The following are tips for getting the most out of Slack:
| USE … | WHEN … |
|---|---|
| Direct Message | •You have a private question. |
| •You need to nudge someone who has not responded in the project/client channel. | |
| General Channel | •Sharing company-wide announcements. |
| •Hosting company-wide conversations. | |
| •Sharing low-urgency work related shares like interesting articles, hacks, and resources. | |
| •Sharing non-work related shares like personal announcements and celebrations, social pictures and events, and birthdays. | |
| Phone a Friend Channel | •Crowd sourcing advice or recommendations from People Partners |
| •Sharing resources you’ve found helpful | |
| @HERE | •You want anyone who is online right now to engage. |
| @CHANNEL | You need everyone in the channel to engage, whether now or later. |
| *This notifies everyone, so be mindful of work hours and time zones. It is a best practice to clarify if/when you are in need of a response or if it is just “FYI”. | |
| @(name) | You only need one or a few people to engage, or as an escalation when you don’t have a response from @ HERE / @ CHANNEL |
| Scheduled Send | Sharing or asking something less urgent, outside of business hours/that person’s schedule. |
| Recorded Video Clip and/or Audio Clip | •Giving feedback with context/tone. |
| •Explaining how something technical works and the person may need to pause and do work in between steps and/or repeat listening. | |
| Emoji Reactions | |
| Confirming that you’ve seen something and/or taken action on it. | |
| *Remember that there are no notifications to the original author/sender when you do add an emoji reaction. If you want to notify the author that you have seen it, a reply is the best bet. Don’t assume that the author of the post knows what your reaction means; be sure to explicitly discuss. When in doubt use words instead of emojis. | |
| ✅: Done | |
| 👀: I’ve seen it and will get to it soon | |
| Threads | Keeping a conversation relevant to a single post, and you don’t want to create more notifications/scrolling for other team members who are not relevant part of the conversation. |
| *In threads, it’s particularly important to tag people so they are sure to see the message, as notifications are minimized and scrolling doesn’t show the updates. | |
| Notifications | •Set yours and mute yours according to your working preferences and what will be most helpful for your working style. Whatever you decide works best for you, just make sure your client(s) and/or your team knows what your preferences and boundaries are. |
| •When you mute or snooze your notifications, you may also set an emoji status to let people know specifically where you are. See below. | |
| Status | |
| Similar to notifications, you can decide if or how you want to use status emojis. For example you might use a coffee cup emoji if you step away for a coffee break. You might use a Red X to indicate you are busy/unavailable and do not wish to be disturbed. Whatever you decide, just be sure to share and communicate with others to ensure clarity of your preferences and boundaries. | |
| 🗓: In a meeting | |
| 🏝: Out of office, on vacation | |
| 🐣: Kid duty | |
| Remind Me | Responding to a notification but you don’t have time or focus to do it in the moment. |
| PIN TO CHANNEL or Folder feature | You know that a post or file is relevant for the entire channel and you don’t want to “lose” it or have to search for it. |
| *You can find these in the top left of the channel. Items can be unpinned when they are no longer relevant. | |
| Save | Something is personally important to you and you want to highlight it, but it might not be as important for everyone. |
| *You can find saved items in the purple bar on the left, under drafts. |