Inviting guests and contractors safely

Most operations depend on people who are not on payroll: subcontractors on a build, a cleaning crew in a client building, a maintenance vendor, the client who wants updates. They need fast communication with your staff, but they should not see payroll questions, internal complaints or another client’s site. The answer is not to keep them out of chat; it is to give them a smaller door.

Why guest access matters

When outsiders are added to the same groups your staff use, information leaks without anyone meaning it to. A supervisor jokes about a client’s budget, a guard posts an access code for a different site, or a subcontractor who left in March is still reading updates in November. These are not hacks; they are design problems.

The fix follows the principle of least privilege: give each person the narrowest access that lets them do the job, and take it away when the job ends.

Guest vs member

C Chat separates the two roles clearly. For the concept in general, see what a guest user is.

	Team member	Guest
Who	Your employees and long-term staff	Contractors, cleaning staff, clients, vendors
Joins	The team (workspace)	One group, by invitation
Sees	Groups they are added to	Only the group they were invited to
Removal	Remove from the team	Remove from the group

A good test: if the person would not get a company email address or a badge, they are probably a guest. Our page on guest access for contractors and clients covers the feature itself.

Choosing the right invite channel

C Chat lets you invite by link, QR code, WhatsApp, SMS or email. Pick the one that reaches the right person directly.

• WhatsApp or SMS works well for field contractors who live on their phone. The invite arrives in a chat they already check.
• Email fits clients and office-based vendors, and leaves a written trace of who was invited when.
• QR code is useful in person, for example at a site induction where a crew joins together. Show it on your screen and take it down afterwards.
• Invite link is flexible, but treat it like a key. Send it to the person, not to a public chat or a printed notice.

New guests sign up with their phone number or email and a one-time code, so there is no password to share. Details on each channel are in inviting by link or QR code.

Least-privilege group design

Before you send the first invite, design the group.

This pattern is standard in subcontractor coordination on job sites and in cleaning crews working at client sites, where several outside companies share one location.

Removing guests when work ends

Access should end with the work, not months later. Put guest removal into the same checklist as the final invoice.

• Remove the guest from the group on the last day of the engagement.
• Post a short closing message (Job closed on [date], contact [name] for warranty issues) and pin it.
• If the contractor will return regularly, re-invite them when the next job starts instead of leaving them inside.
• Review guest groups once a month and remove anyone without an active job.

Because the conversation stays in the team, you keep the photos, approvals and timeline even after the guest leaves.

How C Chat helps

C Chat was built for mixed groups of staff and outsiders. Guests join a group by invitation and do not need to be part of your team. Messages are protected with TLS in transit and AES-256 at rest with keys specific to your organization. Team owners and admins can audit and export group conversations, which covers guest groups too, while direct messages between people remain private.

For more patterns, see coordinating contractors in one secure chat and facility vendor coordination.

Getting started

Pick one active contractor or client job, create a guest group for it at getcchat.com/c, pin the scope and send the invite through the channel the person already uses. Once your staff are set up, the steps in onboarding your team help you roll the same pattern out across every site.