I do volunteer field work for a non-profit as a post-retirement hobby and excuse for getting out of the house. There is a modest amount of informational back-and-forth between me (and other volunteers) and our supervisor who works for the non-profit. She gives us information about the items we are supposed to work on, and we in turn report back about what we did and the general condition of each item. For a little while we have been using Google sheets and also email messages for most of this.
I have been told that they are implementing a new “communication platform” called Slack, which I am assuming will replace or supplement what we have been doing. I looked up their website but I can’t really tell very much about how it might work in this application.
So if you have ever worked with Slack, I’d like to know what you thought of it, and if there are any difficulties (or opportunities) to watch out for. Oh yes, and does it include a smartphone app for Android and iPhone?
You can kind of think of the structure of Slack in the same way that you think about the structure of the SDMB. Here we have threads where people post messages one after the other. Slack has channels which are kind of the same. Your environment may have a Slack channel called “#donor” where the employees discuss issues and campaigns for donors and donations. You can do direct messages to the other people on Slack in the same way that you can do direct messages to other members on the SDMB. Slack also lets you send direct messages to several people at once where everyone can chat all together. It would be like a thread where just the invited people can post. So if you, Pat, and Sam need to discuss something, you send a Slack message to the other two and all three of you are in a private channel together to discuss whatever you need.
One thing that’s different than the SDMB is that you don’t have a Slack home page with all the various channels listed. You can see the channels you have personally added, but not necessarily all the channels. You may have to search for channels or get invited to channels. In most organizations, there are hundreds or thousands of channels, so it wouldn’t make sense to have them all on the home page. Your organization will likely send out emails with channels they want you to join (e.g. The #donor channel).
There are apps for Android and IOS.
Slack also has something called Hangouts. It’s a feature to setup a video call with a set of other Slack users. So rather than having to use something like Zoom for video calls, you can do it directly within Slack. It looks pretty easy to use, but I have not used it myself.
The general expectation with Slack messages, especially direct messages, is that you respond reasonably quickly. Email will typically be for things which don’t need an immediate reply. It depends on your company as to what people expect with Slack messages. But generally, people will send Slack messages when they are looking for a quick response.
We’ve used Slack for the past few years, but are phasing it out in favor of Teams. Nothing worng with Slack but we’re moving to a common platform for a lot of things, and that is Teams.
We set up a channel called #Watercoooler. It’s where we say good morning and good night. Perhaps a short blurb about what we are doing for the day. But we restrict real work talk on that channel Otherwise you get the spray bottle emoji.
We might be too. We have email, we have Zoom and we have Teams. We should consolidate. But from what I’ve seen of Teams, I don’t really like it. Haven’t really used Teams though…
Teams is a worse version of Slack, but has integration into Outlook for scheduling meetings. I don’t know if you can invite non-slack users to a slack meeting, but you can with Teams…at least some versions of it. I’d prefer Slack, but Microsoft did their typical “This is free and included with your subscription to Office!” thing to immediately gain market share…but now they are going to start charging for “premium” features.
Hangouts isn’t a watercooler space. It’s an instant video/phone function you can use for individual or groups calls.
Slack is just like WhatsApp really. An instant messenger with multiple channels. You can set up open channels internally, or private channels. There is a desktop app as well as ones for iphone/Android. You can share large files over Slack. It also has ways of integrating with other apps which I haven’t really explored.
Hangouts are great when there’s something that is more easily discussed live versus typing messages. It can be voice only, or can include video and screen sharing. It’s not as feature-rich for video and screen sharing as Zoom or Teams, but it’s plenty for most tasks.
Overall, Slack is really easy to use and is a great tool for company/group communications. OP, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble figuring it out.
With respect to the Slack app, it’s a good idea for the company to set a policy for the expectation for replies outside of work hours. Some people will send Slack messages at all hours and expect immediate replies to those message. Having a policy of no messages outside of work hours is a good policy to have.
Slack has a way to schedule when to send your message. So if it’s 10 PM and you thought of something you need to tell someone, you can write them a Slack message immediately but schedule it to be sent at 9AM the next day.
My small company used Slack, but we’ve been bought by a larger organization that wants us to use Teams. Teams is very clunky for channel type conversations, so we are resisting. Slack is good.
You can set up your slack account so you won’t get notifications outside work hours. And I’ve always found the best way to deal with people who try to contact you outside work hours for anything short of a “end of the company/lose largest client” emergency is to ignore them.
My biggest gripe about slack is that it uses the same notification sound for a direct message to you and someone using the “@ here” flag in a channel so the entire channel gets notified. You literally cannot set them to different sounds. I generally try to read (and respond) to DMs quickly, but interrupting my workflow because someone wanted to have a bunch of people hear their blather RIGHT NOW gets to be very tiring.
Yup. We are very good at ignoring after hours stuff. No body does it unless you are set up to have an after hours maintenance period.
We are good at keeping to 8-5. But many of us start earlier. Might visit a little in Slack Water cooler. How was your weekend kind of stuff, Or I have a meeting at 2 or am going to leave early or something.
If the building burns down, give me a call, mkay? They all have my personal number and my work number that will ring my personal phone.