Slack: Redefining Business Team Communication
Team based communication in business is an often overlooked function in today’s business environment. Obviously, there are lots of ways to communicate: email, instant messages, phone, VOIP, online forums, but all them lack key features that make team based communication effective. Slack is a new cloud based communication service that allows teams to communicate easily and efficiently all in one place. While barely a year old with already 500,000 daily users, Slack has single handily revolutionized the way businesses are communicating. So what is Slack’s magic and how can it transform your team’s communication?
The easiest way to describe Slack is like the chat room services that used to be popular in the early days of the internet. Instead of chatting with groups of random users around the world, you chat with just your team members. Once your team’s users have joined Slack, they are able to access the common area where they can post messages. This is where you can create Channels to organize the conversation. Channels are typically used to denote the topic for the conversation. For example, you could have a channel for a current client project, a channel for discussing a new product rollout, another for new sales leads, etc... Whatever topics you need to discuss with your team, you can create a channel for them. Team members can then join the channels that are relevant to them and ignore the ones that aren’t - helping them stay more focused. Past messages are saved and archived and can be easily searched at a later date if needed. In addition to the “public” Channels, team members can also communicate via direct messaging and private groups.
It can often be hard to find a specific piece of information. In addition to their search options, Slack offers a “Deep Search”. Deep Search searches everything that you or others have uploaded or created in Slack. All information is indexed and archived making sure you have access to everything at all times. You can also tailor your searches to specify Channels or people. Slack also has a star system that can make searching quicker.
Attachments are one of the most important aspects of virtual collaboration and Slack helps keep them accessible and organized. Attachments can be easily added to any conversation and are then accessible to all of the relevant team members. If you want to share a file with your collaborations, it's as simple as a drag and drop.
The real magic of Slack comes from its integrations with other services you already use. Integrations allow other programs and services to communicate with you directly using Slack. So how does this work? Let’s say you what to monitor a specific Twitter feed. There is an integration for automatically posting Tweets to a channel in your Slack. Or if you use MailChimp for your email marketing, you can be notified via Slack every time some subscribes or unsubscribes. There are dozens of prebuilt integrations already with more being added all the time. Custom integrations can also be built. At CranstonIT, we use a mix of prebuilt and custom integrations. We receive Slack notifications when a server goes offline or a support ticket is submitted. Our techs get notifications when a new appointment has been scheduled / canceled or changed for them.
Slack is everywhere you are, thanks to its mobile, web and desktop applications. With Mac, iOS, Android and Windows (Beta) versions, Slack makes itself available to virtually every user. Not compromising on quality, Slacks mobile applications are fully functioning, making them as powerful as the desktop versions. Slack uses real-time synchronization, so if you read a message on one device, it will show up as read on the others.
Slack has a range of options when it comes to pricing and features. The free version has no limits on the times you can use it or the number of users you can have. It will work well for most small businesses. For businesses requiring additional features, there is a Standard package that is priced at $6.67 per user/month.
Currently, Slack only supports text based communication, but with their purchase of ScreenHero last year, they will soon be integrating instant screen sharing and audio chat into their service. There is no doubt that Slack is changing the way businesses communicate. Learn more about Slack at www.slack.com. For help with integrating Slack into your business and for all your Apple needs, contact us at support@cranstonit.com.
It can often be hard to find a specific piece of information. In addition to their search options, Slack offers a “Deep Search”. Deep Search searches everything that you or others have uploaded or created in Slack. All information is indexed and archived making sure you have access to everything at all times. You can also tailor your searches to specify Channels or people. Slack also has a star system that can make searching quicker.
Attachments are one of the most important aspects of virtual collaboration and Slack helps keep them accessible and organized. Attachments can be easily added to any conversation and are then accessible to all of the relevant team members. If you want to share a file with your collaborations, it's as simple as a drag and drop.
The real magic of Slack comes from its integrations with other services you already use. Integrations allow other programs and services to communicate with you directly using Slack. So how does this work? Let’s say you what to monitor a specific Twitter feed. There is an integration for automatically posting Tweets to a channel in your Slack. Or if you use MailChimp for your email marketing, you can be notified via Slack every time some subscribes or unsubscribes. There are dozens of prebuilt integrations already with more being added all the time. Custom integrations can also be built. At CranstonIT, we use a mix of prebuilt and custom integrations. We receive Slack notifications when a server goes offline or a support ticket is submitted. Our techs get notifications when a new appointment has been scheduled / canceled or changed for them.
Slack is everywhere you are, thanks to its mobile, web and desktop applications. With Mac, iOS, Android and Windows (Beta) versions, Slack makes itself available to virtually every user. Not compromising on quality, Slacks mobile applications are fully functioning, making them as powerful as the desktop versions. Slack uses real-time synchronization, so if you read a message on one device, it will show up as read on the others.
Slack has a range of options when it comes to pricing and features. The free version has no limits on the times you can use it or the number of users you can have. It will work well for most small businesses. For businesses requiring additional features, there is a Standard package that is priced at $6.67 per user/month.
Currently, Slack only supports text based communication, but with their purchase of ScreenHero last year, they will soon be integrating instant screen sharing and audio chat into their service. There is no doubt that Slack is changing the way businesses communicate. Learn more about Slack at www.slack.com. For help with integrating Slack into your business and for all your Apple needs, contact us at support@cranstonit.com.