Slack is a cloud-based project collaboration and management software solution catered to optimize communication across channels and organizations. It gives you the option of having private and public channels, where you can interact with several people from your workplace. Additionally, you can incorporate feeds from your social media platforms. This ensures that when you’re updating your team, they can see the work you’re referring to. You can also upload PDFs, documents, spreadsheets and images into your channels through the drag-and-drop feature.
You can invite your members on Slack through email or even a link to your channel. It can also be accessed through the web, desktop or mobile. It allows for customization with its general look and feel. You also don’t have to worry about losing relevant data under thousands of email threads. With Slack’s search feature, information that’s been uploaded and shared between team members is automatically indexed and archived. If you’re looking for a comprehensive and extensive knowledge base, then Slack should be your top choice.
Slack works for a variety of industries—from two-person startups and small businesses to mid-sized organizations and large enterprises.
Slack Features
Here are the top features found in Slack:
Chat Channels
Slack functions primarily through chat channels—both public and private. This is where communication will often take place. Team members are invited into channels by their managers or by giving them an email link. Compared to email threads, you can easily backtrack on conversations and discussions without getting overloaded by messages and information. Additionally, you can create smaller channels for different groups and teams. You can also share drag-and-drop PDFs, documents, videos and images into these channels.
Face-to-face and screen sharing
You don’t have to meet up with employees in the office, especially if they’re stationed at different locations or if they’re working from home. Slack reduces the cost of travel and makes life easier for your team members. You can now communicate via video calls and share your screen so that people can see what you’ve been working on.
Security and protection
Slack takes protecting your data seriously. It ensures compliance and regulation with the law and certain policies. This includes FedRAMP, SOC 2, CSA, EU/US Privacy Shield, etc. Under this feature, you can find several tools Slack uses to ensure the security of your business. They are as follows: data encryption, SCIM provisioning, SAML-based single sign-on and support for Data Loss Prevention (DLP).
Slack Benefits
The top Slack benefits include:
Increased collaboration and communication
Slack provides users with a single workspace where several features (such as document uploading and collaboration tools) are made available. It focuses on simplifying the way employees discuss their projects by offering both public and private channels in its interface. With public channels, company-wide announcements can easily reach your members. On the other hand, private channels are suitable for smaller teams. This allows you to send direct messages to the people involved in your projects.
Powerful integrations
Slack doesn’t limit itself by not allowing integrations. Instead, it optimizes sharing files and documents between other platforms such as Google Drive and Trello. What these integrations do is allow for more options regarding file storage and project management tools. You can integrate almost any tool within Slack to serve your business needs.
Centralized workspace
One of the most common struggles and challenges companies encounter in project collaboration is their difficulty in efficiently sharing information online. For others, they must send separate files through various platforms. This makes it harder to track everything that’s been shared between several teams. However, with Slack’s single and centralized workspace, you don’t have to worry about connecting files from Google Drive or boards from Trello.
Slack Pricing
While Slack does have a free version for you to use, the freemium only offers limited features and functionalities. It includes the ability to search up to 10,000 messages, use 10 applications and integrations and have two-factor authentication. If you need more advanced tools, then Slack offers three pricing packages. These are discussed below:
Standard
Designed for small and medium-sized businesses, this package is priced at $6.67 per person and per month if you’ve opted for the yearly plan. You pay more ($8 per month) if you only applied for the monthly version. Its top features include smarter unlimited search, unlimited applications, conference calls with screen sharing and multiple guest accounts and shared channels.
Using this package, teams can access the entire message history and benefit from 10 GB of storage per member. Additionally, you can also share your channels with other companies and have the two-factor authentication security feature. Compared to the free version where you can only have 1-to-1 video calls, you can enjoy group video calls with up to 15 people. Other key functions include channel recommendations and custom user groups for different teams and departments.
Plus
The second pricing plan is Plus whose price starts at $12.50 per person and per month if billed annually. If you avail of the monthly version, the price increases to $15. The top features you can find in this solution give you 99.99% guaranteed uptime SLA, SAML-based SSO and corporate exports for all messages.
Plus is catered primarily for larger businesses and users who require advanced administration options. All the features offered in Standard can be found in here with additional tools such as real-time Active Directory sync with Ping, Okta and OneLogin. You also have 20 GB of storage per member.
Enterprise Grid
The last plan does not have a fixed price. It’s suited for very large businesses or companies in highly regulated industries. If you’re looking for a package catered to handle a massive workforce, then this is what you need. Users can now have unlimited workspaces, support data loss prevention, HIPAA-compliant message and file collaboration and designated customer success teams.
You can do more with this package, considering the addition of the following tools and functionalities:
- 1 TB storage per member
- Organization-wide search
- Audit log API
- Messaging and announcement-focused channels
- A single view of security, compliance, billing, etc.
- Designated account and customer success teams
Conclusion
While Slack is considered a very popular project management platform, users have complained of its pricey plans and limited features found in the freemium plan. But if you’re looking for a powerful solution where your team can come together and meet online, then Slack is one of the best options. It’s a single workspace catered to connect your employees together. It has real-time messaging options (such as calls and chat), a searchable record and several integrations with popular applications.
At the end of the day, Slack simplifies working with your team members. You don’t have to physically stage meetings and conferences with your workforce since everything can be found online. It also makes it easier to keep track of progress and share your updates with other people. For example, if your company has home-based members, you don’t have to interrupt their schedule by asking them to meet you at the office. Instead, you can have a group conference call where you can share screens and discuss how the current project is going.
Users are notified of important project matters without getting overwhelmed by messages. Since you can integrate notifications, data and files from different applications, you can stay up to date with a single collaboration platform. Overall, Slack provides a place to efficiently communicate with one another without the usual hassles and struggles in setting up a time and place.
