What is Slack and what can it be used for?

Slack is a cloud-based com­mu­ni­ca­tion platform that helps teams col­lab­o­rate more ef­fi­cient­ly by con­sol­i­dat­ing messages, files, and tools in one central location. The tool enables topic-specific channels, direct messages, as well as the in­te­gra­tion of numerous external services, aiming to simplify internal com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

What is Slack?

Slack is a tool for office com­mu­ni­ca­tion, acquired by Sales­force in 2021 for over $27 billion. The software, with more than 30 million daily users, is often referred to as the “email killer,” as the program aims to reduce the number of emails sent. Chat messages replace longer emails, which in turn saves work – es­pe­cial­ly by elim­i­nat­ing the need for a subject line in every message. This is where Slack comes in: con­sol­i­dat­ing all internal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is meant to make com­mu­ni­ca­tion simpler and more efficient.

Slack offers an unlimited number of channels, which are better struc­tured than in­di­vid­ual chats. They are by default publicly viewable, elim­i­nat­ing cum­ber­some ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks. However, tra­di­tion­al private chats are also possible through an ac­ti­vat­able private mode. Overall, in­for­ma­tion exchange on Slack is mul­ti­me­dia, as various file and media formats can be directly embedded in the chat. Many other providers such as Dropbox, Trello, GitHub, Google Drive, and Twitter already work with Slack, making file exchanges between the services seamless.

All Slack chats are archived by default and can be easily searched when, for example, a file or a link needs to be found again. Also con­ve­nient is the fact that Slack allows the setup of numerous calendar and reminder functions. Slack’s focus is strongly on internal com­mu­ni­ca­tion within a closed circle – such as within a company. The success of Slack’s concept is evident: More than 750,000 companies use the software, including 77% of Fortune 100 companies.

How does Slack work and how do you set it up?

Step 1: Create a workspace

First, sign up on Slack’s website. You’ll be guided through the setup of your own workspace and can create your first com­mu­ni­ca­tion channel directly. After com­plet­ing the suggested steps, you’ll become the team admin, gaining access to all available settings.

Step 2: Set up pref­er­ences

As an admin, you can customize your Slack workspace with a variety of settings to fit your company’s or team’s needs.

• Message re­stric­tions in large channels: The first important option involves messaging re­stric­tions and governs who can send @channel messages. When such messages are sent, everyone in the channel receives a no­ti­fi­ca­tion. If you run a large or public channel, you can limit this per­mis­sion to team admins to ensure that only important in­for­ma­tion is shared.
• Channel and private group man­age­ment: If you don’t want others to create their own channels, you should disable this option.

Step 3: Invite team members

Once the settings are complete, it’s time to invite your team. There are two ways to do this: in­di­vid­u­al­ly or via a mass in­vi­ta­tion through the team’s admin page. Your employees will then receive a no­ti­fi­ca­tion and can directly join the team network. It is ben­e­fi­cial if everyone registers with their real names so they can be rec­og­nized by their col­leagues.

On which devices can Slack be used?

Slack is available for various devices and operating systems. The program can be easily operated via the browser, which is es­pe­cial­ly useful for undecided users. This way, the tool can be quickly tested without requiring the whole company to install the program. However, Slack fully unleashes its potential as a com­pre­hen­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool when you also install the mobile app (iOS / Android) and the desktop app (MacOS / Windows / Linux). This way, you’ll get no­ti­fi­ca­tions when new messages arrive and stay up to date, even when no browser window is open.

The syn­chro­niza­tion of chat histories across all connected devices works ex­cel­lent­ly. A positive side effect for the company culture: Often, the bound­aries between work briefings and private chats shift, which is certainly ad­van­ta­geous for internal company culture. Slack users check their channels via smart­phone even after work hours.

How much does Slack cost?

Slack is not so much tra­di­tion­al software, but rather a cloud-based service that is fully provided, main­tained, and au­to­mat­i­cal­ly updated. Companies of all sizes benefit from the high stability and scal­a­bil­i­ty, without having to worry about technical details them­selves.

Getting started with Slack is easy. The platform offers a free plan that allows teams to test Slack without any com­mit­ment. In this version, an unlimited number of users can be added. However, access to the message history is limited to the last 90 days. There is up to 5 GB of storage available for files, and basic in­te­gra­tions with other tools are possible.

For teams with higher re­quire­ments, there are paid plans such as the Pro Plan (from around $9.50 per user/month) and the Business+ Plan (from around $21 per user/month). Custom en­ter­prise plans can also be requested. The paid version of Slack offers, among other things, unlimited message archiving, increased storage, 24/7 support, SAML-based Single Sign-On (SSO), and enhanced security and man­age­ment features. For around $12 per user/month, Slack AI can also be added, which can be used for automated workflow creation or meeting summaries (so-called Huddles).

What is a Slack bot and how can I use it?

Slack bots are a type of virtual assistant that automate tasks and aim to make col­lab­o­ra­tion more efficient. Slack dif­fer­en­ti­ates between custom bots and app bots, each serving a different purpose and offering different func­tion­al­i­ties.

Custom bots

Custom bots can be set up by admins or de­vel­op­ers specif­i­cal­ly for their team. These bots are given a unique name (up to 21 char­ac­ters) and are pro­grammed via the Slack API to perform targeted tasks – such as automatic responses, data pro­cess­ing, or in­ter­ac­tion with external systems. The name of a bot must be unique and cannot be the same as existing Slack channels or the default “Slackbot” name.

App bots

App bots are pre-built ap­pli­ca­tions that can be in­te­grat­ed with just a few clicks, without the need for pro­gram­ming knowledge. A well-known example is the To-Do Bot, which helps teams maintain shared task lists. If a member enters the command /todo list, the bot shows all current tasks. Tasks can be assigned, marked, and marked as completed with a click.

There is a wide variety of ready-to-use app bots that can be used for various purposes. For example, there’s a bot for sta­tis­tics (Statsbot), a bot specif­i­cal­ly for surveys (Polly), or the pos­si­bil­i­ty to receive and send emails directly in Slack with a bot (MailClark). The range of bots and their functions is vast, from bots for analyzing sta­tis­tics to en­ter­tain­ing emoji senders. The number of app bots is con­sid­er­able and continues to grow.

The ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of Slack

Slack offers numerous ad­van­tages for digital col­lab­o­ra­tion, but also faces some criticism – par­tic­u­lar­ly regarding privacy and structure. The following overview shows the main ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages:

Important Slack commands at a glance

To use Slack ef­fi­cient­ly, it’s worth looking at the key commands that can be entered directly into the chat. They simplify com­mu­ni­ca­tion, save time, and help keep things organized in everyday work life.

• @channel: A channel in Slack is com­pa­ra­ble to a chat room for dis­cus­sions, typically focused on a specific topic. Depending on the settings, only certain users or the entire team can follow the dis­cus­sion. To send a no­ti­fi­ca­tion to everyone in the channel, type @channel and then your message.
• @here: This command is almost identical to @channel, but only par­tic­i­pants who are currently online and active are notified.
• @username: To send a no­ti­fi­ca­tion to a specific person within a channel, type @username. The entered text is visible to all members in the channel.
• /me: If you want to refer to yourself in the third person, this is the right command. For example, to announce a break, you can type /me goes for lunch, and others will read: [Your Name] goes for lunch.
• /giphy: Slack chats allow you to lighten the con­ver­sa­tion with emoticons and images from the web. Another fun option is the animated GIFs from Giphy. To insert one, type the command /giphy. Then, you can search the extensive col­lec­tion of animated GIFs by keywords like “Birthday,” “Food,” or “Xmas.”
• /shrug: Adds ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯ to your message.
• /leave: To leave the current channel.
• /collapse: Hides all images and GIFs in the channel from your view.