Realm Communications Guide
This document describes the various ways that you can communicate with other ORUUC members through Realm, which is ORUUC’s church management system. We will describe how to do this with both the website version of Realm and the mobile app. All methods require that you have a Realm login account. For instructions on how to get a Realm login account and download the mobile app, go to the Getting Started page .
One-to-one communication
To communicate with just one or more people, you start a chat session. After you log in to Realm, you should see the following menu on the left side of the screen.
Go to Community>Communications>Chat, click on the + icon, and start typing the first name of the person you want to send a message to. (Sorry, last names re not accepted.) You can only start chatting with someone who has a Realm login account. If you start typing in the name of someone without a Realm account, their name will not show up in the list. If you search for someone through the normal search mechanism, then there will be a Chat button displayed for them only if they have a Realm account.
So, is there any way to send a message to folks who don’t have a Realm account? Yes, but only if you are a group leader. As a group leader you can specify your group when you start a chat session, or choose to send an email. People in your group who don’t have a Realm account can only be reached if you choose to send an email. See the Group Communications section below for more information on group messaging.
When you click on the icon, you will see the following screen. Choose your recipients, type your message, then hit the Send button.
There are several important things to note when you start a chat session like this.
You can only use the first name when searching for a person.
Once you have chosen a person to chat with, you can add others. Just start typing the first name of the new person.
You can specify a group as the recipient by starting to type the name of the group. But, once you have chosen a group, you cannot then add people to the list. Conversely, once you have added a person to the list, you cannot then add a group.
You can add emojis from a list.
You can add an attachment by clicking on the paper clip icon, but only one. If you specify more than one attachment, it will just use the last one you picked.
There is a group called Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church. Please DO NOT choose this group unless you really, really, really want the message to go out to the entire church.
When you click on the Send button, the message will be sent to all of the recipients. They will be able to view this message the next time the log in to Realm. If they have installed the mobile app on their phone, the app will alert them that a new message has arrived. This is why I is important to install the mobile app on your phone.
Suppose you don’t know the first name of the person you want to hat with, only their last name. In that case, you should first find their record by typing their last name into the search box at the top of the screen, which looks like this.