InCircle is a business chat from BlueTec Inc., whose shareholder Headwaters Co., Ltd. is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market. It serves companies, schools and government offices, and runs on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac browsers and feature phones.

Only administrator-registered members can sign in, and the app ignores the phone’s address book. Data is encrypted in the device cache, over SSL and in the server database. BlueTec holds ISMS (ISO/IEC 27001) and Japan’s Privacy Mark certification. Staff can use personal phones, because deleting a user’s ID forces a logout.

A guest role gives outside partners limited access. Audit-role users can export every stored message by period or user. An option limits access to a dedicated app distributed to the customer, so standard store apps cannot connect.

Signup is by inquiry, with a free trial but no free plan, and SaaS has a minimum user count. SSO, the client API and the dedicated-app option cost extra.

The SaaS edition stores data on AWS. An on-premise edition serves organizations that cannot use the cloud, such as government and medical institutions.

SSO over SAML lets staff sign in with the company’s identity provider.

The API and custom chatbots link existing systems to the chat: a bot can fetch documents, search business cards or book meeting rooms.

The App Store listing names English, French, Korean, Chinese, German, Italian and Spanish. Support is in Japanese only.

App Links:

iOS | Android