Teams Using Slack

[Torvando]

Originally Posted by MailmanDelivers
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?

1. On my team we have a few channels for programming, build business... although we mostly just stuck to one channel(more about that later).

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.

[Monochron]

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.

[Ernst]

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.

Originally Posted by Monochron

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.

Slack does have a mobile app that can push notifications. You can mute them during "Do Not Disturb" hours. You can also mute channels, or everything that doesn't mention a certain word, like your name.

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.

[GeeTwo]

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.

[rtse]

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.

[guniv]

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.

[botsrmyonlylife]

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!

[bhsrobotics1671]

Originally Posted by Ali Ahmed

1. We have a General channel (of course) plus channels for programming, manufacturing, design, public relations, electronics, announcements, and a social channel for chit-chat. We also have a private mentor channel and team lead channel. We also create temporary channels for build season and each competition.

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.

What are you using for GrabCAD integration?

[MailmanDelivers]

Originally Posted by rtse

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.

Are you affiliated with a school? Slack does give their software to nonprofits but gives educational pricing to clubs/school-related groups.

[David Brinza]

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.

[guniv]

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.

Originally Posted by Ali Ahmed

5. Use the integrations. We have ours integrated with Google Drive, Github, GrabCAD, and a few others. It's a lifesaver for file sharing.

I also would love to know how you got GrabCAD integrated.

[Team34Guy]

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.

[Liam Fay]

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.

[Ali Ahmed]

Originally Posted by guniv

I also would love to know how you got GrabCAD integrated.

Originally Posted by bhsrobotics1671

What are you using for GrabCAD integration?

My mistake. I thought we did have something (I'm not the owner of the account). It must've been wishful thinking. I think we did look into using some kind of bot as a work-around but haven't had any success yet.

[guniv]

Originally Posted by Ali Ahmed

My mistake. I thought we did have something (I'm not the owner of the account). It must've been wishful thinking. I think we did look into using some kind of bot as a work-around but haven't had any success yet.

I've also thought about that too but GrabCAD has no API and seems to be pivoting to 3D printing now. The last thing they said about a Slack integration was in December and they said it was not a priority for them. Man, I would LOVE to have a GrabCAD integration.