Social media pro: Slack
FOR WHEN EMAIL JUST ISN’T ENOUGH.
‘TWAS THE YEAR 1971 when the first email was ever sent. Now more than 40 years later it’s become a heavily depended upon channel of communication. Whether it’s Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo, the humble email allows us to send text, files and humorous cat GIFs to recipients at the press of a button. But does this technology meet the needs of today’s digital-dependent workplace? Slack is a multi-purpose hub designed for entire companies to engage and interact with one another. Going above and beyond a mere email, Slack allows employees to engage in one-on-one and group conversations, share files, even participate in voice and video calls. Another draw card is Slack’s ability to integrate with a wide range of popular third-party apps and services such as Dropbox and Salesforce. In this guide we’ll show you how to set up your business on Slack, before running through the many tools and features available on this highly collaborative platform.
THE BASICS
SIGNING UP. If you’re company isn’t already on Slack, visit https://slack.com/ and enter your email address before selecting the option to create a new workspace. Slack will email you a 6-digit code which you’ll need in order to proceed. Once done, enter your full name, password and company before choosing a URL for the site. You can then begin inviting colleagues via email or by sharing a unique web link with the entire company. It’s also a good idea to update your profile with a picture, company role and contact number for others to see – you can do this by clicking your workspace name in the top-left corner of any page and selecting Profile & account and then Edit profile.
CHANNELS. One of the first things to understand about Slack is its use of channels. Similar to a group chat, each channel offers a place for members to engage in discussion and share files with one another. Users begin with two channels – #general and #random. To create a new one, click the plus icon next to your list of existing channels and give it a name. Channels can be created for any purpose, whether it’s to organise different departments, projects or clients – how you use them is entirely up to you. By default, new channels are visible to the whole company for anyone to join. To see a complete list of channels in your workspace, click Channels in the left-hand menu and either scroll or search for one in particular.
MESSAGES. Regardless of whether your team are in the same room or working remotely, Slack makes it easy to get in touch. To send your channel a message, click the text box at the bottom of the page. In addition to ordinary words, you can also add emojis along with upload files from your computer or cloud storage service. There’s even the option to format your text by *bolding* or _italicising_ certain words. Looking to send a message to the whole office? You can do this from within the #general channel by including @everyone in your message.
APPS. Part of what makes Slack so useful is its ability to integrate with hundreds of thirdparty tools and services. For example, you can easily share documents from Dropbox, update your team’s Google Calendar, view Zendesk requests, even retrieve information from a CRM database such as Salesforce. The best part is that you can do all of this without leaving the Slack interface. To add a new app, click the plus icon next to your existing list of apps and enter a word or category. Alternatively, visit the App Directory to see apps organised into different groups and collections.
STEP IT UP A LEVEL
SEARCH. Slack makes finding documents or conversations from the past an absolute breeze. From any page click the search box in the top-right and type a word or phrase to be presented with a list of files and messages sorted by relevance or recency. You can then further filter these results to include only
certain people or dates.
STARRED ITEMS. The star tool lets you add particular files or messages to a list of favourites able to be reviewed at a later date. To add a new item, hover over a file or message and click the star icon. Favourites can be accessed by clicking the bigger star shown in the top-right of any page. Pinning an item meanwhile will add it to the details pane of a channel for all members to see.
VIDEO CALLING. Sometimes attempting to communicate your feedback on a project using text can be quite difficult. It’s for these situations then that voice and video calls can come in handy. A relatively straightforward process – to start a call, click on a contact’s name and select Call from the dropdown list.
MENTIONS. If you’re looking to get someone’s attention, the mention tool will be your friend. Similar to a Facebook tag, use the @ symbol before typing a colleague’s name in a message and they’ll be notified immediately after you hit send. To see a list of your own mentions (and reactions to your messages) click the @ icon in the top-right corner of the Slack interface.
STATUS UPDATES. An ode to the days of MSN, status updates are an easy way to tell colleagues when you’re free for a chat, working from home, or AFK (away from keyboard). To add a status, click your workspace name from the left-hand menu and select Set a status … from the list of options. Slack includes a number of pre-made ones but you can also create your own.
DIRECT MESSAGES. While channels may be great for engaging in team discussions, there’s some occasions where a one-on-one conversation will be more appropriate. To start a chat with someone in your workspace, click Direct Messages from the left-hand menu and enter the recipient’s name. The other person will be notified once you’ve sent the message.
GOING PRO
CUSTOM EMOJIS. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why not create your very own custom emoji to show people exactly how you feel. Click your workspace name in the left-hand menu and select Customise Slack to open up a new window – it’s here that you can then upload an image, give it a name, and hit save.
REMINDERS. As we make our way through the workday, it’s not uncommon for some things to fall through the cracks. That’s why reminders are a great way of ensuring you remain aware of any impending deadlines. In the text box of a conversation type /remind followed by what you want to be reminded about in the future. For example /remind me to submit the finance report at 9am every Tuesday. You can also schedule reminders for other colleagues and channels by including them in your message.
BOTS. Slackbot is a virtual assistant capable of answering questions about the tools and features of the platform. But what’s also cool is the ability to create custom responses tailored specifically to the needs of your workspace. For example, you can program Slackbot to tell
users the wifi password whenever they ask how to access the internet. To add new responses, click your workspace name from the left-hand menu and select Customize Slack from the dropdown list and then choose Slackbot.
NOTIFICATIONS. While being notified every time a colleague comments in a channel might ensure you remain informed on a task’s status, it can also act as a distraction from the job in front of you. In settings you can adjust when and for what you’re notified about. The Do Not Disturb feature is also great for automatically disabling notifications at certain points during the day, such as in the evening and early morning.
KEYWORDS. In addition to mentions and messages, Slack lets you set up notifications for certain words or phrases. For example, if you’re a coffee lover, you can set up keywords to be notified when a colleague announces they’re doing a caffeine run. To set this up, visit the preferences page and scroll down until you see a section labelled My Keywords. You can separate multiple words and phrases using commas.
POSTS. If you’re wanting to share a lengthy message with members in a channel, then you may want to use the post tool. From the text box click the plus icon and select Post to be taken to a new screen with more space and formatting options. Posts can be saved as drafts until you’re ready to share them with your team.