5 Advanced Slack Features You Should Use

By Samarpit Nasa | Last Updated on April 18th, 2024 10:56 am

In the dynamic world of digital communication, Slack stands out as a powerful tool for team collaboration. For individuals and teams looking to maximize their productivity, understanding and utilizing Slack's advanced features can significantly enhance your workflow, especially when integrated with workflow automation tools . This blog post delves into five advanced features for Slack power users, aiming to transform your daily operations and communication efficiency.

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Hit Return Without Sending

Mistakenly sending incomplete messages can disrupt your thought process and communication flow. Slack addresses this by allowing users to change the default behavior of the Enter key. By adjusting your preferences to "Start a new line" under the Advanced tab, you can ensure that hitting Enter adds a line break instead of sending the message. This feature requires using Ctrl + Enter (or Command + Return on Mac) to send messages, minimizing accidental transmissions and promoting more thoughtful, well-constructed messages.

Set a Notification Schedule

Constant notifications can be a significant distraction, hindering productivity. Slack's notification schedule feature enables users to specify days and times when they wish to receive notifications, allowing for uninterrupted focus periods. This customizable approach ensures that you stay informed during your preferred working hours while maintaining the peace needed for deep work outside these times.

Exclude Busy Channels from Search Results

Slack's powerful search functionality can sometimes be overwhelmed by high-traffic channels, making it difficult to find specific conversations or information. The platform allows users to exclude certain channels from search results, streamlining the search process. By filtering out noisy channels, you can more efficiently locate the information you need without sifting through irrelevant content.

Remind Yourself (and Others) to Do Things

Forgetting to follow up on messages or tasks is common in the fast-paced work environment. Slack's reminder feature can be a game-changer, allowing users to set reminders for themselves or others directly from messages or through slash commands. This feature ensures that important tasks or follow-ups are not overlooked, fostering accountability and timely communication within teams.

Organize Important Info in a Slack Canvas

Slack Canvas offers a solution for organizing and accessing frequently referenced information within any conversation. This feature allows users to compile and share important links, agenda items, image files, and more in a centralized, easily accessible location. With the ability to contribute and comment on items, Slack Canvas promotes collaboration and ensures that critical resources are readily available to all team members.

Popular Slack Integrations You Should Use

Integrating Slack with popular productivity and communication tools can greatly enhance your team's efficiency and streamline workflows. Below are some of the most popular Slack integrations that cover project management, version control, customer support, email communication, and more. Understanding how these integrations work can help teams collaborate more effectively and manage tasks directly from Slack.

Slack Integration with Jira

Creating a Slack integration with Jira integration allows teams to connect their project management tool directly with Slack. This integration facilitates the creation and management of Jira issues from Slack, provides updates on issue status, and enables users to customize notifications for specific projects or issues. It's ideal for teams who rely on Jira for tracking development tasks or project progress, ensuring that everyone stays informed without leaving Slack.

GitHub and Slack Integration

For development teams, creating a GitHub and Slack integration is crucial. This integration enables teams to receive updates about repository activities, such as commits, pull requests, and new issues, directly in a Slack channel. It enhances collaboration and code review processes by allowing discussions around commits and pull requests to happen in real-time within Slack, keeping everyone in the loop with the latest development changes.

Slack Integration with Asana

Slack's integration with Asana helps teams manage their tasks and projects efficiently. Users can create Asana tasks from Slack messages, receive notifications about task updates or comments, and easily share Asana project updates within Slack. This seamless connection ensures that teams can track project progress and action items directly from their communication platform, fostering productivity and timely project execution.

Slack Integration with Zendesk

Customer support teams benefit significantly from a Slack integration with Zendesk. This integration allows support tickets from Zendesk to be posted in a Slack channel, enabling real-time notifications and discussions about customer issues. Teams can collaborate on resolving tickets efficiently, ensuring a quick response time and enhancing overall customer satisfaction.

Outlook and Slack Integration

The Outlook and Slack integration bridges the gap between email communication and instant messaging. Users can receive Outlook calendar notifications in Slack, respond to event invitations, and even join Skype for Business meetings or Microsoft Teams calls directly from Slack. This integration ensures that users can manage their email and calendar events without leaving the Slack environment, enhancing productivity and time management.

Slack and HubSpot Integration

For sales and marketing teams, a Slack and HubSpot integration can drive better collaboration and lead management. This integration provides real-time notifications about new leads, form submissions, and other critical sales activities directly in Slack. Teams can quickly discuss and act on these leads, ensuring a prompt response to potential customers and opportunities.

Slack Integration with Gmail

A Slack Integration with Gmail allows users to receive email notifications directly in Slack, reply to emails, and even forward important messages to a Slack channel. This integration is particularly useful for managing critical email communications and ensuring that important messages are not missed while working within Slack.

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Conclusion

Leveraging Slack's advanced features and effective Slack apps integrations can transform your workday, leading to unparalleled productivity gains and a more streamlined communication workflow. These customizations allow you to fine-tune Slack to fit your specific requirements and those of your team, facilitating a highly organized and efficient workspace. By implementing features such as customizable notification schedules, focused search capabilities, and collaborative spaces like Slack Canvas, alongside integrating productivity-enhancing Slack apps, you empower yourself and your team to work more cohesively.

Samarpit Nasa

Content Team Lead at Appy Pie