Getting Started with Slack

Why Slack?

Slack combines the power of instant messaging with email-like record keeping and categorization. All messages are kept and are easy to find via search, just like email. Messages can even be grouped together in a thread as well. However, Slack does away with the clutter of email (signatures, disclaimers, etc) and even delays - all messages are delivered instantly.

Slack has the concept of rooms, which can represent broad topics or teams, and then threads which are a specific topic/question along with replies in the same thread. Slack also suports "direct messages" (i.e. private 1:1 messaging).

Slack Etiquette

Threads

When replying to a message, reply via the threads feature to reduce visual clutter and make it easy for others to catch up on topics of importance to them with less scrolling.

When you see a message you want to respond to, hover over that message and you'll see a set of actions availabe. The second one is the one you want here, which reads Reply to thread.

Reactions

Speaking of hover actions, the first one allows you to respond to a message using emojis - yet another way Slack lets you say more with less 😉️

Channels

Also referred to as rooms, each one has a purpose. For example, a given hackathon team can have a channel to discuss progress, so that would not be a place to bring up topics unrelated to that team. There are generic channels like #general for general topics, #random for random things (e.g. jokes and memes). Many slack spaces also utilize an #introductions channel for people to formally introduce themselves.

The hackathon also utilizes #code-heroes and #domain-experts channels for technical and clinical/workflow questions, respectiely.

@here and @channel

Use only when necessary, please. Both of which send notification to users who are online or all in the current channels, respectively. Ever heard of notification fatigue?!?

You can alternatively tag individuals by combining @ with their username, e.g. @John.

Slack Notifications

Speaking of notification fatigue, some find Slack's default notification settings to be too noisy. Find your avatar/profile picture in the top right corner, click on it then choose Preferences. It should launch into the Notifications section by default.

There, we recommend you change Notify me about... from All new messages to Direct messages, mentions & keywords. If you intend to use Slack on your mobile device as well, you can check Use different settings for my mobile device and customize that accordingly.

If you scroll down, you can further customize other notification settings, like the time range when notifications are allowed to come through.

Last but not least, if a channel gets extra noisy, you can either mute that channel (means you can still read and respond messages but no notifications will come for that channel) or you can leave the channel outright (can no longer read or respond to messages from that channel).

Pro-tips

/gif and /giphy

In Slack spaces where either or both of these are enabled, you can use this to express your thoughts with a GIF meme!

Slack Spaces

A Slack space is akin to an email account. Being in multiple spaces is akin to having multiple email addresses. E.g. One space might be used for your work, another for the SIIM Hackathon, and additional spaces can be used for other communities/organizations.

Reminders

Slack lets you set a reminder about a particular message if you need to act upon at a later date/time. Those who use Gmail can relate using the snooze feature.

Bookmarks

You can also "save" a message to be easily found later in the Saved items section, very much like bookmarking webpages using your favorite Internet browser.