Zello Channels are great for push-to-talk (PTT) communications between members of the same departments or levels of staff within your company. They are permanent, and user settings are easily managed from the admin console, which makes them great for day-to-day communications.
But sometimes you just need to chat with a few people or people that are outside your normal channels, or you may need to connect with certain people urgently for an unplanned event. Zello's Ad Hoc Channels feature addresses these needs quickly and easily.
What are Zello Ad Hoc Channels?
Ad Hoc Channels are push-to-talk channels-on-the-fly, which allows you to create temporary group conversations between contacts selected from your Recents or Contacts list.
For example, let’s assume you manage hotel security and normally only speak with security personnel on a Security channel. While on rounds, you find a room that has been broken into but also needs to be cleaned immediately. With Ad Hoc Channels, you can quickly set up a conversation with your lock technician and a team member in housekeeping to coordinate and handle the situation quickly and efficiently. In this way, Ad Hoc Channels makes it easy to connect with just the right people, in the moment.
After the group conversation is over, the Ad Hoc Channel goes away. Participants can then delete the Ad Hoc Channel from their Recents list or leave it intact for future use. Administrators can assign Ad Hoc Channel privileges to certain users, or turn the feature off entirely.
With Ad Hoc Channels, team members can have a conversation with a select set of contacts outside of established Zello Channels. They recognize the need team members sometimes have to connect in the moment with a collection of people for which no channel exists. Team members can create their own Ad Hoc Channels on the fly. And these channels are not persistent – when the conversation is over and the participants leave, the Ad Hoc Channel goes away.
How to use Ad Hoc Channels
Zello admins must authorize Ad Hoc Channels in the Console, but once the feature is turned on team members can create them in one of two ways:
- From their Recents screen, a user can tap on the New Conversation button. They then can choose Ad Hoc Channel participants from the list of Contacts that appears.
- From their Talk screen, a user can tap on the Add Participants drop down to see and choose from the same Contacts list.
It's important to note that we added Ad Hoc Channels at the request of clients who recognized the need for impromptu group communications. Our clients drive most of our product development priorities, and we're always looking for feedback to improve our users' experience with Zello. We'd love to hear from you!
For more details on how to use Ad Hoc Channels and enhance your Zello push-to-talk capabilities, please see our Support FAQ page.
