This document provides tips and highlights new features in Slack. It begins with quick tips for adding whole teams in Slack, leveraging messaging, segmenting conversations, automating work, using asynchronous communication, and managing work. It then discusses recently launched features like Huddles for audio and video calls directly in Slack channels. Finally, it previews the upcoming Slack Canvas for organizing and sharing information across teams.
5. How are you feeling this week?
🤩 = 1
😕 = 2
😱 = 3
6. Here are three things I’m thankful
for this week…
1. Bryan & Dan: Bryan cares deeply about this group, Dan goes above
and beyond to help. They’re both happy people who bring me joy.
1. Slack the product: I want to do a good job at work and get everything
done and Slack helps me do that. I know it’ll do the same for all of you.
1. Each of you: I’m very excited to connect with you and to learn from
you tonight. I hope this is just the beginning of good times to come.
7. Slack is your Digital HQ
Connect your teams, tools, customers, and
partners in a digital place that’s fast, flexible
and inclusive for a work-from-anywhere
world.
Why Slack
8. Tips
Add your whole team in Slack
Add users to workspace, Slack Atlas, Slack Connect
Leverage all aspects of messaging
Messaging and sharing files
Segment conversations and make
search your best friend
Channels, threads, search
Automate work through workflows
& integrations
App Directory, Workflows
Use async communication to
consolidate meetings & updates
Huddles, Clips, reactions
Manage work easily in Slack
Notifications, status, reminders
Learn where to go for more Slack
tips and help
Slack Community, Resources Library, Help Center
Tips to set your team up for success
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3
4
5
6
7
10. Search Acme Inc
21 | 1 | Track and coordinate social media
Acme Inc
Matt Brewer
All unreads
Threads
Mentions & reactions
Drafts
Show more
#social-media
Lisa Dawson 11:55AM
Really need to give some kudos to @zoe for helping out with the new influx of tweets yesterday. People are really, really
excited about yesterday’s announcement.
Zoe Maxwell 11:55AM
No! It was my pleasure! Great to see the enthusiasm out there.
Acme Team APP 12:45PM
Event starting in 15 minutes:
Team Status Meeting 📝
Today from 1:00PM to 1:30PM
Harry Boone 12:58PM
Quick note: today @Liza will join our team sync to provide updates on the launch, if you have questions, bring ‘em. See you
all later… er, in 2 minutes 😅
🎉1 ✨1 👏1
😍
1
Lee Hao 1:45PM
Meeting notes from our sync with @Liza
Post
1/9 Meeting Notes
Last edited just now
Message #social-media
Harry Boone 10:00AM
Look out for a status meeting later today!
🎨️ Marketing team
# design-crit
# design-team
Hubspot
📣 Announcements
# announcements
# media-and-pr
# released
# team-sf
❤️Pals
Arcadio Buendia, Leland Ygle...
Florence Garret
1
# social-media
team-chat
Lee Hao
Lisa Zhang
AI
It all starts in
your workspace
Tip #1
Pro Tip
At Slack, we have a workspace for
each department (marketing,
sales, product, etc). Chat with
your rep to learn more about
Enterprise Grid.
12. Invite all
external
partners and
customers to
channels via
Slack Connect
Tip #1
Pro Tip
Slack Connect can drive:
● 4x faster deal cycles for a
sales team
● Faster ticket resolution for a
customer support team
● Average improvement in
customer effort score
13. Help teammates
know who you
are and what
you do
Tip #6
Pro Tip
Ask your rep about Slack Atlas to
unlock team productivity with
comprehensive user profiles.
15. Sending a direct
message
Tip #2
Pro Tip
Using split view, open two
conversations or pages and view
them both at the same time,
without having to move back and
forth between them.
19. Schedule
messages
Tip #2
Pro Tip
If you're working after hours or
you have a colleague in a different
time zone, but you don't want to
bother that person after hours,
you can schedule send to a more
appropriate time.
34. Share an update,
show off your
work, give kudos
via audio/video
with Slack Clips
Tip #5
Pro Tip
Use Clips to replace certain
meetings or updates. You can re-
record and even choose the
thumbnail for your clip so no
pressure!
41. Send messages
to yourself -
make it your
space
Tip #6
Pro Tip
Make this your quick reference
spot with links to files, messages,
reminders, and to-dos, or anything
else you may need.
44. Join the Slack
Community
Tip #7
Pro Tip
Visit slackcommunity.com to join
the Slack Community Slack
Workspace. Be sure to introduce
yourself in #intros.
46. Visit the
Help
Center
Tip #7
Pro Tip
Click the question mark icon in the
upper right hand corner of your
Slack desktop app to open the
Help Center right next to your
work.
47. Tips
Add your whole team in Slack
Add users to workspace, Slack Atlas, Slack Connect
Leverage all aspects of messaging
Messaging and sharing files
Segment conversations and make
search your best friend
Channels, threads, search
Automate work through workflows
& integrations
App Directory, Workflows
Use async communication to
consolidate meetings & updates
Huddles, Clips, reactions
Manage work easily in Slack
Notifications, status, reminders
Learn where to go for more Slack
tips and help
Slack Community, Resources Library, Help Center
Tips to set your team up for success
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
54. 78% want flexibility in
where they work
Up from 76% last quarter
95%
want flexibility in
when they work
Up from 93% last quarter
Teams are most productive
when working when and
where they want
Source: Future Forum; https://futureforum.com/pulse-survey/
55. But the old ways of working are not flexible
In-person
meeting
Synchronous
Video meeting
Email
Asynchronous
56. For teams to be
productive in this new
world, organizations
must embrace flexible
ways of working
58. Live conversations and working sessions where
your team already works. Recreate the spontaneous
discussions and collaborative moments from the office
inside Slack – without the need to coordinate calendars,
schedule time, or spin up a meeting in another app.
Power side-by-side teamwork from anywhere.
Huddles start as audio conversations, but users can opt to
turn on video, share screens simultaneously, and send
reactions, effects, and stickers for deeper collaboration.
Join with context, leave aligned. Links, docs, and notes
sent in the huddle message thread are automatically saved
in the channel or DM where the huddle was launched for
quick and easy reference.
Introducing a brand new
way of coworking in
huddles
GA
59. Seamlessly start
working alongside
your team in real-time
All huddles will start as audio-
only conversations in a simple,
minimized screen. But soon
you’ll have the option to turn on
video when you want to fully
express yourself and see the
real-time reaction of your
colleagues.
60. A fun, casual space
for coworking
Multiple people can screen-share
simultaneously, making it easier
for you and others to pull up
presentation decks and
documents to work on together in
real time.
During a huddle, you’ll have the
ability to co-sign a great idea,
celebrate a colleague’s win, or
share a well-timed joke with
stickers, effects, and reactions.
61. Join with context,
leave aligned with
your notes, docs, and
next steps
Everything you share in the
huddle thread—links, notes,
chats and more—will get
automatically saved in the
channel or DM where it was
launched, for easy reference.
62. Start coworking in
huddles this fall
At Dreamforce, we announced
general availability of coworking
in huddles. All users will have
access to these new capabilities
in the coming weeks.
64. The following information about Slack canvas is intended
for informational purposes. Please do not rely on this
information in making your purchasing decisions. The
development, release and timing of any products,
features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of
Slack, and are subject to change.
092821
65. The ways in which people work have fundamentally
changed
Employees are increasingly
spread across locations
Flexible work requires both
real-time and async tools
Software proliferation
continues to grow
Each person has access to
only a unique sliver of tools
… and this makes managing, finding, and sharing knowledge increasingly difficult
67. Now that ‘work from anywhere’ is the new normal,
[employee] access is no longer a given. Further, employee
churn is at record levels. When key people leave the
organization, their expertise goes with them. Both of these
trends will continue and accelerate in 2022, putting both
business productivity and continuity at risk. Internal
knowledge management focused on capturing knowledge
and connecting subject matter experts will be essential to
mitigating this risk.
Gartner, “2022 Planning Guide for Collaboration and End-User Technologies,” Mark Lockwood, Mark Cortner, Darin Stewart, Larry Cannell, Guy Creese, Eric Grenier, 11 October 2021.
1
68. It’s never been
more important for
teams to be able to
manage and share
information — no
matter what form
it’s in or where it
was shared
69. Curate information the way you want. Canvas
supplements real-time collaboration with a permanent
place to gather and organize knowledge for any
channel or project.
Gain insights from your apps in a single view.
Anyone can integrate dashboards and third-party apps
into canvases, bringing an interactive view of the data
employees need to the forefront.
Get context and take action, all from one place.
When critical context (i.e. an overview of the PTO
policy) is paired with accessible workflows (a button to
request time off) — all inside a canvas, teams spend
less time chasing down information.
Meet Slack canvas: a new
surface to create, organize
and share information in
your digital HQ
Preview
70. Canvas supplements real-time
collaboration with a permanent place to
centralize knowledge for any channel or
project.
Customize and collaborate with:
● Text, files, rich media
● Previews and unfurls for files and links
● Deep-linking to messages, channels,
@-mentions, and more
● Rich previews for Slack profiles, Clips
and other canvases
● Buttons and forms to launch workflows
● Data from Salesforce Customer 360
and 3rd-party apps
Curate information
the way you want
71. Canvas supplements real-time
collaboration with a permanent place to
centralize knowledge for any channel or
project.
● Real-time co-editing
● Text and object sections can have
comments, which are Slack threads
● Text and objects can be arranged in a
grid layout via drag and drop
● Shared with users and channels,
including Slack Connect DMs and
channels
Curate information
the way you want
72. Paired with the Slack platform, anyone
can integrate no-code dashboards and
apps into a canvas that preview data
from:
● Systems of record like Salesforce
Customer 360 (Sales Cloud,
Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud,
Tableau), and more
● Third-party applications like
Google Workspace, Jira and Figma
Gain insights
from your apps in
a single view
73. Get context
and take
action, all from
one place
With the Slack platform, teams can
directly embed workflows – like
buttons and forms – into a canvas to
streamline and standardize business-
critical tasks right from where they’re
already reading.
74. Every account channel has a
corresponding canvas — surfacing key
customer insights and touchpoints.
The entire account team can access and
interact with opportunity data from Sales
Cloud, right from the canvas.
Common workflows, such as reporting a
customer issue to Engineering, can be
launched right from the canvas.
Canvas helps sellers better understand
their customer, and ultimately provide
better service and solutions.
Canvas increases productivity for key lines of business
Sales:
Maximize team effectiveness
to close more deals
Service:
Improve agent onboarding &
productivity
Marketing:
Execute data-driven
campaigns that drive growth
Managers create an onboarding canvas
for every new agent that includes a
checklist of items to complete the first
week: channels to join, training videos to
complete, and files to read.
There’s also a button to launch
workflows like requesting a corporate
phone or submitting PTO.
The agent can integrate data from
Service Cloud to surface customer
insights and track KPIs.
Canvas helps service teams ramp up
quickly so they can better serve their
customers.
A marketer pairs a canvas to a Slack
Connect project channel to track all the
content, files, and data across internal
teams and agency partners into one
source of truth.
In the canvas, there’s quick access to all
the relevant workflows to get help from
cross-functional teams and a Marketing
Cloud dashboard that’s accessible to
downstream stakeholders in Sales and
CE.
Canvas helps marketers work smarter
with their partners to build impactful
campaigns.
75. We’re just getting
started on this journey.
Let’s build this together!
At Dreamforce, we previewed Slack
canvas, and are excited to bring this to
market in 2023.
Looking ahead, there will be many
opportunities to get involved in
shaping the canvas roadmap!
Steven
[in-person]
Welcome to this session today we’re going to share a few tips on how to help your team be successful in Slack. This session is for all levels- we'll include the basics as well as pro tips for advanced usage along the way.
I started using Slack 7 years ago. One day, I was sitting at my desk, working, and a software engineer walks up to me and says, “hey, this is Slack, use it.” And that was my initial Slack introduction and training!
By raise of hands - who has been using Slack for:
Less than a year
1 year
2 years
3 years
4 years
5 years?
[if hands still up, ask how many years]
Wherever you’re at in your Slack journey, today we’re going to share tips that you can take back to your team to help them to be successful on Slack.
[recording]
Welcome to this session where we’re going to share a few tips on how to help your team be successful in Slack. This session is for all levels - we'll include the basics as well as pro tips for advanced usage along the way.
To kick things off I want you to look back and think with me for a minute…
When did you first start using Slack? Was it less than a year ago? Was it 10 years ago?
What was your experience like when you first starting using Slack? Did you receive formal training or did you just figure it out?
I started using Slack 7 years ago. One day, I was sitting at my desk, working, and a software engineer walks up to me and says, “hey, this is Slack, use it.” And that was my initial Slack introduction and training!
Since then I’ve gone on to learn quite a bit about Slack - so much so I suppose that I’m hear sharing this this training with you today!
To replace image:
Click to select image
In toolbar, click “Replace image”
Click “Upload from computer”
Upload your image. Voila!
Simplify: Keep section names short and concise — ideally no more than three words
Resize tip: When resizing the pill shape, hold option (Mac) or ctrl (PC) to keep it centered
Steven
Alex and I get asked, so what exactly is Slack? Simply put, Slack is your Digital HQ.
We do three things that no one else has ever done in the history of the planet - not even digital transformation has achieved this.
The first thing is we break down communication and collaboration silos across your organization. Slack channels allows your team to break down those barriers and increase team performance through cross functional collaboration. And we take it one step further - with Slack Connect you can get out of email silos with your customers, partners and vendors and collaborate in a secure place together.
Second, Slack helps you embrace flexibility, empowering your people to succeed from anywhere. With flexible tools like Slack Huddles and Clips, your employees can choose where, how, and when they participate and contribute their best work.
And third, we're bringing the power of automation to everyone in your company. Our platform gives everyone a chance to automate tasks with our building blocks, templates, and workflows.
And we were really thoughtful in designing Slack so that these three pillars that we believe are so important, support one another. Everything is working as one cohesive Digital HQ.
…now you may be wondering, that all sounds great, but how does my team actually do that?
Steven
Our goal of our time together today is to help your team to be successful and to make Slack your Digital HQ.
To do that, we’re going to share 7 tips to set your team up for success - chances are there are some of these that your team is already doing but I’d venture to guess that your team may not be doing all of these.
If you’d like, please feel free to open up your computer and follow along with us to do these things in Slack yourself. These tips aren’t just for you, but are to help your team including those team members who may be newer to Slack.
Alex
Tip 1 - Add your whole team in Slack
For Slack to become your Digital HQ, it’s vital that your whole team is in Slack. Now when I say “team” you may be thinking just of those that are near you in your org chart. But it really goes much beyond that - it’s about ensuring that everyone that you work with, including partners and customers, are all apart of your Digital HQ.
For example:
If you work in marketing, you may work cross functionally with teammates inside and outside of your organization.
You may work with internal teams, such as marketing, sales, product, finance. In this case, you can add these folks directly into your workspace.
On the other hand, you may also work with external teams, such as ad agencies and consulting firms. In this case you would want to add these external teams to your workspace using Slack Connect.
Let me show you how!
Alex
So when we talk about adding your team members in Slack, we’re referring to adding your team members to your Slack workspace.
Your Slack workspace is where people can work together, connect all their software tools and services, and find the information they need to do their best work.
Pro Tip - if you have Slack Grid, our most advanced plan, you can have multiple workspaces. Often times my clients will create workspaces for each of their departments, like marketing, sales, product, etc. If you’re interested in learning more about this, contact your Slack representative.
Alex
Now, to add your team to your workspace, you do the following:
Clicking the name of your workspace in the upper left corner
Clicking “invite people to [your workspace]
And then by filling out the request information
Alex
So we just covered how to invite your team members internal to your organization into Slack. Now, let’s talk about adding partners and customers that are external to your organization.
The way you can invite external partners and customers to channels into your workspace is through Slack Connect. Doing so provides a space to delight customers and develop authentic relationships with partners by meeting them where they already are…in Slack!
Adding external partners and customers is easy - simply create a new channel or invite someone to an existing channel as shown in this visual. We’ll talk more about channels in a few minutes.
Pro Tip - Slack Connect can drive:
4x faster deal cycles for a sales team
Faster ticket resolution for a customer support team
Average improvement in customer effort score
Alex
In today’s world, chances are there are other members of your organization who you’ve never met.
Updating your profile in Slack to include your display name, profile picture, and other basic information can do you a lot for your teammates.
Pro Tip - we have an amazing product called Slack Atlas - which allows users to create rich user profiles with valuable context about colleagues as well as display org charts, all in Slack. Ask your Slack Representative about Slack Atlas to unlock team productivity with comprehensive user profiles.
Steven
Tip number 2 - leverage all aspects of messaging
When I was first introduced to Slack, it took me a minute to understand all the awesomeness going on. Here’s a quick refresher on the basics…
Steven
First, sending a direct message. You can kick off a 1:1 conversation with someone by clicking the compose button, typing your message and by clicking send. This same process can be used to send direct multiple-people direct messages with up to 8 people. Direct messages are great for small private conversations between people.
Pro Tip - did you know know that you can have two direct messages open at the same time? By holding “command” on a Mac or “control” on PC and you’ll be able to pin any direct message, channel, and more, to the flex pane.
https://slack.com/help/articles/201457107-Send-and-read-messages
Steven
Here’s what that looks like…
https://slack.com/help/articles/4403608802963-Open-conversations-in-split-view
Steven
Next within our tip of understanding the basics of communication if formatting. There’s a lot that can be done here. Formatting is important because it makes it easy to digest the message.
https://slack.com/help/articles/202288908-Format-your-messages
Steven
Next, is editing and deleting a message when you need. If you’re like me, even after proofreading a message, I still find typos. This allows your to go back, edit, or delete.
https://slack.com/help/articles/202395258-Edit-or-delete-messages
Steven
Next is scheduling messages.
Pro Tip - If you're working after hours or you have a colleague in a different time zone, but you don't want to bother that person after hours, you can schedule send to a more appropriate time.
On a frequent basis, I work with someone in each time zone in the US. To be mindful of hours, I’ll type out the message for the person I want to contact but if it’s after hours for them then I may schedule the message to be sent at a time that is more convenient for them.
https://slack.com/help/articles/1500012915082-Schedule-messages-to-send-later
Steven
We've shared how to send messages, here is how share files via messages. Sharing files in Slack makes it easy to collaborate, give feedback, and keeps things moving forward. Adding files can be done via drag and drop, uploading from computer, or whenever your files are.
This happened to me this morning….
https://slack.com/help/articles/202288908-Format-your-messages
Alex
Tip number 3 - Segment conversations and make search your best friend
Alex
Channels are part of the magic of Slack. Channels help to keep keep conversations focused on certain topics. When channels are organized by topic, each conversation has its place. People know where to go to ask a question, give and update, or just get caught up.
With channels
Priorities are cascaded more easily and quickly through teams (alignment)
Teams can dive in and make progress more quickly when they have a common understanding of the work and a digital office to work from (focus)
Decisions are made faster (speed), and
It’s easier to get to know your coworkers as humans (culture).
The first part of this tip is to browse your team’s channels to find what channels you should be part of. This is done by clicking the plus icon next to channels and clicking “browse channels.”
Alex
In addition to browsing for channels, you can also create a new channel, name it, give it a description to help other people know what this channel is for.
Alex
Where we see magic happen within channels is when all the right people are there. Team members can be added to channels simply my @mentioning them or you can click on the channel name to add them there.
In Slack’s Slack workspace, we lean heavily on communicating in channels so in order to provide the most transparent communication possible.
Alex
Next, is threads. Threads allow responses to specific messages. Threads are kicked off by hovering over a message and then by clicking the thread icon. You can also view all your threads in one spot by clicking on “Threads” at the top of the sidebar.
Pro Tip - Follow / unfollow threads and pin threads to keep an eye on what you want to.
Alex
Channels and threads will help you easily segmentation conversations in Slack. But what about finding information. Let’s check out this quick video on how to become a Slack search pro…
Steven
Tip number 4 - Automate work through workflows & integrations
One of my favorite things about Slack is how it can become the one space where I manage all my work. Everything from my calendar, to documents, to collaboration was all happening in Slack.
I want to show you how you can do this too…
Steven
First, use the App Directory to bring outside work into Slack. The app directory is accessed in your sidebar by clicking on “Apps”. From there you will see many different work apps that integrate seamlessly with Slack.
Here are a few examples of what this looks like…
Sharing and searching for files via Google Drive
Quickly finding account details in Salesforce
Previewing and getting updates on issues in Jira
Starting an instant meeting with Zoom
Each of these apps are quick and easy to set up.
Steven
The next way to bring all your work into Slack is with workflows. Customized workflows can be built by clicking on the name of your workspace, selecting tools, then Workflow Builder. Within the Workflow Builder are customizable templates or you can build your own from scratch.
Pro Tip - Download workflow templates from the Slack website.
Steven
Once a workflow is created, it’s ready to become part of your team’s routine. You just need to let them know.
Steven
Additionally, your team can also leverage apps to take workflows to the next level. Here’s an example of Pagerduty, Datadog, Polly used to automatically provide updates and collect feedback.
Using these apps at Slack
Alex
Tip 5 - Use async communication to consolidate meetings & updates
Alex
First, is by making audio and video calls efficient by keeping it within Slack Huddles. Within any direct message or thread, simple toggle the switch to start an audio or video conversation.
Huddles are great for things from 1:1s, to team meetings, to “hey, do you have a sec?” conversations. You can even share your scream to show your team what you’re looking at.
Alex
So let me ask the group - Have you ever been in a meeting and thought “this could’ve been an email”? Well email is so 10 years ago, and Slack is the Digital HQ in our new world, so when you’re in a meeting, maybe you could change the internal dialogue to “this could’ve been a Clip!”
So what actually are Clips? Clips are audio and video messages that can be developed and shared directly in Slack. You can use Clips to share an update, show off your work, give kuddos and more.
Sharing a clip is easy, simply click the button to record a clip and say what you need to say. You can even share a screen.
At Slack, we sometimes have asynchronous meetings where during an allotted time, everyone will record their quick update via a clip and share it out with the team. We’ve seen that this can save time on exceptionally busy weeks.
I’ve also found myself that I’m more likely to watch a video clip or listen to a recording.
We have a whole session on how how to use Clips to eliminate meetings so be sure to check that out.
Pro Tip
Use Clips to replace certain meetings or updates. You can re-record and even choose the thumbnail for your clip so no pressure!
Alex
An emoji reaction can often replace the need for a follow-up message. You can use one of the pre-selected reactions or add your own from your own customizable collection of emojis.
Steven
Tip 6 - Manage work easily in Slack
This tip is all about smaller tips and tricks to make your working life easier.
Steven
First, stay in control of what you want to be notified about. To access this, click on the name of your workspace in the upper left hand corner, then Click preferences. From here you can change what you’re notified about.
I set my notification to only notify of “Direct messages, mentions and keywords.” There are a number of preferences here to allow you to customize your notifications just how you want them.
Steven
Pausing your notifications to get work done or to take care of you is vital. One of the most healthy things I’ve done for myself at work is to pause notifications for times I really need to focus. Here’s an example of my Slack, I use the the status “Focus Time - Slow to Respond” and then pause my notifications for the needed time.
Steven
Talking about statuses, here are the default statuses for the Slack Marketing workspace along with some my statuses I’ve created, including the focus status I mentioned.
Steven
Another part of our managing work easier tip is saving important things to come back to them when you need them. Simply hover over a message and click Save.
Steven
Sending messages to yourself. Within your direct message with yourself is this private space that allows you to draft messages, keep files, take notes, etc. I use this space almost daily.
Pro Tip - Make this your quick reference spot with links to files, messages, reminders, and to-dos, or anything else you may need.
Steven
Another way to make Slack work for you is to set reminders for yourself to come back to things later. You can customize exactly when you come back to it.
Alex
Our last tip for today is Tip #7 - learn where to go for more Slack tips and help.
Alex
First, is the Slack Community. This is a place with over 65 hundred Slack users, like you, to share feedback, to collaborate, and to learn from each other. To join the Slack Community, visit slackcommunity.com.
Pro Tip - Visit slackcommunity.com to join the Slack Community Slack Workspace. Be sure to introduce yourself in #intros.
Alex
Next, is the Resources Library. The Resources Library houses guides, webinars, and other types of content to share ideas on best practices.
Alex
Finally is to visit the Help Center. The Slack Help Center is essentially the instruction manual for Slack. The Help Center has step-by-step instructions for everything that we talked about today, including quick start guides that can be shared with your team.
Pro Tip - Click the question mark icon in the upper right hand corner of your Slack desktop app to open the Help Center right next to your work.
Alex
To recap, here are our the 7 tips we looked at today. We’re confident that following these tips will help to take Slack, your digital HQ, to the next level!
Simplify: Keep section names short and concise — ideally no more than three words
Resize tip: When resizing the pill shape, hold option (Mac) or ctrl (PC) to keep it centered
Simplify: Keep section names short and concise — ideally no more than three words
Resize tip: When resizing the pill shape, hold option (Mac) or ctrl (PC) to keep it centered
The outcome of the pandemic has shown us what we’ve always known to be true: employees want flexibility.
Research shows that knowledge workers are looking for flexibility in where and when they work.
There’s been a massive rebalancing of expectations around where work gets done.
The last two years have also shown us that employees can be productive outside of the office, working from wherever and whenever is best for them. And in some cases, even more productive than they were in the office.
It is no longer enough to take everything from the office and make it virtual. Office-based norms have long imposed an unchallenged expectation that work asynchronous work takes place over email meetings between the hours of 9 and 5.
And then companies have generally chosen to continue following this logic into the remote/hybrid world. For example, companies have turned all in-person meeting into video meetings. But is really the best way to get work done?
For teams to be able to be productive while working whenever/wherever they want, they need new, flexible ways of working. The days of emails and 9-5 meetings are no longer the best way to power the productive of teams.
To provide new flexible ways for teams to work, we launched huddles for simple, lightweight audio only conversation. Slack huddles recreates the informal discussions that individuals and small groups would have in the office - the casual check-in, asking a question, participating in a quick brainstorm. And while millions of people have been using huddles for these quick, casual conversations, we’ve heard that customers that they:
Don’t like going through multiple apps to start a meeting
Miss the context of a working group when a video conferencing meeting has started, and they lose the notes and work done in the meeting when it’s over
Feel that video conferencing feels formal, even if it’s a casual conversation with the team
Now, teams can seamlessly evolve a discussion in channel — where all the right people and context already are — into a live coworking session
But we know that our customers love the simplicity and audio-only nature of huddles, so huddles will automatically start as an audio-only experience in a minimized screen.
However, when customers feel that they want to collaborate deeper in the moment, they can simply turn on video and bring the huddle to full screen to tap into more features.
Now within the huddle, teams can tap into new features to power side-by-side work.
Most traditional screen sharing offers presentation-mode only, for one person at a time. In huddles, you can screen at the same time as your teammate, making it easier for you and others to pull up presentation decks and documents to work on together in real time… similar to the way you may have walked up to your coworkers desk in the office with your laptop to glance at each other’s screens and get work done together.
We’re also introducing drawing so teams can highlight points of emphasis and certain visuals.
We’re bringing some of that reacji magic into huddles with emoji, effects and “stickers”. During a huddle, you’ll have the ability to co-sign a great idea, celebrate a colleague’s win, or share a well-timed joke with emoji and effects.
In huddles, your conversations and files will flow in an organized and searchable way, the same way they do in channels. This is all made possible through a message thread where everything you share in the huddle—links, notes, chats and more—will get automatically saved in the channel or DM where it was launched, for easy reference.
Teammates in a channel or DM who aren’t in the huddle will be able to reference live messaging threads, allowing them to see the conversation update in real time and decide whether they want to join. Or they can also read the thread later, catch up asynchronously, and chime in at a time that works best for them. You can even give your huddle a name to provide added context to participants and pin the message thread to the top of a channel or DM for ready access.
Market context: The ways in which people work have fundamentally changed… in ways that make managing, finding, and sharing knowledge increasingly difficult.
Employees aren’t all in the same location → there’s no longer easy, reliable access to their peers and subject matter experts
Communication happens not just synchronously but increasingly asynchronous → you can’t always stop by someone’s desk or call across the conference room.
Teams use too many tools → The average enterprise uses over 1,000 tools, and growing
Teams have different access to tools /tech stacks → info is siloed across teams and locked within tools
When information flows quickly it’s generally good. It means your teams are agile, decisions are getting made, and you can ultimately better serve your customers.
But in the modern business world, this firehose of information can quickly become overwhelming for any individual or team to stay on top of.
Too often, workers feel like if I missed a piece of information in real-time, I may never see it again.
It’s never been more important for teams to be able to piece together information — no matter what form it’s in or where it was shared.
Because Slack is your DHQ - there’s an opportunity to bring in richer tools to help people in the way that works best for them, their team, and the project at hand - no matter how or where people work
If Slack is your DHQ, the place where work happens - canvas is where information is created, organized and shared across teams
Curate information the way you want
Canvas supplements real-time collaboration with a permanent place to gather and organize knowledge for any channel or project.
Gain insights from your apps in a single view
Anyone can integrate dashboards and third-party apps into canvases, bringing an interactive view of the data employees need to the forefront.
Get context and take action, all from one place
When critical context is paired with accessible workflows — people spend less time chasing down information and more time executing.
What can I put in a canvas?
Add text, images, files, and links
Embed media like Clips and video
Link to items in Slack, like channels, Atlas profiles, and Slack messages
Pull in data from systems of record like Salesforce Customer 360 (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, etc) or tools like Google Workspace, Jira, and Figma
Workflows that streamline business-critical tasks through the click of a button
Notable features and capabilities:
Real-time co-editing
Text and objects can be arranged in a grid layout via drag and drop
Text and object sections can have comments, which are Slack threads
Editors can view the full revision history of a canvas
iOS and Android support for:
Full viewing parity
Basic text editing and formatting
Shared with users and channels, including Slack Connect DMs and channels
Support editor and viewer access levels
Slack apps are great at directing focus to things that require your attention through notifications and messages — like when a Service Cloud ticket is ready for case swarming. But what if you wanted to view all of the tickets that have come in over the course of a project?
With the Slack platform, you can pull in data from other systems of record like Salesforce or third-party apps into a canvas that can be easily updated, refreshed, and shared with other teams.
When it comes to surfacing insights locked within your tools, Canvas helps teams arrive at the answer without having to know what questions to ask.
For most knowledge workers, taking in information is only one part of their jobs. Reading documents, watching clips, analyzing data are a means to gain context; but they’re often ultimately looking to complete some sort of task — making a request, capturing new information, and so forth.
Using the Slack platform, teams can directly embed workflows in canvases to streamline and standardize business-critical tasks right from where they’re already reading. Whether it’s reading up on an account to update an opportunity or reading about the company phone policy before submitting a request, it’s easy for anyone to go straight from consuming information, to acting on it.
When critical context is paired with accessible workflows — people spend time chasing down information and more time executing.
Note - Coming soon: We will be adding in illustrated slides to show how canvas addresses the specific Sales, Service, and Marketing use cases outlined on this slide.
Internal note: We're planning to open a limited customer beta pilot after Dreamforce.
To learn more about how to nominate your customer for the pilot, please follow the nomination process in the channel canvas/workflow in #gtm-canvas-pilot and work with Brian Richards (@brichards)
Simplify: Keep section names short and concise — ideally no more than three words
Resize tip: When resizing the pill shape, hold option (Mac) or ctrl (PC) to keep it centered
Simplify: Keep section names short and concise — ideally no more than three words
Resize tip: When resizing the pill shape, hold option (Mac) or ctrl (PC) to keep it centered
