Hosts/Session Leads
Shannon
Emma
Brad
See favorite integrations at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O0YV8yQaAkG6ecwZG9OR9LpLjIqJC6bmg7OsdY3ZXls/edit#gid=0
--Add to spreadsheet--
Apps:
- Send it Later
- Block Kit builder
- SimplePoll
- Polly
- Translate app
- Birthday bot
- Smartsheet app
- Giphy
Other useful tools/features
- /remind
- Saved items
- Sections
- Keywords for notifications
- Mentions and reactions
- All Unreads
- History (clock icon)
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Emma works with folks who create their own Slack apps. Subscribes to RSS feed for encyclopedia
Shannon particularly likes Outlook integration
Zoom - great if you need to have an actual conversation
Note from Brad: you need to request that this integration be added to your Workspace if it’s not already available.
Missions/Workflow builder - example use case (Shannon): every Monday morning send a weekly newsletter that everyone contributes to. People can put in their piece and click “Done”, and once everyone’s submitted it sends out an email.
JIRA - can query about a particular ticket, and add comments (channel must know about that specific project)
Zapier - highly recommended for connecting other tools to Slack
Google Drive - Tip: If you reply to a document’s comment thread, it will populate the document with your comment.
Donut - Shannon and Emma actually met through Donut. Effortless way to do networking.
Robin McLish: how do you integrate these apps into Slack?
Emma demonstrates:
- Find the Workspace you’re in
- Go to settings and administration
- Manage apps
- Shows Apps in directory that you’re managing
- Go to browse
- If it hasn’t been previously approved, the Workspace admin will have to approve it.
Robin McLish: question re: reacji channeler -> Could you put the command in any open field?
Shannon: Not sure. The command pushes the comment to the specific channel. Must be a public channel. OR maybe you have to do it in the reacji app (see bottom of list on LHS, under Apps)
Brad - good use case in SLAC - put into slac-til channel (SLAC “today I learned”)
New folks can go and review that channel.
Can also add apps by going to lower left screen clicking “+” under Apps
Emma: If you’re feeling very ambitious, you can build your own Slack apps. Zapier might be good for integrating them.
In Emma’s group, some folks have built their own apps:
- E.g. use software for teaching students, need to pull up info about instructors so can deal with problems they might be having -- enter instructor name in Slack app to find their details quickly
To build a custom app > go to manage apps but then click “Build”
What do you need to know to build a Slack app?
Emma: Depends what you’re interacting with. Most of the work is creating the tools on the non-Slack end. Slack is just sending a string of commands to the service. In Emma’s case, the person working on their app is a JAVA programmer.
Brad recommended in chat: Block kit builder - great tool that allows you to edit code and create nice looking messages. Including formatting, photos, and buttons.
Q: Do you wish Slack did anything else?
Ollie: would like to be able to more easily add folks from different Workspaces to a channel (without having to get a Slack admin to do it)
Pro tip: If you create a new Workspace, then you can add folks from any Workspace to a channel that you create in that Workspace
Other tools people like:
- SimplePoll app or Polly app
- /remind
Don: click on the lightning bolt now, lots of shortcuts are available.
Also likes using:
- Translate app
- Birthday bot
- Smartsheet app
- Giphy
Emma: handy tip with GoogleDrive - pin a document to a channel
Don: Saved items are handy - not many people know about this
Shannon: really likes this for bookmarking, can create a to-do list
Don: Send it Later - send messages later app
Like the sections in the new version of Slack
Shannon: sections - great way to prioritize what you want to see first. E.g. section at top is most important
Robin: how do you manage and not miss incoming Slack messages?
Don: I’ve set up keywords in my notifications. You get a badge for every time someone mentions one of your keywords.
Shannon: good feature for catching up on things is All unreads
Emma: @ people to notify them that they should look at the message
Don: go to Mentions and reactions, and can find quickly where someone mentioned you in a message or added a reaction
Ollie: note that some options are under “More” in the menu
Brad: you can customize this list in your preferences
Consolidated list of messages from other workspaces requires some pruning to keep up
Don: statuses - people can create statuses to use within a workspace and make available to everybody.
Emma: I most commonly use the /remind command.
Don: I also use the clock icon a lot (left of search) for history
