How data management features apply to Slack Connect

Slack Connect is a secure way to collaborate across companies – right in Slack. Read more about how security and data management features apply when working in Slack with people from other companies.

Note: Slack is working to verify organisations to help ensure that your team is collaborating with trusted partners.

Data retention, editing and deletion

Message and file retention

Your organisation's retention settings will only apply to messages and files sent by your members. Any content sent by people from another company will be retained or deleted based on their organisation's retention settings in Slack.

Message editing and deletion

Your organisation's message editing and deletion settings will only apply to messages sent by your members. Messages can only be edited or deleted by someone from the organisation from which they were sent.

Note: When you invite external people to a channel with permission only to post, only your organisation will be able to set a custom retention policy for that channel.  

Enterprise Key Management 

As of September 2020, Enterprise Key Management (EKM) is available for Slack Connect and will retroactively apply. For EKM customers, only messages and files sent by members of your organisation will be encrypted using your keys. Messages and files sent by people from other companies may be encrypted with their keys if they're also EKM customers.

Export tools

On any paid subscription, workspace owners and workspace admins can export data from public channels shared with other companies. On the Business+ and Enterprise Grid subscriptions, workspace owners and org owners can apply to export data from all public channels, private channels and direct messages (DMs) shared with people from other companies. Here's what to expect from an export:

Included

• Messages from members outside of the exporting organisation and their Slack display names
• Links to files uploaded by members of the exporting organisation

Not included

• A list of members outside of the exporting organisation
• Files uploaded by people outside of the exporting organisation and any associated messages
• Message and file data from disconnected channels where external organisations have permission only to post 

Note: If another company that you work with in Slack has custom retention settings for their organisation, this will impact the data included in your export.

Discovery API

On the Enterprise Grid subscription, org owners can use e-Discovery and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to review and regulate content in channels and DMs shared with people from other companies.

• The Discovery API allows all organisations to read content in channels and DMs that they share with people outside of their company.
• Only messages and files sent by members of your organisation in a channel or DM can be edited or deleted by the Discovery API.
• The display names of members from external organisations will be returned via the Discovery API's user methods, but not alongside the conversation history.
• Email addresses of members from external organisations will be returned via the Discovery API regardless of an organisation's email display settings.