'What is Slack?' Everything you need to know about the professional messaging program.
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Steven John
Feb 19, 2021, 01:26 IST
Slack is a key component of organizations all over the world.Reuters
Slack is a messaging program designed for use in the workplace.
It's available for desktop and mobile and can be used through the Slack website on a web browser.
There's a free version, but if you want the full version, it's at least $6.67 a month per person.
If you work for a large enough company, or for an organization with any remote employees or freelancers, chances are that at some point you're going to be asked to join Slack.
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What started out as an internal chatting program for one company has grown into the primary communication and workflow platform for companies, nonprofits, and other organizations around the world.
Here's what you need to know about Slack, which is available for Mac and PC and iPhone and Android devices.
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What you need to know about Slack
Think of Slack as a chatroom shared among all the members of an organization.
Your organization is known as a "workspace" and is divided into "channels," which are separate group chats with their own members and topics.
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In these channels, you can send messages, images, internet links, videos, and more. They're designed to make communication between employees seamless, and replace many of the functions that email once dominated.
There are also direct messages, which let you chat with one or several people privately without anyone else being able to join.
Administrators can also set how long chat messages are kept for. By default, messages are kept indefinitely, which means you can use the search function to find messages from any time. But many organizations choose to delete messages after a set amount of time.
The free version of Slack allows you to search through the most recent 10,000 messages and add a limited number of people to your workspace.
Paid versions of Slack, which are billed based on how many members your workspace has, give you unlimited search, and the ability to add more apps and members than the free plan.
The Standard paid plan costs $6.67 a month per active user, while the Plus version goes for $12.50 a month per active user. You'll need to contact Slack directly to get a quote for the ultimate "Enterprise Grid" payment plan. There are discounts available for nonprofits and educators.
Other bonuses in the paid plans include heightened account security, encrypted messaging, data loss prevention, group calling, and more.
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For more information on what each individual Slack plan offers, check out the website.
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