{"id":42936,"date":"2020-04-07T06:41:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T06:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-397385-1251243.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=42936"},"modified":"2021-01-30T11:47:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T11:47:15","slug":"a-simple-guide-to-using-slack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glassmountains.co.uk\/campfire\/a-simple-guide-to-using-slack\/","title":{"rendered":"A simple guide to using Slack"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, we discuss what Slack is, we walk through the functionality, and we discuss how it can be used with organisations such as yours.<\/p>\n

What is Slack?<\/h2>\n

If you’ve never used Slack before then the best way to describe is like an online chat system, but with your employees.<\/p>\n

You type in messages and your team can respond.<\/p>\n

“But why do I need this?!<\/em>” you rightly ask.<\/p>\n

You might also ask:<\/p>\n

“but I can email my team already?! Why do I need another app?”.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I’d sympathise with you there – email certainly has its place. But haven’t you experienced this?<\/p>\n

You send an email to multiple people, and multiple people try to reply to the email and then the whole email thread basically descends into a living hell of nested information and broken conversations. Blerugh!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026.that<\/strong> is where email falls down. It’s not a group chat. Slack, on the other hand is<\/strong> group chat!<\/p>\n

Slack works alongside<\/em> email rather than being a replacement for it.<\/p>\n

[adrotate banner=”3″]<\/p>\n

Slack Apps<\/h3>\n

You can access Slack from the web browser, or you can use the desktop or mobile apps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the above screenshot (from our Glass Mountains Slack app), you can see how the Slack app generally looks. It is broadly split into two columns:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The is a left-hand menu (the darker bit),<\/li>\n
  2. The right-hand side; which is contextual to whatever you have selected from the left-hand menu.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, in our example above, the left hand-hand menu shows that #content-ideas<\/em> is selected, and the chat on the right-hand side relates to that.<\/p>\n

    But what is #content-ideas? What is a channel?<\/h2>\n

    In Slack, you can send a private message to any of your teammates and if that were all Slack could do, it probably wouldn’t be of much use. Where Slack really shines is with the ‘channels<\/em>‘ feature.<\/p>\n

    A ‘channel<\/em>‘ is where one or more of your team members can chat about one particular topic. You don’t have to have everyone<\/em> involved in a channel, just those who need to know.<\/p>\n

    In the previous screenshot you’ll see channels for (and I won’t’ list them all):<\/p>\n