When it comes to seamless project management, it pays to have the right tools at hand. In today’s business climate, online tools improve collaboration, productivity, and communications in the office. You know the basic tools: G-Suite, Asana, and Jira, among others. But one other tool is often underestimated because it’s “just another tool for a chat” – Slack.
Slack is a collaboration tool for teams. Currently, it has more than 10 million active users, which makes the platform a global leader in business communications. With more businesses operating in a virtual environment, and stakeholders demanding instant answers, Slack offers great ways to communicate with clients and colleagues.
But there’s more to Slack beyond its messaging abilities. There are reasons behind the demand for this app, the Slack finra compliance rules, and other integration facts about it. If you’re using Slack or are considering the app for your business, here’s what you need to know.
Project-Friendly Structure
When you start using Slack, the first agenda is to set up your team. You can create a single team for your business, or – if you work with more than hundreds of employees – create different teams for different departments. In most cases, however, a single team is enough.
Each team has channels, which are Slack’s building blocks. These channels represent the conversations that focus on a certain topic. Channels can be integration-based, topical, location-based, project-based, limited to a certain team, or used only by specific departments.
For company-wide project management, channels like #accounting, #marketing, #humanresources, #sales and #management are helpful. Slack automatically creates #random and #general channels, which you can use across departments. If needed, you may also create private channels.
Pro-tip: it’s more useful to share information flow in public channels to ensure transparency in the company, as well as create searchable conversation archives.
Automated Reminders
One of the most important factors in successful project management is the simplest: remembering deadlines or meetings.
The Slackbot feature is handy for reminders. Just type “remind” in a channel to create easy and automated reminders. The app will ping you when the time comes. You can also set a person or a team to be reminded, the time and the task. Think of it as asking Siri to remind you to do something, but you’ll get a notification from your app.
If you customize Slackbot, it will remind you of even more things. Input your nearest coffee shop, your WiFi password, or how to open a door when it gets stuck. Whenever anyone has a question, Slackbot will answer.
Integrate Your Other Tools
If you need the boost only traditional project management apps can provide, Slack is at your service. Blossom, PivotalTracker, Asana, and Trello are some available tools for Slack integrations. Bring in conversations, tasks, notifications, and cards from different apps to make Slack the central hub for online operations and communications.
The app has also plenty of other useful integrations. For example, Tettra enables wiki creations for the team inside Slack, and IFTTT automation gives you automated actions and reminders. You can even add GIFs to your slack with GIPHY to add more fun to your conversations. Check out these secret GIPHY slack commands.
Task List Management
Keep track and manage your task list with Slack, too. The app can integrate Todoist and Wunderlist, so you can add items to your task list from your Slack channel. To keep your entire to-do list in Slack, use the To-Do bot. There are many ways to use Slack for task management; you just need to pick the right one for you.
Easier Note-Taking
Want to take down notes on a project you’re currently working on? Need a place where you can type things so you won’t forget?
Start a new message chain with yourself. You can store these messages in your channel, so you can easily find them later. Since they won’t get buried under new messages from other team members, you can always find your reminders where you left them. If you need a reminder to move them into your note-taking app, use Slackbot to remind you.
Powerful Search Capabilities
It’s easy to get a Slack channel packed full of messages, but it can also make it difficult to find the one you need. With Slack’s awesome search capabilities, however, you have nothing to worry about. All you have to do is search within a channel (with “in:”) and results are sorted by relevance and date. Think of it as a simpler Facebook marketplace search.
Make the best of project management with Slack. Use this app to supplement a more traditional project management system. Complete your toolkit online with Slack today.
