Tips for setting up Slack app for your business

slack app

Slack is a great corporate tool to bring your project team together in one place. You can communicate, set tasks, monitor their progress, and discuss the future of the project. The possibilities of the application are almost unlimited. And the free version and 24/7 support make Slack one of the best teamwork options for startups and small IT teams. However, you must be able to use all the tools offered to get the desired result. The more you use Slack, the more you’ll learn about its useful features and benefits. But if you are just starting to work with a corporate messenger, then start your acquaintance with the application with a couple of useful tips.

Create a personal profile

The first thing you’ll need to set up before using Slack is a user profile. When you enter the workspace, fill out your profile so that team members are well aware of what questions to ask you. Enter your name, position, contact details, add your photo, etc. It’ll be easier for employees to complete tasks if they know your face and skills. Take as much time as you need to complete your profile. Don’t waste your time on this. Correct profiling is an important step for further actions to optimize all work processes.

Create a separate channel for each workflow

Slack is one of the best corporate messengers and task managers. Thanks to its functionality, you can set up and control all the workflows of your business from one workspace. To better control processes and team members, create thematic channels and chats for clients, projects, or areas. That’ll help to avoid confusion and understanding, which is especially important for the interaction of a large number of employees. If your business is growing and developing rapidly, then think over in advance the structure of communication between employees, partners, and customers. Such an approach will avoid further problems when scaling processes.

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Each channel can be public (accessible to all users) or private (accessible by invitation only). Fill in the description of each channel to make it clear what it is about. It seems unimportant when there are few chats, but when there are more than 10, you start to get confused.

It is convenient to put important information in a pinned message. Each user always sees it, which means that important information is always in sight. What to write in a pinned message? Indicate what kind of channel it is, and describe its rules and other important information in your opinion.

Set up and use notifications

Remember, every little thing counts for getting your workflows right. Notifications occupy a special place among them. They’ll help you not to miss an important message and improve productivity. For example, when you are busy with an important task, you can turn off notifications so that no one and nothing bothers you while you work. Set up notifications only when your company name or certain words are mentioned. Thus, you’ll fence yourself off from garbage and scam if you work with many channels and chats.

Use Integrations

Integration with third-party applications is a key advantage of Slack, which makes it stand out from the competition. Each user can install the required tools from the shared directory. There are over 2400 integrations available for free. Thus, you can customize a single working environment according to the requirements of your business. In fact, any user can turn the working environment of a corporate messenger into a single workspace, taking into account all the nuances and wishes of employees.

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Slack apps are divided into several large categories to make it easier for you to navigate:

  • Analytics
  • Design
  • Productivity
  • Finance
  • Sales
  • Tourism, etc.

If Slack communication tools are not enough for you, then use VoIP services like Google Voice, Clerk, etc. Such integrations open up all the possibilities for your business phone. Use Slack SMS and video calls to communicate with team members, partners, or clients. Create bulk SMS campaigns, make appointments, conduct research, collect feedback on your startup, and more. Integrations reveal Slack from a new perspective. Installing and configuring third-party applications does not take much time. You’ll find all possible integrations in the Slack app directory.

Learn quick commands

Shortcuts and hotkeys make it easy to use any application, including Slack. Many people think that using keyboard shortcuts does not save them time. Actually, this is a big mistake. If you learn how to use the most important hotkeys, then you’ll quickly notice how your productivity and speed of completing tasks will increase. A simple example showing how quick commands save the user’s time. Let’s say you want to highlight text in a message. You can highlight text with the cursor by scrolling it from beginning to end. This action will take at least 10 seconds, depending on the amount of text. On the other hand, you can press the key combination Ctrl+A.

Such action will take you no more than 2 seconds. And so it is with everything. Now imagine how many actions an employee performs during the working day. And how much time he can save and accomplish more tasks if he starts using quick commands. There are many commands that you can use in Slack. To get the keyboard shortcuts you need, type /Remind.