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Teams Using Slack
Hello! My team has been looking into slack as a way to do team communication. I have a few questions:
1. How did you have your slack channel set up? (i.e subgroups, build groups, etc) 2. Does your team have any guidelines to follow, such as rules that people have to follow? 3. How big is your team? 4. How has it worked out so far? 5. Anything we should know about Slack before we use it? |
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1. General is used for most things, but I have created channels for other subteams. Other than general, only #offtopic and #marketing get used often, but I would guess that's because of our small size and that we aren't physically meeting right now. 2. No, but I would probably kick them out of the slack if they were being disruptive. 3. About 14 members. 4. Pretty well compared to our previous uses of Facebook and Google Classroom 5. It's really nice for planning things instead of having to contact each thing individually. The only problem is getting people to sign up for it. |
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Here's how we use Slack on 1257:
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It's basically just a stream of announcements. I think combining Slack and Classroom can work well, but not just Classroom. It's basically just a Facebook Group. It would work if people actually read their feeds. |
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1. Each channel is a department, so you have one channel for CAD, another channel for programming, etc. For more general discussions, we have channels for those as well.
2. Rules? Ha! ... On a serious note, it's given that you use common sense. Spamming/talking out of context/interrupting the current discussion is frowned upon, although we have a #random channel for things like that. 3. 30+, according to Slack (we're a relatively new team) 4. Can't speak for my teammates, but it's been great for me. All discussion is organized by the way we formatted our channels, so you don't have confusion. And for me personally, this has been working out perfectly since I live away from my teammates and therefore cannot meet in-person frequently. 5. Can't really think of anything. :p |
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In addition to what the other have said, I'd highly suggest applying for Slack for Nonprofits if your team has a 501c3 booster club. That way, you can get discounted or free Slack premium for your team.
The important distinction is whether the nonprofit is attached to a school or not. If so, it's Slack for Educational pricing. (From my own experiences with 1257.) EDIT: Slack is 85% off for education. See my next comment in this thread. |
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Slack "Trial" (Trial as in WinRAR): Free* (only allowed 10k messages a month.) Annually for Slack Standard per person: $80.04 USD Annually for Slack Plus per person: $150.00 USD https://www.slack.com/pricing Annually for Slack Standard on Education per person: $12.00 USD Annually for Slack Plus on Education per person: $22.50 https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/arti...-for-Education Slack for Nonprofits: Free (up to 250 people) https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/arti...for-Nonprofits Most teams would, unfortunately, fall under the Slack for Education category (as long as they're associated with a school.) |
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2. No Slack during school hours. At all. Also, usernames must be firstname.lastname 3. We have a big team. 50+ 4. It's worked out really great. We've been using it for about a year and I love it. We used to use a combination of Google Hangouts/texts/emails. Slack has been great for keeping all information in one place, but still organized. Information can be disseminated in the appropriate channel so there's less confusion. For example, a designer can ask for help with a certain problem with Solidworks without disturbing PR, who may be talking about new sponsor acquisition. The only issue we really have is making sure everybody checks it regularly. 5. Use the integrations. We have ours integrated with Google Drive, Github, GrabCAD, and a few others. It's a lifesaver for file sharing. |
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Also, urge students to get the app. Makes things easier than desktop. Integrations are really fun and simple to use. Use them! Good luck! If you have any questions feel free to ask! |
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Back when I first heard of Slack, the last thing I needed was one more "thing." I was set with my primary stuff: e-mail (primary), Remind texting, Google Drive, and Trello (on occasion). But I will say, I did not give Slack a serious look, because I had no need to
Currently, we're using Google Classroom under our school district's Google Apps for Education organization and it's working well, but it does have its limitations. However, I will say that it's nice to keep all your stuff within one "ecosystem." Hearing that there is Google Drive and Trello integration in Slack though, I may need to give it another look. |
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Seems like a lot of people like Slack. |
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My team started using slack this past year, and we couldn't be happier. Including mentors, parents and students, we have over 100 people using and it's amazing. PM me if you have any specific questions!
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2. last year was out first year using it so we didn't have any rules to follow but will this year. 3. Around 30 4. It worked really well for about 10 people. We had trouble getting people to actually read what was being talked about and to get them to respond. For us that did use it it was a wonderful communication tool that we got a lot done on. 5. Your mileage may vary but for my teem just getting people to use it and communicate was a really hard thing to do. but that being said they wouldn't respond to emails or the like. I totally recommend it though. |
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I have heard good things about Slack, but I really don't see how it doesn't end up just being "another thing that I have to check". We just use email lists for group communications, because are already checking their email for school.
I suppose if Slack can notify you of updates via a phone notification, than it could be a little more convenient than email, but then I think that being flooded with notifications could be a problem. And even then, you only get the benefit of phone notifications IF each student has a Smart Phone. If students without Smart Phones have to log in to some Slack web view, then it is more of a hassle than simple emails. Do teams who use Slack pass information along to parents at all? If so, is that through Slack too (I would be very hesitant to try to force some parents to use it), or does that go through email anyway. Then you are managing both emails and Slack channels. I would love to be proven wrong :) I'm just not convinced of the benefits yet. |
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We just started using Slack for mentors this summer and are liking it so far. We have 20 members now and will hopefully be starting the student rollout pretty soon.
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In some ways it's more powerful than just email because of what it can connect to. Right now we're testing out different app integrations, like Trello for project management, Google Drive for document sharing, and GitHub for code version management. I just started playing with MailClark, which lets you automatically forward emails to a Slack channel and respond from within it. We're talking about using this for quickly responding to parents. I think it could also be used for email blasts to parents. One big benefit for us is that each subteam had their own separate communication that they used. Mentors sent emails religiously. Electrical had a Facebook group chat. Programming used Discord. Most of the email chains, like for setting up a mentor meeting, just turned into complete messes. People responded at different points, missed important things, slightly changed the subject line and started a new chain, etc. This should fix most of that and centralize communications. |
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We started using slack just before build 2016. It's been great to coordinate the build as a whole, components of build, to coordinate the mentors and the booster club, and of course we have the "random" channel, and for a while we had the "Mary Ellen's Playhouse" channel for things too random for random (I was a regular poster). We create a channel for each event, whether as serious as Bayou Regional or Red Stick Rumble, or as humble as our Spawar demo over the summer. As will always be the case, if you create channels easily, you must have moderators ready to close/archive these channels promptly after they're no longer needed.
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1. Our slack is set up with the standard open #general and #random channels for team-wide communication and restricted channels for subteams and specific topics. For example, we have a slack channel #programming that includes all the programmers on the team and another channel #programming-curriculum that only contains the senior programmers responsible for creating the preseason curriculum. We found channel compartmentalization to be very helpful.
2. We just make sure channels stay relatively on topic and that members use their real names and sane usernames (use common sense). 3. We have 33 people in our slack. This is everyone that is active on our team. 4. Slack has worked great for team chat. It has all the features we want (file uploading, searching old chats, etc.) and the way it manages channels is great for info compartmentalization. However, Slack is not a catch-all for team communication. Our team also uses a project management tool called Basecamp. Slack is great for team chats, however we use Basecamp as a team message board, to-do list, and schedule planner. We try to use Slack and Basecamp for most of our communication that we need a public record of so that they do not turn into "yet another platform to check," but we do not have a perfect system. 5. Slack (and Basecamp) where very kind and gave us paid versions of their products for free when we asked to use their communications platforms. Do not be afraid to ask for these products; companies like Slack want to give us their products to promote themselves. |
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1. How did you have your slack channel set up? (i.e subgroups, build groups, etc)
There's a channel for most every subteam. #business (actually two teams but combined), #communications, #electronics, #engineering (should be mechanical), #game-strategy, #products, and #programming. There's also #general for announcements and such, #random for off-topic chat, then #executive with student leads and mentors, and then #mentors. On top of that, we have channels for our regionals (#SMR and #RCR) and one to plan our Business Summit, #smrbs. Those channels plus #executive and #mentors are locked and specific people only get in. 2. Does your team have any guidelines to follow, such as rules that people have to follow? Nothing specific, but our team has good etiquette in place and mentors usually keep an eye on things to make sure they don't get out of hand. The school itself has some pretty stringent technology and "digital citizenship" rules so those help too. 3. How big is your team? We just got a whole influx of rookies who could stay or leave so I couldn't tell you now, but last year we had around 50 people, which includes mentors. 4. How has it worked out so far? Slack is one of the best things to happen to our team. Period. Makes communication and collaboration so much easier. Integrations are really great and helpful. Being able to, at a regional, go in and tell someone in the stands that we need them at the pit for judges or for robot repair is really great and really powerful. We actually just had an application approved for Slack for Education pricing so I'd guess that later this fall we will pay for Slack to get more integrations, chat history, groups, etc. 5. Anything we should know about Slack before we use it? Go through all the settings and get it set up just how you want it. Have your members get their notifications set up correctly (mentions, and the channel of the department they are in), have them put their names on their account, have them use pictures of themselves so everyone recognizes each other. Use up your integration limit: get Google Calendar to ding you if you update it, have an RSS feed ding you if FRC updates their blog, have GitHub ding programmers if a new commit is pushed, etc. Integrations make Slack the hub for your team and make it really the best tool for your team. |
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Our team used Slack last season and it worked really well and we are planning on using it this year. At least for me the most difficult thing was adjusting to using it but besides that it has been great. Now to your questions....
1. We have Slack set up for subgroups/projects and for social media/other things we use such as github and asana. We have a general channel which is the main channel and we have a random channel for random stuff and articles that are cool/funny. 2. We don't have any explicit guidelines just general be nice, don't post random stuff and check often. 3. We have 20/30 members registered on Slack. 4.It has worked great. We made a mistake for having too many useless channels. Just have ones you need and have a way to organize yourself so you are all on the same page. 5. Don't put too many channels, use private channels if needed if only a small group of people ned to know (we have a private channel for leadership), add integrations but not too many, archive channels you don't use. Good Luck! |
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Are you affiliated with a school? Slack does give their software to nonprofits but gives educational pricing to clubs/school-related groups. |
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Team 980 has been using Slack since July 2014. We're a pretty small team (<20 students), but we have a lot of activities year-round.
We have over 30 channels for communicating in specific areas (some of the channels focus on a single topics like planning an outreach event, recruiting, attendance, etc.) We also set up parent_mentor, mentors_only and even student_only private channels. We've integrated Twitter, Trello, Google Drive, Hangouts and Calendar, GitHub. We're hoping an integration appears for GradCAD sometime soon. As a 501(c)(3), we get the Slack standard plan for free. That's a good thing, because we do use the tool quite heavily and would have easily exceeded the limits of the free (trial) version. We strongly recommend teams use Slack - it's much more accessible and capable than email. |
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I envy all of you getting Slack for free. The education pricing is dirt cheap but still it's another hoop to jump through. We don't know if some members will stick around but we end up paying for them anyways.
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Our team is using Remind now. You can get push notifications, select if you want text or e-mail..several options are available to customize. One major advantage over some of the other apps is that our school system administration can see all communications between students, mentors and teachers. That eliminates a lot of inappropriate messages being generated. Other apps may have a monitoring feature available... hopefully others can expound on their experiences with that. We had previously used GroupMe...it was fairly functional. But I'm much more comfortable using Remind.
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1. How did you have your slack channel set up? (i.e subgroups, build groups, etc)
We have an #announcements channel to be used sparingly for things that the majority of the team would need to know such as "build team is not meeting this weekend" or "please fill out this survey". After that, we have department related channels, project related channels, and then, for a few days each, specific at-event-related ones. 2. Does your team have any guidelines to follow, such as rules that people have to follow? We've been trying to cut down on unnecessary slack use, as we're already seeing our archived messages deleted due to running the free version. As such, we try and keep the PMing to a minimum. 3. How big is your team? We are a team of ~60 students and ~20 mentors, though our slack has about 140 people on it, which is a result of alumni staying on slack, and encouraging non-mentor parents to join to stay in the loop. 4. How has it worked out so far? Slack has been a life saver. I cannot imagine doing any of the organizational tasks that we do now using long email chains or group texting. This is so much better. 5. Anything we should know about Slack before we use it? Slack turns your notifications off after a certain time (it varies), which can be annoying at competition, when you're up before 8:00 or still active after 5:00. You can turn these off. |
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If anyone cares to, could they explain how using Slack is better than "long email chains"? I have seen that said a couple of times but don't know what differences would give Slack an advantage.
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Text responses are a lot easier to see, too. Instead of people adding different bits to the subject line ("Re:Fwd:RE:re:FWD...") and adding in all of their signatures and generally making a mess, you just have a name and a response. |
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Just to add on to the email discussion: right now the one issue with Slack is it's hard to be discussing multiple things concurrently. Conversations overlap and there's no "chain."
Luckily, though Slack has been teasing for months that they are working very hard to make a message-threading system. I guess the reason they are taking so long is that they're really trying to get it right. http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11...at-app-feature |
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I just really like that (when we're done with the rollout) all of my FRC-related communications will be in one place instead of being split between 3 email accounts, facebook pages, facebook messenger, a website that doesn't sync with any of those, a messy whiteboard in a corner of the shop, a list scratched into a tabletop, a bulletin board on the side of the microwave, and a notebook under the pizza oven. |
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1. We have a Buisness channel, general channel (for announcements to everyone), a mechanical channel, a mentor channel, a NEM (non-engineering mentors) channel, a programming channel, random mechannel, and volunteering (we do volunteering on the side as a team).
2. Generally, we a have no-spam policy. Other than that, rules are generally just honor system. 3. Our team is about 30 people. 4. Initially, it worked really well, but after a while, slack stopped working for some members and it wouldn't allow other members to join. 5. Make sure that you have someone who knows the ins and outs of the program, because it can be very confusing to new "slackers". |
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Another advantage of Slack over E-Mail chains:
As to something much lighter-weight than an e-mail response, on our team slack account we make extensive use of the "add reaction" action. For example, if we are in doubt as to attendance at an event, we'll ask those who will be there to "+1" or "-1" the post as to whether or not they will attend. Slack then automatically provides counts, and hovering over the thumbs up (+1) symbol tells us who agreed to show up very quickly. The main advantage, of course, is that team members can decide dynamically whether or not to join a channel, and once the member joins, [s]he can see the whole post history. This is just plain not feasible for "long e-mail post" discussions. |
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But how hard is it to join a conversation/discussion? With email chains, one has all the replies there, but for Slack, the replies could be for different discussions too. How do you separate these discussions? |
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Couple things about Slack...
It is a great tool for teams to communicate within each other and much more effective than email, as almost no students actually use their emails. However, if you are a school team, most likely it is blocked. Also, students tend to use it for other purposes, causing confusion and a general lack of productivity. So, big idea is to actually control Slack. If you can control it, it is your friend. |
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Teams 70 and 494 here
1. How did you have your slack channel set up? (i.e subgroups, build groups, etc) Answer: We use separate channels for each team. In addition, we have a Mentors only channel and have created event channels such as MARC and IRI to record event happenings such as pictures related to each event. 2. Does your team have any guidelines to follow, such as rules that people have to follow? Answer: We do not allow vulgar language, or anything negative int he channels. 3. How big is your team? Answer: 14-20 Students and 10-12 Mentors 4. How has it worked out so far? Answer: Very successful thus far and an easy interactive way to get the students involved rather than using email. 5. Anything we should know about Slack before we use it? Answer: There is a learning curve for some individuals but giving a learning session via a projector and a laptop helps get the students and parents involved. |
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Just curious (and not to hijack this thread too much) is there any interest from Slack-using teams for a TBA Slack Bot?
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Team 8 has been using slack since Fall 2014 and it has been tremendously useful! I'll add a few things here but most has been covered.
1. How did you have your slack channel set up? (i.e subgroups, build groups, etc) We have a lot of channels (probably more than we should). #announcements and #communication for team-wide discussion. #subteam for each subteam (build, design, software, business, art, web). 3-4 #random type channels (mentors avoid these 😉 ). Private channels are created for all sorts of things - team leadership, demos around the community, other projects, chemistry study groups, etc. 2. Does your team have any guidelines to follow, such as rules that people have to follow? No cursing, and keep discussion relevant to the purpose of the channel. Slack can sometimes be distracting while trying to work on homework, but it's nowhere near something like Facebook. Moderation is actually done by a few unofficial student moderators (myself included). Adults rarely step in (I cannot recall the last time an adult has had to step in because of a major issue regarding inappropriate slack usage). 3. How big is your team? Currently fluctuates around 100 members including adults (~80 team members). We expect that to increase slightly this coming year. 4. How has it worked out so far? Slack is so much better than email - although this is probably in part due to the fact that many students do not use email properly and forget to CC or reply all, which makes things messy. Kids of the 21st century are used to instant messaging, which slack more closely resembles. Adults tended to be slower to adopt slack as the main form of communication, as it was something driven by the students (as you may be able to already tell). The productivity of the team has increased so much as slack allows things to be coordinated outside of lab time and with relative ease. Integrations such as google calendar and asana make slack even more useful and aid with scheduling and project management. 5. Anything we should know about Slack before we use it? Make sure that as soon as members join the team they are pushed to use slack and check fairly frequently, so you don't have to continually remind them to stay active later in the year. Slack standard is super awesome if you decide you like the platform, but definitely give it a try first. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about slack usage, as our team does have a fair amount of experience with it and loves using it. |
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Is anyone here using the free version of Slack? Does that work well? We've got around 20-30 people that would be using it, so is it worth it to upgrade?
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There is also a limit to the number of Apps that can be integrated in the free version. Because of our nonprofit status, we were able to get the Slack Standard Plan for free. It's working out very well. |
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For teams skeptical of Slack, I encourage you to just try it, and see how useful it is to you. Although it seems simple, it can replace almost all other avenues of communication.
If you pay (or have a nonprofit) for the standard version of Slack, you can invite guests to different channels. This is extremely useful as you can create channels to talk with other teams/parents/sponsors and they only have access to that one channel. Us and 4561 had a channel after we became friends with them at our second district event and we chatted on that all through the rest of the season. Really great software. |
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