Huddles

What it does

• Starts a call from a task, a project's team room, a sprint, or a board. The call is bound to that item, so the people in it share the same context.
• Minimises to a compact view that survives navigation: you can open other tasks, boards, and pages without dropping the call. Open it to a full window when you want the video front and center.
• Cleans up your microphone with background noise suppression (Strong by default).
• Carries mic, camera, and screen sharing, with device pickers, a mic test, and join defaults.
• Keeps a per-call chat transcript that works on every call type, plus quick emoji reactions and raise-hand.
• Records a call to your workspace's file store, with a consent step and a banner so everyone in the call knows recording is on (Enterprise plan).
• Schedules calls for later and emails calendar invites, sends a reminder before the start, and lists everything upcoming in one place.
• Shows who is in a call across the app, rings teammates in, and keeps a history of past calls you can open and replay.
• Can encrypt calls end to end for a whole workspace (Enterprise plan).

Starting and joining a call

Every place a huddle can attach has a call control:

• A task shows a Huddle button in its detail toolbar.
• A project has a Project room, a persistent call for the whole team that is always the same room.
• Sprints and boards have their own huddle buttons in their headers.

Click it to start or join. If a call is already live on that item, the button shows how many people are in it and you join the existing one rather than starting a second. When you join, the call appears as a small capsule in the left rail.

The minimised call

By default the minimised call is a capsule in the left rail. It shows the current speaker, a timer, a mute button, and a Leave button. It never covers the page on its own.

Click the speaker in the capsule to open the call tiles. They grow out of the capsule, over the page, and the capsule stays in the rail. You get a tile for everyone in the call with a ring around whoever is speaking, a muted mark, and live video when someone has a camera on. A shared screen shows large above the tiles. Close the tiles with the X, with Escape, or by clicking the capsule again, and you are back to the capsule alone. Enter or Space on the capsule opens and closes them too, and focus returns to the capsule.

The controls under the tiles keep to the few you use most: mute, camera, share screen, Add people, and Leave. Chat, action items, record, devices, present your view and reactions sit behind the More button. Pop out and Full screen sit next to the close button. Full screen opens the full-window view of the call; close it to go back to the capsule. The Suppress background noise switch is at the foot.

Choose how it looks

If you prefer another look, go to Profile settings, Huddles (/settings/profile/huddles), Minimised call view. Each option has a Preview button, and Use this view applies it.

• Capsule (default): the narrow capsule in the left rail.
• Call strip: a slim bar that floats over the page. Drag it to a corner. It says in words who is talking.
• Speaker tile: a small tile that shows the speaker, or a shared screen or camera.

The choice is yours alone. It does not change what anyone else sees.

Pop out

Pop out floats the call in its own small window above your other apps, so you can stay in the call while you work elsewhere. It needs a browser that supports it (recent Chrome and Edge do). The Ithura desktop app does not offer Pop out; it offers Full screen instead. Use Bring back to tab to return the call to Ithura.

Microphone, noise, and shortcuts

• Mute shortcut. Press Ctrl+Shift+Space (Cmd+Shift+Space on a Mac) to mute or unmute from anywhere in the app.
• Noise suppression. Set it in Profile settings, Huddles. There are three levels. Off sends your raw microphone with no processing. Standard uses your browser's own noise suppression. Strong (the default) adds an extra filter on top, which removes keyboard clatter, fans, and room noise, but can make your voice a little quieter. The processing happens on your device, so your raw audio is not sent anywhere to be cleaned. The Suppress background noise switch in an open call is a quick shortcut: on is Strong, off is Standard. If you used the old on and off switch, on became Strong and off became Standard.
• Blocked or missing microphone. If the browser blocks the microphone, or no microphone is found, you still join, muted, and a message explains why. Fix the permission or plug a microphone in, then click Try again.

Huddle settings

Profile settings, Huddles (/settings/profile/huddles) holds your huddle preferences, below Minimised call view. Everything here syncs to your other devices, except which devices you picked, which stay on this browser.

• Devices and mic test. Pick your microphone, speaker, and camera. The first time, click Allow microphone and camera so the browser shows device names. If access is blocked, the page tells you how to allow it again. Speaker choice is hidden in browsers that cannot switch the output, and the note says so. If a device you picked is gone, calls use your system default.
• Test your microphone. Start mic test shows a live level meter. Record and play back records 3 seconds and plays it back, using the same processing as a call (your noise level, echo cancellation, and automatic volume), so you hear what others hear. Play test sound checks your speaker.
• Noise suppression. Off, Standard, or Strong, as above.
• Join defaults. Join huddles muted, and Camera off when joining. Turn the second one off to start with your camera on.
• Advanced audio (closed by default). Echo cancellation and Automatic volume are on by default. Turn them off with a good headset or a studio mic. They do not apply when noise suppression is Off. In a call, a change restarts your microphone right away if it is on. If you are muted, it applies at your next join.

Screen sharing

Click Share screen in the open call to share. In the browser, you pick a tab, window, or screen. In the Mac app, macOS asks you to pick a window or the whole screen. If macOS blocks sharing, allow Ithura under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Screen Recording, then try again. Closing the picker without choosing just cancels.

Chat, reactions, and raise-hand

Open Chat from More in the open call to talk in text alongside the call. The chat is kept with the call: a late joiner sees what was said before they arrived, and the whole conversation is saved so you can read it again after the call ends.

React opens a small row of emoji that float up on everyone's screen, and a raise-hand toggle that shows a badge to the room until you lower it.

Recording

Recording is available on the Enterprise plan.

Click Record to capture the call. Because a recording affects everyone, it is consent first: you confirm a short prompt that states everyone will be notified, and once it starts a red badge shows in the call for every participant, late joiners included. Click Record again to stop.

When the recording finishes it is saved to your workspace's file store. It then shows up on the call in your huddle history and in the workspace Huddles page, where a Recording link plays it back. Recordings are private to the workspace, so the link is served through a short-lived signed URL and only project members can open it.

Recording and end-to-end encryption cannot be used together: if a workspace encrypts its calls, recording is turned off, since the server cannot read encrypted media to record it.

Scheduling and calendar invites

From the Huddles page, Schedule plans a call for later: pick the project, an optional title, a time, and a duration. Everyone invited (or every project member, if you name no one) gets an emailed calendar invite that drops the meeting onto their calendar, works with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Apple Calendar. A reminder lands in the inbox shortly before the start, and the call appears under Upcoming on the Huddles page with a Join button once it is time. Cancelling a scheduled call sends a calendar cancellation to the same people.

The Huddles page and call history

The Huddles entry in the workspace sidebar is the hub for calls. It shows what is live now across the workspace, an agenda of upcoming scheduled calls, and a Recent log of past calls, all limited to the projects you belong to. Each item in the log opens a call detail view with who started it, when, how long it ran, the participants, the recording if there was one, and the full chat transcript.

Every task, project, sprint, and board also has its own call history, reachable from a history control next to its huddle button, listing just that item's calls.

Presence and ringing

While a call is live, the people in it show a small headphones badge on their avatar everywhere in the app, so you can see at a glance who is talking. If you would rather not be interrupted, turn on Do not disturb on the Huddles page and the ring is suppressed while the inbox record still lands, so you never miss a missed call.

Add people

Use Add people to bring teammates into a call. It is on the call controls, on the call strip, and it opens by itself when you start a huddle from the Start a huddle button. It opens a roomy window in the middle of the screen with a search field at the top and three groups:

• In the call. Everyone connected right now.
• Invited. People you or someone else in the call has rung. Each row shows what happened and when they were called: Ringing, Declined, Missed or No answer. Missed means the ring never reached them (they were offline or on Do not disturb). No answer means they saw it and did nothing. A person who joined and then left shows as Left the call. Ring again sends a fresh ring.
• Not invited yet. Teammates who can join this call. Click Ring on a row to ring one person, or tick several and use Ring selected to ring them together.

Who can be added depends on where the call lives. A call on a task, sprint, board or project rings members of that project. A personal huddle rings workspace members. A call in a channel rings people who can open that channel, so a private channel only offers its members. Only people who are in the call can open the list or ring someone.

The groups are saved with the call, so they survive a reload and everyone in the call sees the same lists. When you decline a ring, the caller sees Declined. When you join, you move to In the call. Ringing someone sends them an instant prompt in whatever tab they have open, plus an inbox notification as a fallback. Copy link in the window footer copies a join link for calls that live on a project item.

End-to-end encryption

A workspace admin can turn on End-to-end encrypt huddles in Settings, Security. When it is on, every call in the workspace encrypts its audio and video in the browser, so the media server only ever relays scrambled media and a lock badge shows in the call. This is a workspace-wide setting on the Enterprise plan. As noted above, recording is unavailable while encryption is on.