A Full Slack Information for 2024

Distant work and distributed groups have elevated the complexity of communications, as small particulars often communicated face-to-face should now be remodeled into environment friendly digital interactions. Slack as a software is designed for this precise function.

Slack helps groups handle communications from the smallest element to giant company-wide bulletins. Learn by way of this information to know what Slack is and catch a glimpse of what it has to supply.

What’s Slack?

Slack is a cloud-based collaboration software that serves as a central hub for group communication. It was initially designed as a kind of e-mail substitute that helped get rid of the confusion brought on by lengthy e-mail chains usually utilized by collaborating group members. Slack has since advanced right into a complete suite of options that facilitate each non-public and public conversations inside a company.

What’s Slack used for?

Slack is designed to be the nerve heart of your office. It’s not only for chatting; it’s an intuitive platform for challenge administration, data sharing and even socializing. Whether or not it’s a company-wide announcement or a non-public message between two group members, Slack affords a variety of channels, each private and non-private, to suit the communication wants of any group.

How a lot does Slack price?

Slack gives a number of pricing choices to swimsuit numerous wants. It affords a free plan with restricted options and three paid tiers: Professional, Enterprise+ and Enterprise Grid. Every tier affords further functionalities, resembling limitless message historical past, group conferences and integrations.

Slack affords a 50% low cost for the primary three months of the Professional plan. It additionally affords steep reductions and offers for instructional establishments and nonprofit organizations.

Free

Slack’s Free plan is comparatively restricted in comparison with its paid tiers. As an example, message and file historical past is proscribed to 90 days, and customers can solely add as much as 10 integrations, whereas these options are limitless for paid plans. As well as, collaboration options like huddles and dealing with exterior customers are restricted to one-on-one solely.

Professional

The Professional Plan is $7.25 per person monthly when billed yearly. For month-to-month, the speed is $8.75 per person.

The Professional Plan affords an infinite variety of integrations and consists of customized retention insurance policies, person teams, Google Authentication and Apps for Domains sign-in, visitor entry and a configurable e-mail ingestion service.

Enterprise+

The Enterprise+ plan prices $12.50 per person monthly, billed yearly, or $15 per person when billed month-to-month.

For many midsize organizations, the Enterprise+ plan ought to be satisfactory. The plan consists of SAML-based single sign-on, compliance exports of message historical past, and real-time Energetic Listing sync.

Enterprise Grid

Slack’s Enterprise Grid plan, focused towards organizations with 500 to 500,000 workers, permits for limitless workspaces and shared channels, enabling organizations to arrange Slack in a method that higher mirrors their organizational construction. This plan gives message and file sharing that’s HIPAA compliant.

Groups within the Enterprise Grid plan might want to contact Slack’s gross sales group for a customized quote.

Slack AI

As of February 2024, Slack affords an AI add-on plan, which provides automated summarization of conversations, a day by day recap and a extra versatile search operate. Slack AI prices $10 per person monthly. You’ll must have one of many paid plans so as to buy Slack AI.

Slack AI is offered in English, Spanish and Japanese, with extra languages anticipated to return out later.

Key options of Slack

Workforce communication

Slack affords a wide range of communication and collaboration options, like huddles, which gives audio and video calls and the flexibility to share screens.

Slack permits for group or non-public messaging by way of its channels characteristic. These channels may be department-specific or project-specific, offering a centralized place for related group members to collaborate.

It additionally has a messaging characteristic that delivers organized group chat and a clips characteristic that allows customers to conveniently file and share audio or video clips.

Video capabilities

Slack affords a built-in video chat characteristic. Whereas not as feature-rich as specialised video conferencing instruments like Zoom, it gives a fast and simple method for group members to provoke face-to-face conversations when wanted whereas additionally permitting screen-sharing and whiteboard capabilities.

Slack’s Huddles characteristic makes face-to-face communication fast and simple. Picture: Slack

Workflow automation

Slack Workflows enable customers to automate a variety of duties by way of a no-code method, making routine processes extra environment friendly. With Slack’s Workflow Builder, customers don’t want technical abilities to automate processes; they will take a drag-and-drop method to easily and creatively automate their workflows. Any premium model of Slack has entry to Slack’s automation instruments.

Ease of Use

Certainly one of Slack’s most compelling options is its user-friendly interface and total simplicity. That simplicity has contributed to Slack’s quick development through the years, and the corporate has been profitable in not letting feature-creep complicate the general usefulness of the app.

New challenge administration characteristic: Lists

In June 2024, Slack debuted Lists, a challenge administration characteristic. Lists provides a visible, interactable, shareable to-do record characteristic that may be dropped into channels to indicate how a challenge is progressing.

Lists began to roll out on June 6, 2024 and shall be totally out there in paid plans “within the coming months,” Slack mentioned in a press package.

How do you utilize Slack?

Slack is accessible by way of numerous platforms. You should utilize it through an online browser or obtain its desktop software, out there for Home windows, macOS and Linux. Cell apps are additionally out there for Android and iOS.

What are Slack shortcuts?

Slack shortcuts are automated interactions between both totally different elements of Slack or Slack and third-party purposes. Customers can arrange “triggers” to fireplace shortcuts with out having to manually ship a message to carry out the identical motion each time.

Checklist of Slack shortcuts

Whereas utilizing Slack could also be intuitive for a lot of customers, listed below are some widespread keyboard shortcuts price figuring out to make repetitive processes quicker.

Slack has many extra shortcuts you possibly can discover from inside its desktop app by urgent Cmd + / on macOS and Ctrl + / on Home windows and Linux.

SEE: For extra tips about Slack, try our 10 Slack suggestions: a how-to information, and see how one can arrange key phrase alerts to make Slack extra handy for you.

What are some high Slack integrations?

Slack affords a plethora of integration choices, slicing throughout the classes of analytics, communication, buyer help, design, developer instruments, advertising, challenge administration and extra. In style integrations embrace:

• Jira: Ideally suited for Agile groups, the Jira Cloud app for Slack permits customers to obtain notifications and observe points with out leaving the Slack interface.
• Google Calendar: As soon as put in, this integration updates customers’ Slack standing primarily based on their calendar entries and sends reminders, making it simpler to handle and talk their schedules.
• Salesforce: This integration permits for real-time knowledge sharing between Salesforce and Slack, streamlining the workflow for gross sales and customer support groups.
• Zoom: With the Zoom integration, assembly organizers can schedule, be part of and even file Zoom conferences instantly from Slack, making it handy for distant groups and groups that rely closely on video conferencing.
• GitHub: Builders can preserve observe of code adjustments, pull requests and points with this integration, making it simpler to handle software program initiatives.
• Trello: This integration permits challenge managers and group members to handle Trello playing cards, replace due dates and transfer playing cards between lists inside Slack. Take a look at our Trello versus Slack information to find out how Trello compares to Slack.
• Asana: For challenge administration, the Asana integration permits challenge managers and their groups to create and assign duties and obtain notifications inside Slack. Learn our comparability of Slack and Asana to see how they differ as challenge administration instruments.
• Dropbox: Groups of every kind can share information and collaborate on paperwork by connecting their Dropbox accounts to Slack.
• Monday.com: The monday integration can ship alerts from the visible activity administration platform into Slack, letting workers know when somebody has tagged them or when an project is of their palms.

The place does Slack match within the present collaboration software program market?

Slack places an excessive deal with streamlining typical communications customers could not even know may be streamlined, which has carved a distinct segment for the collaboration software. Beginning off as a possible e-mail substitute, Slack is now an intuitive platform for group communication and collaboration.

Nonetheless, it additionally qualifies as a contemporary challenge administration software by way of its deal with real-time communication, making it a favourite for dynamic groups that require on the spot suggestions and fast decision-making. Furthermore, Slack’s free plan and scalable pricing plans make it accessible for companies of all sizes, from startups to giant enterprises.

What are Slack’s most important opponents?

Microsoft Groups

The Microsoft Groups platform is the first competitor to Slack. Groups goes past chat and video communication to incorporate file sharing, automation instruments and a centralized workspace. This permits challenge groups to entry and collaborate on duties inside one platform. And with the addition of visitor accounts and a free tier in 2018, Microsoft Groups is well-equipped to compete head-to-head with Slack’s freemium mannequin.

For extra data, try our Microsoft Groups cheat sheet.

Zoom

The favored video conferencing software program Zoom has added Zoom Chat to their software program, which instantly competes with a few of Slack’s core options. This makes Zoom another for these already on the platform who solely want gentle chat options. Zoom Chat works equally to Slack with search capabilities, granular admin controls and safe file-sharing.

For extra data, try our Zoom cheat sheet.

Twist

Slack’s impartial competitor Twist payments itself as a “communication software for groups who consider there’s extra to work than maintaining with group chat apps.” It has an deliberately minimalist method, because it lacks a web based standing indicator. A free tier exists, with message retention restricted to at least one month. The limitless tier is offered for $5 per person, monthly.

See how Twist compares to our record of the finest digital collaboration instruments.

Bitrix24

Bitrix24 combines messaging with a wide range of different organizational instruments, together with kanban boards, activity templates and CRM. Its communications instruments embrace a clear UI and tabs for simply switching between conversations, calls and file sharing. Lots of Bitrix24’s collaboration instruments are free, with larger tiers including instruments for particular departments like Gross sales or HR.

Mattermost

Mattermost is a collaboration platform designed particularly for protection, authorities and important infrastructure enterprises. With infrastructure meant for resilience, it gives HIPAA-compliant safety, granular management over knowledge and administration and different specialised safety boosts.

Who owns Slack?

Slack is owned by Slack Applied sciences LLC, which has been a subsidiary of Salesforce since its acquisition in 2020.

Is Slack HIPAA-compliant?

The Enterprise Grid model of Slack can retailer knowledge in a method that’s compliant with the Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act, the medical data privateness regulation within the U.S.

There is no such thing as a one certification to find out compliance. Organizations can verify self-assessments and test their total digital footprint towards the privateness rule itself when contemplating how a messaging software matches into their healthcare privateness operations.