10 Tips and Tricks for Getting Things Done on Slack

About 20 million people across the globe use Slack, making it one of the most popular corporate chat services. But how can you stay busy when there is so much “noise”?

In this post, I’ll talk about the past of Slack and Salesforce before giving you our top 10 Slack efficiency tips.

What does slack mean?

Slack is a business chat app that helps people get in touch with the information they need. The most important thing about Slack is that it lets people work together as one team. This changes how organizations communicate. Slack is based on the idea that users should be able to work in a way that is linked, open, and includes everyone.

It started as a tool for Stewart Butterfield’s company, Tiny Speck, to use internally while making the online game Glitch. In August 2013, it was made available to the public. “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge” is what “Slack” stands for. On July 21, 2021, Salesforce paid a reported $27.7 billion to buy Slack. This makes Slack the biggest tech company that Salesforce has ever bought, and the second-biggest tech company ever.

10 Tips for Slack

Less Is More

Multiple texts mean multiple alerts. Multiple alerts mean more distractions. If you need to send a long message, make sure to break it up into parts. If you go to your advanced settings, you can turn this on.

@Channel vs @Here

Using @ and the user’s display name, you can directly mention other users in your messages when using channels.

But Slack also lets you use two words, @channel and @here, to tell the whole channel or even your whole office something.

When using either of these phrases, you should be very careful, especially in busy areas like #general. The @channel command will tell everyone in that channel, no matter if they are online or not. The @here command, on the other hand, will only tell people who are online at that time.

These orders are for telling everyone about important news that needs everyone’s attention, like an urgent project issue. They’re not meant to be used to share cat gifs, unless you’re in a #catgif group.

One thing to remember is that owners and administrators can choose to limit who can use these commands.

Names for channels that are always the same

Creating naming rules for your channels is a great way to make sure that everyone can quickly find the channels and information they need. Since channels are mentioned in alphabetical order, make sure to add prefixes to their names so that they are grouped together.

For example, you could set the name of a channel that supports a project to be #project- followed by the name of the project, like #project-flowmigration or #project-leadgen.

Your teams could also have their own Channels. The naming rules could be a lot easier if they just used the team name. For example, the channel name for a Salesforce team could be #sfteam.

Make sure that the rules for naming channels are written down and shared with everyone in your company.

Channels That Do Something

If a service doesn’t have a clear goal, it’s not worth having. Make sure to add a topic and a description of the channel so that everyone can understand what this channel is for.

Use the Emoji Reactions feature.

Emojis in Slack can be very strong for such an easy tool. They make it easy to answer a message quickly with just one click. You can also add these to your processes. For example, people can put their on something to let everyone know they’re reviewing it and their when they’re done. Getting used to using emojis as replies can also help make Slack less cluttered and noisy.

Use the Threads

Threads are basically talks that keep going. They are great for working together on projects and talks in a team channel. You can ask for more information or share ideas without worrying that the unread sign for everyone in the chat will go crazy.

You can use the “Also send to #channel” button below your message to send it to the channel as well. This is useful if you wrote a message in a thread and then thought it would be good to say the same thing in the channel as well.

Share Files That Are Useful With Channel

Upload any files that are important to the topic or project and post a welcome message to get things started. Clicking the paperclip button in your chat box is the same way you attach files to an email.

Do Not Disturb

This is more for yourself than for other people. We all need time away from work, and Slack lets you do this by letting you set your working hours and only receive messages during those times.

For example, if you set your hours to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., you won’t get a message at 7 a.m. that will wake you up. The same will happen after 6 p.m., when you may just be getting ready to eat dinner.

To make things even easier, you can set your Slack settings to “Do Not Disturb” with a few quick and useful slash commands:

Sync Your Status

If you use Google or Outlook for your calendar, like a lot of people do, it’s easy to sync it with your Slack account. Just add the Google or Outlook apps to your Slack area and connect your accounts.

You will then have the choice to sync your status. If you have a meeting on your calendar, your Slack status will change to reflect this. This is the best way to quickly see at any time who is free and who is busy.

Huddles

Slack huddles are a light, audio-first way to talk in a Slack group or direct message, even with partners outside of your company. A standard conference call has a set time, a plan, and a list of people who are going to be there. Slack huddles are less formal, have no set schedule, and are open to anyone in the office.

You can now take notes in a Slack Huddle thread, share your screen, respond with emojis, and even turn on live comments (currently only in English).

If you are using the free version of Slack, only two people can be in each “huddle.” If you pay, you can add up to 50 more people.

Integrations with Salesforce

Since Slack is now part of Salesforce, it won’t be long before Slack is deeply merged into all Salesforce clouds. Right now, you can find apps for Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Quip, and Heroku in the Slack app list. Customers can also use the Slack API to build unique apps that link Slack to other Salesforce services.