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Six secrets for Slack success

Danny Coleman
Danny Coleman
8 January 19 Slack
Six secrets for Slack success
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Six secrets for Slack success

Become a slack wizard with our top tips and simple hacks.

Communicating with colleagues is a breeze with Slack. It also makes your working day way more fun. After all, it was created for that very purpose, starting life in 2013 as a much-loved gaming tool called Tiny Speck. Since then, Slack has come a very long way, in a very short time, now boasting over 6 million daily active users on its platform.

Slack’s smart design makes it super-easy for new users to get up and running fast. Updated in real-time, Slack always stays fresh.  But with so much on offer, it can be tricky to keep up the pace with all the new features. Today, I am going to reveal my five secrets to help you achieve more with Slack, impress your colleagues and have a bit of fun along the way.

1. Keep-on-track with reminders


It can be tricky to stay on top of deadlines, chase up team members or remind that friend they still owe you money. Luckily, you can make Slack your reminder buddy using the /remind command. Just type /remind anywhere in Slack, and it will send a reminder for you.  You can specify when you want the reminder and type it in any channel, it will only be visible to you.


slack reminder

different slack reminder


You can set reminders for teams in different timezones, recurring reminders, or reschedule and snooze your reminders.

slack reminders
For more details on getting started with Slack reminders click here.

2. Everything in its right place

Warning! Slack is addictive, the more you use it, the more channels and conversations you want to join and set up. In no time, channel lists can get out of control, but by using sidebar settings you can keep everything organised for quick and easy access to all your favourite content.

sidebar
You can use Stars to bookmark important information that you may want to reference in the future. When you put a star on a message or file it gets added to your starred items, you can view all your starred content by clicking the star icon on the top right of the home page. Starred items are only visible to you.

thumbs up

starred items
Check out more details on adding stars to your work here.

If you want other users to see important messages, you can pin them to the channel or via a direct message. You can click the pin icon on the top right of the home page to quickly view all pinned items.  

Click here to find out more on how to pin messages and files in Slack.

3. Answers to your questions


If you want to find out more information about a Slack feature or how to do something. Slack has a built-in helper, Slackbot, ready to answer your questions.  All you need to do is type in a keyword or question and boom, you get a response (in the form of a built-in answer or an intelligent help article).

slackbot

If you need to send a message to your team or highlight information that is helpful, useful, or inspiring you can customise Slack’s stock messages and add your own.

customize your workplace

personalized messages

4. Bring your profile to life

Don’t be shy about who you are and what you do, make it easy for people to find you and get to know you on Slack. Start by updating your profile. Include a real-life and up-to-date photo of yourself so people can immediately put a face to your name.  

Tell people about what you do, what your goals are and what interests you.  You can use custom fields to add more information about your office location, manager, and department.

For more details on editing your profile click here.

5. Make it real with emojis

Emojis are now an accepted universal language, embedded in both our personal lives and in business. Some even believe they help express feelings much better than words. When it comes to Slack you can use emojis to inject personality into your messages, to show people you care or that you don’t take yourself too seriously.

Slack allows you to respond to individual messages with emojis to get your feelings across in a quick and concise manner. Why take the time to write out, “Tom, I absolutely agree with your assessment, great call,” when you could just toss a “thumbs up” emoji at it and move on with your day? Of course emojis aren’t the right call for complex discussions, but consider using them for simpler thoughts. After all, brevity is the soul of wit.

6. Connect with your favourite tools

Slack on its own is cool enough, but wiring it into your existing applications can be a real game-changer. The App Directory offers countless options to get Slack hooked into whatever your team’s critical tools are. Atlassian -developed integrations for Jira Cloud, Jira Server, Confluence Cloud, and Bitbucket Cloud are readily available, as are a wide range of independently-developed integrations.

Or if you’re looking for something tailored specifically for your needs, you can do what we did at Adaptavist and develop your own integration. If you need help doing so then we are perfectly placed to do it for you! Check out our new Slack Services.

So there you have it. There are many many more tips, tricks, and features that Slack offers but hopefully this post will inspire you to delve a bit deeper into its amazing capabilities and in no time you will be using it like a pro.

If you are considering company-wide transformative initiatives that power workplace collaboration and driving alignment across teams and entire organisations then contact Adaptavist today!

 

 

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