I use demo board with our club members to collaborate when reviewing a game or a problem. However it is difficult to know what other people are doing in the chat: they could be waiting for others, they could be typing something, they could be exploring the tree of moves, they could be exploring their own variations, they could be doing something else, etc…
So my suggestion is to show beside the name of each individual, a text or symbol, that represents their current status (typing, exploring, creating new variation, waiting, etc…)