Share sidebar sections in Slack

On Slack's paid subscriptions, you can organise the conversations in your sidebar into customised sections. To help your team find and organise channels important to their work, you can create and share a customised sidebar section with all the members of a user group.

What to expect

• To create and share a customised sidebar section, you'll need permission to create and edit user groups.
• To add channels to a shared customised sidebar section, add them as default channels for the user group.
• Members of the user group can display, sort and mute channels in shared sections the same way as any custom section. If they like, members can also remove the customised section from their sidebar. 

Create and share customised sidebar sections

For a new user group

Pro and Business+ subscriptions

Enterprise Grid subscription

1. From your desktop, click   More, then select  People.
   
2. Select   User groups from the sidebar, then click on Create user group in the top right-hand corner.
3. Choose a name and handle for your user group.
4. Select default channels for group members to be added to. 
5. Under Add group channels as a section in Home, click on the toggle, then click on Next.
6. Under Add members, search for and select the members that you want to add.
7. When you’ve finished, click on Create Group.

1. From your desktop, click   More, then select  People.
   
2. Select   User groups from the sidebar, then click on Create user group in the top right-hand corner.
3. Select a workspace for the user group, then choose a name and handle. 
4. Select default channels for group members to be added to. 
5. Under Add group channels as a section in Home, click on the toggle, then click on Next.
6. Under Add members, search for and select the members that you want to add.
7. When you’ve finished, click on Create Group.

For an existing user group

1. From your desktop, click   More, then select People.
   
2. Select the User groups in the sidebar. 
3. Click on the user group that you want to manage, then click on the  three dots icon. 
4. Select Edit group details from the menu.
5. Add or review the default channels, then click on the toggle under Add group channels as a section in Home.
6. Click on Save. 

Note: If anyone in a user group organised a default channel into their own customised section before the shared customised section was created, the channel won't be moved to the new shared customised section.

FAQ

Can I create more than one channel section per user group?

Right now, you can only add one custom sidebar section per user group. We're working to expand this functionality in the future, so stay tuned! 

Can I add an emoji to the shared section? 

No. Shared custom sidebar sections are indicated by a   default icon that can't be changed. 

Can I create or update shared customised sidebar sections programmatically?

You can use our new enable_section boolean argument with the usergroups.update or usergroups.create API methods. It isn't possible to assign sidebar sections to IDP groups with the SCIM API. 

Who can use this feature?

• People with permission to manage user groups
• Available on paid subscriptions