One group becomes a team
Give each topic in the group its own channel
The one big group
- Site lead: Delivery moved to 9Logistics
- Ana: Invoice for March?Finance
- Ben: Photo of the defectQuality
- Ana: Who covers Friday?Rota
Identity: phone numbers
Site team
Identity: accounts with email addresses
Before anybody moves
Audit WhatsApp first
- Whether your people can work without a mobile app
- What the group is actually used for
- What is in there that should not be
- Who is in the group and who should not be
- What has to be kept
The plan
Move work off WhatsApp to Enclessa
- Test the browser and desktop apps with the people who will use themThe iOS app is in the App Store; there is no Android app. Before anything else, put Enclessa in front of the people who currently work from their phones — on Android, through the browser — and find out whether it is good enough for what they actually do. If it is not, stop here.
- Write down what the group is used forList the distinct uses in that single thread. This list is the channel structure, and doing it before creating anything is what prevents the replacement from collapsing back into one room where everything is mixed together.
- Create the organisation and invite people by emailSet up the organisation and its first team, and invite people to accounts rather than collecting phone numbers. The Free plan covers up to 10 active members with no time limit, no payment card and no expiry, so a small team can do this without a purchase decision.
- Build the channels, and keep private things privateOne channel per use, grouped into categories. Conversations that should not be in front of everybody become group direct messages, which are end-to-end encrypted with no administrator override — the property people were relying on WhatsApp for, without the personal-device problem.
- Save the little that is worth savingWhatsApp can export a single conversation as a text file, with or without media, from within that conversation on the device it is on. It is a personal action rather than an administrative one. Pick the few things worth keeping, post them into the right channel, and leave the rest.
- Run both for two weeks, then close the groupKeep the group open while people learn where things go, and answer every question in the new channel even when it was asked in the old group. Then announce a date, say it in both places, and close the group — one that stays open never empties.
- Use the leaving process you now haveWhen somebody leaves, deactivate the account and access ends across every channel at once. The organisation keeps its record, and nobody is relying on a former colleague to delete a thread from their own phone.
- There is no importer, and given where the data lives there is no realistic route to one.
- Enclessa runs in the browser and as desktop apps for macOS and Windows, and on iPhone and iPad from the App Store. There is no Android app, and this is the single most likely reason a WhatsApp migration fails.
- There is no telephone number, no SMS and no PSTN calling. Enclessa replaces the group, not the phone.
- Group channels are managed by default. End-to-end encrypted channels exist only where the organisation permits them, and they lose search and export.
FAQ
Moving from WhatsApp: questions
- No. There is no importer, and the history lives on personal devices rather than anywhere an organisation controls. WhatsApp exports a single conversation at a time, from within that conversation, as a text file.
- For iPhone and iPad, yes: the iOS app is in the App Store. Enclessa also runs in the browser and as desktop apps for macOS and Windows. There is no Android app, so for a team on Android phones this is the first thing to test and the most likely reason not to move.
- Direct messages and group direct messages are end-to-end encrypted using MLS per RFC 9420, with no administrator override. Group channels are server-readable by default, because that is what makes search, retention and export work, and an organisation can permit end-to-end encrypted ones — so the answer depends on which room you are in, and the room always says which it is.
Bring your team over this afternoon
Free for up to 10 people, with encrypted direct messages and video calls. No payment card, no time limit, no server to run.
For businesses and organisations only — not available to consumers.