Slack is one of the trending computer networking service, a business communication platform that collaborate team members of a company to work together. The platform is designed as a chat room for companies, businesses and other organizations as a mean of breaking out of emails among teams to enhance communications to achieve specific goals and purpose. Slack enables members of the organization work from home, engage in video calls if necessary.
Furthermore, Slack has some amazing features particularly the collaboration software that is used to bring other people together. It also serves as channel for group discussions and allows users manage entire workflow among themselves, send messages and share files through this medium. The interesting thing about the platform is that it fosters good business relationship between external partners and clients by connecting work tools.
How Does Slack Work?
It also has a face to face and screen where users show their work and share their work too. In addition, the platform also allows integration with third-party services where you are allowed to add Apps within the Slack platform. You can also drag and drop PDF files, images, videos and other files directly into Slack. The website comes with team and workspaces that cut across every sector of life which includes Engineering, Financial services, Sales, IT, Marketing, Customer Support, etc.
Features of Slack
Slack Team and Workspaces
The functionality of Slack is dependent on its team. The team makes workspace work by allowing communities, groups and members of organizations connect to each other to achieve organizational goals and objectives. This is done by inviting the members of the team to join a specific URL.
Slack Messaging
Messaging is the foundation on which the Slack platform is built. This is grouped into channels and direct messages which foster communication without the use of emails thereby making an organized conversation. The messaging covers both the private and public channels. The public channels are open to every member of the workspace and covers different marketing and sales operations. The private channels help break large teams into small groups and send private messages to specific users.
Slack Integrations
The Slack integration system is one of the greatest features that created links with other third-party services. This engagement draws other Apps within the platform with the Slack app. The major integration includes Google Drive, Drop box, Heroku, GitHub, Zendesk, Zapier, Trello, Bluemix and Crashlytics. However, getting all these features on the platform comes with a price package.
How much does Slack cost?
The platform is not really expensive but depends on the size of the team in the organization. The Slack pricing determines the kind of package you get based on the size of your team. However, the pricing plan varies with each having its own features and they are:
- Free Plan: this is basic plan for small teams in an organization for an unlimited period of time. This plan is free and the features includes :
- Access to 10,000 of your team’s searchable messages
- 10 integration with other Apps
- One on one voice and video calls between teammates.
- Standard support
- Standard Plan: this package is for small and medium-sized businesses. This plan goes for $6.67 per user per month.
- Unlimited search for relevant people,
- Custom retention for messages and files
- Group calls and screen sharing with up to 15 teammates.
- Unlimited Integrations
- 10GB storage per team member
- Priority support
- Message highlights
- It entails Google authentication
- Plus Plan: this plan is for larger businesses or those with administration needs. The plan goes $12.50 per user per month. The plus plan features includes:
- 99.99% uptime guarantee with financially backed service level agreement (SLA)
- 24/7 support from customer experience team
- 20GB per Team member
- Built- in connections to many SSO providers
- Compliance Exports
- Additional Authentication Features
- Enterprise Grid plan: this is for extra large businesses or those in regulated industries. The features includes:
- Large scale collaboration and alignment with support for up to 500,000 users.
- Streamlined administration with centralized controls and customizable policies
- Tailored support with a designated account and customer success team.
- Peace of mind with enterprise-grade security and compliance.
However, getting access to the platform requires users to undergo the sign up process. The sign up process is the only access users gets to enjoy all the benefits embedded in Slack.
How do I sign up for Slack?
Signing up for Slack is simple and easy and entails creating your team’s workspace. However, the signing up process entails the following steps:
- Go to the web address and type Slack.com on the URL
- Click on ‘Get Started’ at the top right corner of the homepage.
- A page pops-out, click on create a workspace.
- A page pops out asking you to verify your email with a code. Click on confirm.
- Go to your email address and retrieve the code sent and enter it.
- Choose your personal username.
- Enter the emails of employees and coworkers you’d like to have them join.
- Your workspace will then load, follow the brief tutorial to learn the basics and you’re ready to start enjoying the platform.
After following the sign up steps, it gives you automatic access to enjoy your workspace. Moreover, it gives you access to sign in to the platform and your team’s existing workspace.
How to Sign in to your workspace
- Go to the web address and type Slack.com on the URL
- Click on ‘Get started’ at the top right corner of the homepage.
- A page pops out, click on sign in to at the top right corner.
- Enter your email address and click on confirm.
- Handle the authorization flow
- Use token to retrieve user and workspace information.
In conclusion, following this process helps you to join your team’s workspace and grant you access anytime. However, there means of accessing the platform on your device. It is either you download the desktop app for Mac or Windows for PC users and on iOS and Android for smart phone users.