite bias. If you are about to post in the workspace room, ask whether another project would be confused by the message. If yes, it is a project channel post. The wide room is for workspace membership news, and even that may belong outside the project tool entirely.

Conclusion

Put project conversation in a project channel, area conversation in a section channel, and a named subset in a custom channel. Use the workspace room only when every member truly needs it. A custom channel is a private member list, not a direct message. Rooms do not replace task access. They are part of /pms.

One mistake to avoid

Do not create a custom channel for a single task's decision. That decision is a comment. A custom room that exists to talk about one card splits the record the assignee will open. If the audience is the problem, fix the audience with a section or a share, and still write the decision on the task.

Before you add a guest to any room, list the last ten messages in it. If any of them are internal, that room is the wrong scope. Put the guest on the shared task's comments, or create a room whose history you are willing to show.