Onboard your company to Slack
Whether you're introducing 500 people or 500,000 people to Slack, we understand that onboarding large groups to a new or unfamiliar tool can be a difficult task. This guide is designed to help you introduce Slack to your company in a meaningful way.
Here are some of the things we'll cover in this guide:
- Assemble a group of people to help you define how your company uses Slack.
- Explore how Slack can help make your organization more productive.
- Set up Slack to fit your needs, establish channel naming guidelines, and develop a plan to help guide new members.
- Create a communications and training plan to help launch Slack to the entire company.
Let's get started!
Step 1 — Coordinate a launch team
Assembling the right team of people is the first step to a successful launch. Here are some examples of what your group might look like:
Internal team
These are some key roles people within your organization can help you fill:
| Internal Team | Responsibilities |
| Project Manager | The main point of contact, responsible for coordinating launch activities. |
| Executive Sponsor | Your Slack champion amongst the Leadership Team who will actively communicate the purpose and value of Slack |
| Business Owners | They'll reinforce the importance of Slack with their individual teams, identify key use cases which can be modified over time. |
| Admins | They'll manage setting up the Slack workspace from the onset and help with ongoing user management. |
| Change Team | They'll educate your members by developing a training plan, sharing best practices and use cases, and providing support. |
Slack team
On the Slack side, here are some of the people we have available to support you*:
| Slack Team | Responsibilities |
| Account Executives | Account Executives (AE) are your main point of contact, and will have the deepest understanding of your business needs. |
| Customer Success | Your Account Executive will connect you with a Customer Success Manager to help coordinate a smooth launch. |
| Support Team | Contact our Customer Experience team if you've run into an issue, lost your way, or need help using Slack. |
*Our Customer Experience team supports the majority of our customers' needs, so it's not necessary for all customers to have dedicated Account Executives or Customer Success Managers.
Hello! Our Support team is available 24/7 and always happy to help. Get in touch with us if you ever need a hand! 👍
Step 2 — Explore challenges and goals
With your launch team assembled, it’s important to get everyone on the same page. Having a well-defined vision and purpose for using Slack is essential. User interviews are a great way to understand your organization's current communication culture. Here are some questions you could ask:
- How does our company's culture impact our communication?
- How do you communicate and collaborate with teammates?
- What apps and tools do you use for work?
- Which people or teams do you work most closely with? Who else do you work with?
- How do you think Slack could help our organization?
When you've finished talking to users, take note of your findings. For example, what are the major communication challenges, goals of the organization, or priority projects?
Step 3 — Identify specific use cases
We recommend keeping track of specific use cases and workflows that will help you achieve your goals. Slack is a place where work happens, so choose scenarios that will maximize the benefit to your team.
- Start with two to four specific use cases.
- Choose use cases that address existing communication challenges.
- Model positive behaviors that members of your team can copy.
- Review your team's progress every week after launching to your company.
Sample business use cases
Use case #1
Use case #2
Business use case: Making company announcements
Current challenge
- It’s hard for people to learn about important updates from multiple teams
- Email distribution lists are used for too many types of communication and inboxes fill up quickly
Objective
- Increase transparency across multiple teams
- Let people opt-in to announcements that are most relevant to them
Slack features that can help
- Star important channels
- Customize notifications (e.g. use highlight words)
- Quote a message
- Link to relevant channels, messages, and files
Slack workspace behaviors
- Establish must-read announcement channels
- Keep important channels clear of unnecessary chatter
- Keep channels focused and on-topic
Success criteria
- 75% or more of members report Slack has helped them feel more connected.
- 50% or more of members report increased transparency.
- 20% or more of members report they’ve noticed a decrease in internal emails
Business use case: Asking for feedback
Current challenge
- Seeking feedback from a group of people via email is not an efficient process
Objective
- Collect feedback efficiently from direct and indirect teams
- Increase transparency on key projects
Slack features that can help
- Shared files
- Custom notifications
- @-mentioning
- Emoji reactions
Slack workspace behaviors
- Ask for feedback openly in a public channel
- Be concrete about timelines and set reminders in appropriate channels
- Demonstrate courtesy for other teammates by using emoji reactions
- Use a post to collect or share information and pin it to a channel for easy reference
Success criteria
- Members reported 20% or more increased productivity
- Members reported having 20% fewer meetings
- Members reported having a better understanding of projects and progress in adjacent departments
Slack Guides: Visit slack.com/guides to see how different groups can thrive with our Department Playbooks.
Step 4 — Set up your workspace
Set up and customize your workspace settings and permissions before launching Slack to your company. A full menu of settings can be found on the Settings & Permissions page at my.slack.com/admin/settings.
To help you get started, here are some settings that can set the stage for how your workspace operates. We've included some additional tips for guidance:
Channel management
Choose who can create, archive, and manage membership for public and private channels on your workspace from the Channel Management section.
Food for thought
💡 For public channels we recommend letting all members except for Guests the ability to create and archive channels, giving people more autonomy to make Slack work for them in a meaningful way.
💡 Try giving all members the ability to create and manage private channels, while expressing the value of communicating openly in public channels. This helps promote transparency and contributes to your organization’s message archive.
Custom message and file retention
From the Message and File Retention sections, you can set custom retention policies that align with your organization’s legal/compliance standards. For public and private channels, direct messages, and files, you’ll have some options around your retention preferences:
- Retain all messages
- Retain all messages and also retain edit and deletion logs for all messages
- Retain all messages and logs for only a specific number of days (minimum 1 day)
Consider the following
💡 The collection of knowledge built over time in your organization’s message archives is a major benefit of Slack. The more message history you can retain the better!
Managing apps
You can decide who has permission to manage apps and internal integrations from the Manage section of the App Directory.
Our recommendation
💡 Customizing your Slack workspace with apps that your members use to get work done drives productivity. Be sure to give the right people access to install apps and custom integrations.
Single sign-on
If your organization uses an identity provider, you can set up single sign-on to give your members access to Slack. From Settings & Permissions, just click the Authentication tab. Visit the Guide to single sign-on with Slack at our Help Center.
Compliance Exports
With Compliance Exports turned on, Workspace Owners can export a complete record of your workspace's message history to comply with legal and regulatory policies required by your industry.
Compliance Exports can be scheduled at regular intervals, on a one-off basis, or sent to a supported third-party message archiving vendor. Visit my.slack.com/services/export to turn on Compliance Exports.
Step 5 — Create channel naming guide
Having a guide for naming channels makes it easier for people to discover and join the channels that are relevant to them. Thinking ahead about a strategy will help your workspace be more successful — are some helpful tips:
- Start with broad channel topics, then drill down.
- Create a guide for naming channels.
- Share the guide with your workspace.
- Encourage everyone to stay on-topic.
We've created an entire guide dedicated to helping you organize and name channels. We believe this is essential to building a solid foundation for your workspace — don't miss it!
Step 6 — Educate your team
Offer training sessions
Making sure your launch team has a solid understanding of how Slack works is important. Here are some ideas for who you can host Slack training sessions with:
| Group | Training topic |
| Executives | Communicate the value of Slack, and the importance of ensuring their organization is aligned on important issues. |
| Business owners | Share business use cases. We offer a selection of department-specific guides demonstrating how to manage a team with Slack. |
| Administrators | Discuss Slack's various team settings, user management best practices, and how they can support your company. |
| Change team | Show people how to use Slack most effectively. Sessions focused on individual features, connecting your apps and tools, and how notifications work in Slack are always helpful! |
Self-serve training
Pinning helpful information to your #help-slack channel makes it easy for members to reference it quickly. Here are some handy resources:
Encourage your members to get Slack Certified! Did you know we offer free, interactive training to help people transform their work in Slack? Your members can explore the study guide and follow the path to Get Certified at slack.com/certification — and it should only take about 30 minutes.🏅
Note: Depending on your audience and the level or support you think they’ll need, consider offering in-person training sessions.
Step 7 — Onboard the team
Stage your Slack launch
The best way for people to understand the value of Slack is to try it out — start small, then gradually add more people. Here is a suggestion using a phased approach:
Phase 1 — Choose a small group
Start small with an internal team that already communicates and collaborates regularly. We recommend between 10 and 50 people, including the launch team, and growing from there.
💡 Create a channel called #introductions. Whenever new members join your workspace, ask them to share a little bit of information about themselves.
💡 Try using information gathered during the user interviews to choose a group that is ready and comfortable with change.
Phase 2 — Include a specific team or department
Now that you’ve demonstrated Slack’s value, it’s time to choose a specific team to formally launch with. The group could range in size between 100 and 500 people depending on your organization’s comfort with new technology and open communication.
When selecting the next group, try to choose a cross-functional group that collaborates often and is ready for change. Including the group from Phase 1 is key — they'll show newcomers how to work with each other in Slack.
You can repeat this phase as much as necessary until you feel comfortable moving on.
💡 Have the Executive Sponsor send an email announcing the move to Slack. To get the ball rolling, here’s a template to help you craft the email.
💡 Ensure Slack Admins add new users to the appropriate User Groups, ensuring each person joins the right channels.Phase 3 — Expand to multiple teams or departments
Now that a healthy foundation is established, you can begin to add more groups and departments. To help adoption, choose teams that already overlap regularly with people that participated in Phase 1 and 2.
That's it! Repeat this phase as much as necessary until your whole organization is on Slack.
💡 @mention new users in #help-slack, and encourage them to read the Getting started for new users guide.
💡 Assign new users tasks with due dates, that can be completed in Slack.
💡 Ramp up your team and get them excited about using Slack. Read our step-by-step guide to hosting a Slack Day training event!
Step 8 — Track progress and iterate
Tracking the workspace's progress will help you demonstrate the value of Slack to the rest of the company, inspire new ways of working together, and identify opportunities to grow.
Here are some examples:
- Track the adoption of Slack by reviewing your workspace's statistics periodically (i.e., every six months). Look for an increase in the:
• Number of sent messages.
• Number of uploaded files.
• Number of installed apps and internal integrations.
-
Interview users to see how Slack has improved your team’s productivity. Ask users about:
• The amount of time it takes to search for information.
• The amount of time it takes to switch between apps they use for work.
💡 To learn more how to do this in Slack, visit our Review workspace activity and statistics article.