Slack is an easy-to-use communication tool, like a private Reddit for Haas School of Business students only.  It’s easy to make your own channels (for your club, journal, or even to find other taco lovers).

Each Class at Haas has its own workspace.  Your Slack account is created for you when you are first admitted to Haas.

If you are not sure how to access your workspace, please contact your Program Office.

Slack is accessible through their app, which is available for desktop, laptop, or mobile device.  To get set up, reference Slack’s Getting Started article, which will walk you through the process.

There are three ways to reach people: through public channels, private channels (truly private; no one can see any messages or that the channel exists), and Direct Messages.

• Channels can be shared between each Class’ workspaces!  This helps build bonds between the whole business school community, and allow students to benefit from the knowledge that others have.

• It lets each Class have their own space, but a place to reach all three years too.  It also facilitates communication between club members, journal sub-teams.

• You can look up people by their name to see a photo of them – like an online yearbook, except now you can reach out to them, find their email, or what year they’re in.

Related articles:

• How to Create Channels
• How to Share Channels

Slack is:

• Not tied to your profile from ~2010, does not include life updates from high school.  Also not something that employers can go look you up on.
• Accessible from anywhere in the world, even if you don’t have a phone number.
• You don’t need to be invited into a group; you can search for all public channels and join what you want, promoting inclusiveness.
• Quicker, less formal, and when new people join they can easily catch up on past posts.

It allows Haas to become a student-driven place, where anyone can create a channel and view and join what they want.

Want a break from everything?  Just mute notifications, whether on the mobile app, by channel, or the whole platform.

Basically, channels are conversations that are centered around a specific topic, project, or group.  They’re where most communication should happen.

Slack lets you create public and private channels.  Public channels should be used to share information broadly.  Private channels are best used for topics that are limited to a small group of members.  Members can access all public channels in the workspace, and any private channels they’ve been added to.

Direct messages are useful for quick, private conversations with one or more people that doesn’t belong in any of the other channels.  You can direct message colleagues at another organization or school’s Slack account, even if they’re not part of your workspace.

Updating your status lets people know when you’re out sick, on vacation, working from a different location, or even at lunch.  Putting this information in your status instead of posting it in the channel keeps the channel noise down.

• To set your status, click on your workspace name and select Edit status.
• Select the appropriate icon and click Save.
• Then click Clear After and select the time period after which the status will disappear.

A profile only takes a few minutes to complete and lets others know who you are and what you do at Haas.  To set up your profile from the desktop application, click on your workspace name and select View Profile.

• Add the information you want to include.  Please upload a profile picture to help others identify your messages easily.
• Consider setting up a NameCoach link, which allows you to record your name so that others will know how to pronounce it correctly. Learn more from the NameCoach information page.
• When you’re done, click Save Changes.

You can format your messages using the formatting toolbar.  You’ll see text formatting options for bold, italics, and strikethrough.  You can also create a numbered or bulleted list or indent a quote.

If you don’t see the toolbar on your interface, click the text icon in the bottom right corner of the message box.

Mistakes happen and Slack makes it easy for you to change or remove your messages — even after you’ve sent them.  To do this, simply hover your cursor over the message you want to edit and click the three dots icon.

• Select Edit to revise the message and click Save Changes to finish.
• Select Delete to delete the message, and then click Delete again to confirm.

Slack Workspace Admins are responsible for managing members, channels, and other administrative tasks.

To find your workspace admin, follow the steps in this How Do I document.

More information can be referenced at this Slack 101 Presentation.