Move from email to Slack

Slack helps to keep conversations organised. Instead of a single, overstuffed inbox, conversations in Slack happen in dedicated spaces called channels. Below, you'll find our tips for transitioning from email conversations over to Slack. 

The benefits

• Work more easily with everyone on the same page and in the same place.
• Search team conversations and get answers quickly.
• Improve team collaboration and productivity.

Step 1: Invite people to your workspace

Unlike email, Slack allows you to bring all your colleagues into a single collaboration hub, making communication easy to initiate and follow. To get your whole company working together, invite your co-workers to become members of your workspace.

Invite new members to join

By default, anyone in your workspace can invite new members, but workspace owners and Admins can restrict this permission.

💡 Read up on how to Invite new members to your workspace.

Connect with people outside your company

Instead of splitting your time between Slack and email, you can add people outside your workspace as guests and control which channels they have access to. 

To connect with people who use Slack at a different organisation, you can use Slack Connect to create a common space for working together.

Invite members to join channels

Once they join your workspace, members can browse and join channels, or you can invite members to channels proactively. We recommend creating channel naming guidelines that make it easier for people to find the right channels to get work done.

Tip: To start everyone off on the same page, designate a set of starter default channels that anyone who joins your workspace will automatically become a member of. 

Step 2: Switch to Slack features

There are plenty of features to help you transition smoothly away from email:

• Send emails to Slack
  You can forward all emails you receive directly to Slack by either activating a forwarding address or connecting the Email app to your workspace.
• Link to your Slack profile in your email signature
  Help others find you on Slack by sharing a link to your profile in your email signature. The link will only open for members of your workspace, making it a great way to introduce Slack internally.
• Use user groups as distribution lists
  Need to send a message to a select group of people? Create a user group – like @marketing, @legal, @sales-team – to notify several people at once.
   

Step 3: Move communication into Slack

Work together on documents

Channels make it easy to collaborate on a document, and comments and feedback become searchable for everyone. Review changes and understand how decisions were made without digging through email chains.

You can add files to Slack from any device. Tools from the Slack Marketplace such as Google Drive for Slack even allow you to control file permissions from your workspace, including who can view, comment on and edit a document.

Call attention to urgent items 

Communicate a message's priority by sharing it in a designated announcements channel – as opposed to using all caps in an email subject line!

Rename your general channel to #announcements. Everyone is a member of the channel, so your whole company will see whatever you post. Limit who is allowed to post to the channel to keep the focus on urgent, relevant info. You can also try creating specific announcement channels based on your needs:

• #announcements-global: announcements meant for the entire organisation.
• #announcements-sales: announcements for a specific department or team.
• #announcements-nyc: announcements aimed at a specific office or location. 

Tip: With Slack's mobile apps for iOS and Android, you can stay up to date on announcements made wherever you go.

Notify specific members

Efficiently catch the attention of an individual or group by including an @mention with your message to notify the person or user group. Mention a member to notify a person, and manage user groups to ensure the right people are notified.

Step 4: Stay on top of your to-do list

When you don't have time to review a file or reply to messages, our built-in tools help you to stay organised and follow up later.

• Set reminders for future tasks.
  
• Save messages and files to follow up on.
• Mark messages as unread, just like email.