Sharing Files and Messages in Slack

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About this lesson

Basics of sharing messages and getting your team started on Slack.

Exercise files

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Sharing Files and Messages in Slack - Task.docx
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Quick reference

Sharing Files and Messages in Slack

Communicating using Slack to send files and messages can easily be done to avoid email as a bottleneck of communication. Slack is in real-time, so messages allow teams to communicate when and how they need to. Everything from PDFs to large files can be sent via Slack to share with your team, making it a strong resource for teams getting projects done. 

Functionalities shown in this lesson:

  • Channels
  • Threads 
  • Direct Messages
  • Team Directory
  • Profile Settings

When to use

  • If you want to avoid the use of email internally 
  • If you are planning to increase speed of projects/tasks 

Instructions

  • Start by signing into your team account 
  • Start a message, use the green plus button and pick a PDF or file to share
  • Give the file a name and comment 
  • Share document with team member 
  • Other functions for messages are adding emojis, starting a threat, share a message, send a post, send code and many more

Hints & tips

  • The basic Slack account has a limit to it, so try to avoid sending larger files natively on Slack, try a service like Dropbox to link to instead.
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  • 00:05 Hello, everyone and welcome back to Essential Productivity via here on GoSkills.
  • 00:09 I'm your host, Francesco D'Alessio.
  • 00:11 And in today's feature, we are going to be jumping into Slack.
  • 00:15 We gave you a short introduction to what Slack is in the previous feature.
  • 00:19 Slack is a team communication tool, and it's something that a lot of people
  • 00:24 use in their daily routine to keep ahead of all of the communication in a team.
  • 00:29 I know a lot of people have moved from internal email all the way over to Slack.
  • 00:34 And it has been very beneficial for
  • 00:36 the team because they have been using less email and communicating in real time.
  • 00:42 However, there are some negatives to using the resource like this,
  • 00:46 sometimes it can get very busy and noisy.
  • 00:48 This is a Slack community for Nomads,
  • 00:51 which is something that I follow at the moment.
  • 00:54 And as you can see on the left, there are these things called channels.
  • 00:57 Each channel is basically a feed talking about a specific topic.
  • 01:02 It is really useful to have a channel like this because you can see
  • 01:07 all of the specific content.
  • 01:09 And if you wanted to, you could open a direct message too,
  • 01:12 which means you have a direct line of communication with someone in your team.
  • 01:17 All you have to do is click Open a Direct Message if you want to start a new one,
  • 01:21 and scroll and pick the person that you'd like to talk to.
  • 01:24 You can also create a new channel up here, simply by adding a channel here.
  • 01:28 Or you can browse existing channels.
  • 01:31 Slack designed to make it as productive as it can be.
  • 01:34 So there are these things called threads, which means that any thread that you
  • 01:38 are added to, you can communicate with other people in that thread.
  • 01:42 Now, moving over to messages.
  • 01:44 You can send messages to other people and you can just send a message like,
  • 01:48 hello and things like that and it will appear in the feed.
  • 01:52 Now, you'll be able to see someone's situation, so I said welcome remotely.
  • 01:56 You can also add emojis, start a thread specifically on that or share the message.
  • 02:00 There are also a lot of other functions you can do, but
  • 02:03 we'll probably chat about them more in the next feature.
  • 02:06 The good thing about this, is you can send with the plus button,
  • 02:09 any files on your computer, or any posts or code.
  • 02:12 Once you've quickly chosen a file from your area,
  • 02:15 this can be then shared with your team members.
  • 02:19 So if I wanted to share this image, I can rename it, and
  • 02:23 you can also add a comment too.
  • 02:25 Once I've uploaded this, it will appear inside of Slack,
  • 02:28 which means that other people will be able to see.
  • 02:31 They can comment, and also share if they need to.
  • 02:34 From up here, you can also see a team directory,
  • 02:36 which means it will give you insight into everyone inside the team.
  • 02:40 And also how to learn from their profile and even direct message them.
  • 02:44 You can also search for anyone whose active,
  • 02:47 who is a member, or an admin which will help
  • 02:49 to improve your productivity instead of having to find a specific email address.
  • 02:55 Slack is pretty easy to get on with.
  • 02:57 The channels are quite basic to set up.
  • 02:59 And there are a lot of functionality inside here.
  • 03:02 So you can actually have different Slack channels for all of your communities.
  • 03:06 And also edit your status and profile and also preferences so
  • 03:10 that you go a bit deeper with your experience.
  • 03:13 I hope that gave you a basic introduction to Slack, this messenger of the teams and
  • 03:18 some that a lot of people are benefiting from at the moment.
  • 03:21 I'm looking forward to sharing more with you in the next feature.
  • 03:24 We're going to be putting an exercise up that will give you a cheat sheet
  • 03:27 about Slack and also some other resources as well.
  • 03:31 See you in the next feature.

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