Foreword | p. xiii |
Introduction | p. 1 |
About This Book | p. 2 |
Foolish Assumptions | p. 2 |
Icons Used in This Book | p. 4 |
Beyond the Book | p. 5 |
Where to Go from Here | p. 5 |
Part 1 Working Smarter and Better with Slack | p. 7 |
Chapter 1 Why Slack Exists | p. 9 |
Introducing Slack | p. 9 |
Meeting Slack's Users and Customers | p. 13 |
Understanding Why Slack Exists | p. 14 |
Email: The blessing and all-too-frequent curse | p. 15 |
Trapped institutional knowledge | p. 16 |
Employees often can't find what they want - quickly or even at all | p. 17 |
What Slack Specifically Does | p. 18 |
Employer benefits | p. 18 |
Employee benefits | p. 23 |
Chapter 2 Getting Started with Slack | p. 29 |
Reviewing Slack's Different Versions | p. 29 |
Free plan | p. 30 |
Standard plan | p. 30 |
Plus plan | p. 31 |
Enterprise Grid | p. 31 |
Changing your Slack plan | p. 31 |
Describing Slack's cost structure | p. 33 |
Beginning Your Slack Journey with the Workspace | p. 35 |
Creating a new Slack workspace | p. 36 |
Signing in to an existing Slack workspace | p. 37 |
Accessing your new workspace | p. 40 |
Using the Slack desktop app | p. 40 |
Introducing the Slack user interface | p. 42 |
Summarizing Slack's Different Roles and Permissions | p. 44 |
Administrative roles | p. 44 |
Non-administrative roles | p. 46 |
Managing member roles | p. 47 |
Enterprise Grid roles and permissions | p. 51 |
Starting Your New Workspace Off on the Right Foot | p. 52 |
Expanding your existing workspace | p. 52 |
Configuring your member profile and key account settings | p. 54 |
Part 2 Communicating without Chaos | p. 57 |
Chapter 3 Targeting Your Communication with Slack Channels | p. 59 |
Introducing Slack Channels | p. 60 |
Exploring the Different Types of Slack Channels | p. 61 |
Public channels | p. 62 |
Private channels | p. 63 |
Multi-workspace channels | p. 65 |
Shared channels | p. 67 |
Creating Public and Private Channels | p. 69 |
Creating your first public channel | p. 70 |
Building an intelligent channel structure | p. 73 |
Viewing basic channel information | p. 75 |
Performing Channel Actions | p. 76 |
Group actions | p. 77 |
Individual actions | p. 81 |
Adding Members to Existing Channels | p. 83 |
Manual additions | p. 83 |
Default workplace channels | p. 85 |
Exploring Existing Public Channels | p. 85 |
Communicating via Slack Channels | p. 87 |
Posting simple channel messages | p. 88 |
Understanding channel etiquette | p. 89 |
Chapter 4 The Wonderful World of Slack Messages | p. 91 |
Understanding Slack Messages | p. 92 |
Sending a Message | p. 92 |
Performing basic message actions | p. 94 |
Formatting your messages | p. 96 |
Finding people in your workspace | p. 98 |
Editing messages | p. 100 |
Deleting messages | p. 101 |
Muting conversations | p. 101 |
Setting message-specific reminders | p. 102 |
Saving DMs and channel messages | p. 102 |
Pinning DMs to conversations | p. 103 |
Creating special types of messages | p. 104 |
Converting group DMs into private channels | p. 108 |
Using threads to create topic-specific containers | p. 109 |
Sharing in Slack | p. 111 |
Sharing files | p. 111 |
Sharing messages | p. 114 |
Comparing Email and Slack | p. 116 |
Forwarding Email to Slack | p. 117 |
Communicating Outside of Slack | p. 117 |
Chapter 5 Staying Informed with Notifications, Statuses, and Feeds | p. 119 |
Getting Your Arms around Notifications | p. 120 |
Managing Slack notifications | p. 120 |
Reviewing the different types of Slack notifications | p. 122 |
Letting Others Know Your Availability | p. 130 |
Setting your status | p. 131 |
Viewing your colleagues' statuses | p. 132 |
Editing your status | p. 133 |
Clearing your status | p. 133 |
Setting yourself to away/active | p. 133 |
Unplugging with Do Not Disturb mode | p. 134 |
Configuring Device-Specific Notifications | p. 137 |
Enabling notifications on mobile devices | p. 137 |
Understanding when settings collide | p. 137 |
Finding Other Ways to Stay Current | p. 138 |
Receiving emails on recent activity | p. 138 |
Viewing mentions and reactions | p. 139 |
Part 3 Becoming a Slack Power User | p. 141 |
Chapter 6 Going Deeper into Slack's Functionality | p. 143 |
Making Calls in Slack | p. 143 |
Types of calls | p. 144 |
Calls and security | p. 148 |
Sharing Your Screen in Slack | p. 149 |
Presenting and viewing | p. 149 |
Drawing | p. 150 |
Saving Even More Time in Slack | p. 150 |
Invoking keyboard shortcuts | p. 151 |
Using commands | p. 152 |
Managing Your Life with Reminders | p. 153 |
Saving Items | p. 155 |
Saving files | p. 155 |
Saving messages | p. 155 |
Quickly accessing your saved items | p. 155 |
Creating User Groups | p. 156 |
Chapter 7 Finding What You Need with Slack's Powerful Search Techniques | p. 159 |
Searching for Better Search Methods | p. 160 |
Performing Searches in Slack | p. 161 |
Searching by workspace members | p. 163 |
Restricting searches to specific date ranges | p. 164 |
Using negative keywords | p. 165 |
Referencing multiple keywords | p. 166 |
Restricting search results even more | p. 167 |
Searching by user reactions | p. 167 |
Searching by wildcards | p. 168 |
Searching by fuzziness | p. 169 |
Searching by additional modifiers | p. 170 |
Getting the Most Out of Search in Slack | p. 170 |
Start small | p. 170 |
Embrace modifiers | p. 171 |
Remember that results change over time | p. 172 |
Be patient | p. 172 |
Chapter 8 Personalizing Slack | p. 173 |
Getting to Know Your Slack Options | p. 174 |
Configuring global workspace settings | p. 175 |
Personalizing your Slack options | p. 179 |
Customizing User Profiles | p. 185 |
Creating custom fields | p. 186 |
Populating custom fields | p. 187 |
Organizing Your Sidebar | p. 189 |
Using sections | p. 189 |
Sorting channels | p. 191 |
Chapter 9 Keeping It Safe: Reviewing Slack's Security and Privacy Settings | p. 193 |
Getting Acquainted with Slack Security | p. 194 |
Security and Slack's Evolution | p. 194 |
Configuring Slack's Access and Security Settings | p. 195 |
Confirming sign-ins via email | p. 195 |
Resetting your password | p. 195 |
Viewing access logs | p. 197 |
Enabling two-factor authentication | p. 198 |
Additional security features | p. 200 |
Enhancing Security via Slack Enterprise Grid | p. 201 |
Examining Privacy in Slack | p. 202 |
Message encryption | p. 202 |
What data Workspace Admins can Access | p. 204 |
Workspace message-retention settings | p. 204 |
File-retention settings | p. 207 |
Understanding Slack's Tricky Regulatory Environment | p. 208 |
Restrictions on data and file retention | p. 208 |
Data residency | p. 208 |
Part 4 Extending Slack's Native Functionality | p. 211 |
Chapter 10 Making Slack Hum with Robust Third-Party Apps | p. 213 |
Understanding How Slack Has Embraced Platform Thinking | p. 214 |
Comparing Public and Private Apps | p. 215 |
Public apps | p. 215 |
Private apps and integrations | p. 215 |
Enhancing Slack with Third-Party Apps | p. 216 |
Looking at app costs | p. 216 |
The Slack App Directory | p. 217 |
Introducing Some Popular 5lack Apps | p. 218 |
Polling apps | p. 218 |
File- and content-sharing apps | p. 220 |
Scheduling apps | p. 221 |
Productivity and project-management apps | p. 223 |
IFTTT Slack applets | p. 224 |
Video-calling apps | p. 225 |
Email apps and integrations | p. 225 |
Miscellaneous apps | p. 226 |
Finding and Installing Apps | p. 227 |
Browsing the Slack App Directory | p. 228 |
Installing a Slack app in your workspace | p. 228 |
Searching for specific apps | p. 230 |
Experimenting with new apps | p. 230 |
Managing Apps and App Permissions | p. 231 |
Approving specific apps | p. 231 |
Regulating workspace apps | p. 232 |
Viewing all your workspace apps | p. 236 |
Enforcing your organization's app policy | p. 236 |
Removing apps from your workspace | p. 238 |
Disappearing apps | p. 239 |
Disabling and re-enabling preserved apps | p. 239 |
Viewing app activity logs | p. 240 |
Using Workflow Builder | p. 241 |
Creating workflows | p. 241 |
Heeding workflow warnings | p. 244 |
Chapter 11 Analyzing, Importing, Exporting, and Updating Slack User Data | p. 245 |
Analyzing Workspace Data | p. 246 |
Slack's analytics dashboard | p. 246 |
Channel-specific analytics | p. 250 |
Member analytics | p. 252 |
Viewing Member Access Logs | p. 253 |
Moving Data Around in Slack | p. 254 |
Exporting data from Slack | p. 254 |
Importing data into Slack | p. 258 |
Consolidating Slack workspaces | p. 259 |
Avoiding mistakes when migrating data | p. 261 |
Performing Mass Updates to User Data | p. 262 |
Chapter 12 Integrating Slack with Popular Enterprise Systems | p. 263 |
A Brief Primer on Enterprise Systems | p. 264 |
Back-office systems | p. 264 |
Front-office systems | p. 265 |
Slack and Current Enterprise Systems | p. 265 |
Exploring current system integrations | p. 268 |
Creating new system integrations | p. 270 |
Looking forward | p. 274 |
Part 5 Successfully Introducing Slack in the Workspace | p. 275 |
Chapter 13 The Elements of Persuasion: Slack-Adoption Strategies | p. 277 |
A Brief Primer on Network Effects | p. 278 |
Reviewing the Different Slack-Adoption Approaches | p. 279 |
The bottom-up method | p. 279 |
The top-down method | p. 280 |
The middle-out method | p. 280 |
Making Slack Stick at Work | p. 281 |
Organization-level strategies | p. 281 |
Strategies for handling difficult employees | p. 286 |
Chapter 14 The Inherent Risks of Deploying Slack | p. 297 |
Identifying the Risks of Using Slack | p. 298 |
Business risks | p. 298 |
Technology and security risks | p. 304 |
Listing Slack's Environmental Challenges | p. 307 |
Slack's financial pressures | p. 308 |
Stiff competition | p. 310 |
Ongoing legal and privacy concerns | p. 311 |
Chapter 15 The Future of Slack: We're Just Getting Started | p. 315 |
Increased Use of Automation and Bots | p. 316 |
AI and machine learning make Slack smarter - much, much smarter | p. 317 |
Slack begins to monitor employee morale and diagnose cultural issues | p. 318 |
Tighter Integration with Popular Enterprise Systems | p. 319 |
Better Dashboards and Analytics | p. 319 |
A More Powerful Slack Work Graph | p. 320 |
Continued Borrowing of Popular Features from Other Apps | p. 322 |
Key Acquisitions and Partnerships | p. 326 |
Part 6 The Part of Tens | p. 327 |
Chapter 16 Ten Great Slack Tips | p. 329 |
Respond Promptly to New Users' Requests, Questions, and Feedback | p. 329 |
Regularly View Slack Analytics | p. 330 |
Tread Lightly with New Hires | p. 330 |
Establish Slack as the Default Medium for Internal Communication | p. 330 |
Emphasize Slack's Carrots More Than Its Sticks | p. 331 |
Keep an Eye Out for New Slack Apps | p. 331 |
Tell Overly Exuberant Slack Members to Tone It Down | p. 331 |
Publicize Your Status and Availability | p. 331 |
Try Before You Buy | p. 332 |
Know When to Turn Slack Off | p. 332 |
Chapter 17 Ten or So Common Slack Myths | p. 333 |
Slack Is just Email 2.0 | p. 333 |
Slack Decimates the Need for Email | p. 334 |
All Organizations Configure Slack in a Uniform Way | p. 334 |
Slack Obviates the Need for In-Person Communication | p. 335 |
Slack Solves Every Conceivable Business-Communication Problem | p. 335 |
Slack Is Too Expensive for Our Company | p. 335 |
Our Company Has Built a Tool That's Just as Good as Slack | p. 336 |
Our Employees Don't Need Slack | p. 336 |
Our Company Uses Slack and Nothing Else for Collaboration | p. 337 |
You Can't Misuse Slack | p. 338 |
Chapter 18 The Top Ten or So Slack Resources | p. 339 |
Slack Online Support | p. 340 |
Contacting Slack | p. 340 |
Browsing the Slack support site | p. 340 |
Opening cases or making suggestions within the Slack app | p. 340 |
Finding Slack tips | p. 340 |
Submitting Slack feature requests | p. 341 |
Other Online Resources | p. 341 |
Official resources | p. 341 |
Unofficial resources | p. 342 |
Developer resources | p. 343 |
In-Person Resources | p. 343 |
Conferences | p. 343 |
Meetups | p. 344 |
In-person training | p. 345 |
Index | p. 347 |