Slack is one of the most popular communication platforms used by businesses to manage their remote working teams. In this article, we'll share some helpful hacks that will improve your activity on the app so that you can master this tool and stay on top of everything that counts.

1. Customize Your Notifications

Receiving notifications and quickly responding is important when working from home. However, there are times when you need to switch these off so that you can concentrate on a task or maintain your work-life balance. Here are the pro tips on customizing your notifications.

Set Your Work Status

You can set your profile status to online or offline. When you set yourself to Away, you can add in an emoji that explains why you are not available for a period of time you choose. For example, setting a food emoji to indicate a break, a palm tree on vacation, or a calendar when you're in a meeting.

Limit Your Notifications

If you're part of Slack channels that send and receive many notifications, you can mute the channel (as well as direct messages and group messages). You can go in and update yourself when needs are, but you receive notifications about each comment made.

You can enter into Slack's Do Not Disturb mode, whereby you pause notifications for a period. To further customize this, you can set a schedule that pauses notifications outside of work hours, for instance.

Finally, you can alter the notification settings depending on the device that you use. By default, if you don't respond to a notification received on your desktop, you can have the message sent to you via email or to the Slack app on your mobile device after a selected period of time, which ensures you don't miss any notifications.

customize slack notifications

Adjust Your Settings

You can customize the sound, frequency, and type of notification in the Slack Preferences menu to suit your needs. You can also opt-out of all email notifications if you wish. While you're in the Preferences menu, you can also choose a new theme or create your own to change your workspace's look.

2. Slackbot is Your Personal Assistant

Slackbot direct message

Set Reminders

With Slackbot, you gain access to easy-to-use automation that can improve your productivity. Moreover, you can set reminder notifications that are either recurring or once-off. You can also set reminders to be sent to others.

This way, you can ensure you check-in on something, respond to a message once you have the answer, receive feedback on the progress of a project, and so on.

These can be set for channels, too, reminding them of a due date or upcoming weekly meeting, for instance. You can set the reminder message to be sent at a specified date and time.

Automate Your Check-ins

Another automation feature on Slack is automated check-ins. You can set these weekly or daily, where people send updates on their plans for the day or week ahead.

Speaking of Slack automation, familiarize yourself with the quick commands, shortcuts, and syntax you need to know in our Slack Cheat Sheet.

Slackbot also allows users to set automatic responses when receiving messages with certain words or phrases. You can use this when you need to share a link or your calendar quickly, for example.

3. How To Ensure You're Online (Even When You're Not Really)

Slack online activity

Slack ensures that its users are, in fact, working and online. Therefore if you're planning on being online while not actually working, you need to keep in mind the following tips:

  • When you're using the Slack app on your mobile device, the app needs to remain open for you to show as online. If you use another app on your phone with Slack in the background, your profile appears offline.
  • Your app must be open all the time to show your online status, but you should also be active on the app every now and then. Even if you're not receiving all messages back and forth, you can always make your activity visible by sending yourself a message or a GIF.

4. Keeping Things Relevant

Add App Integrations

Slack allows users to add apps that help to get work done. You can use these to make calls, create a ticketing system, pull reports, and sync your calendar.

The categories of app integrations are wide-ranging, from design to marketing, productivity, social, and even health and wellness. Some of these form part of App Collections, such as Workflows and Office 365.

slack app integrations

Create Channels

Creating a dedicated channel for specific announcements and celebrations is recommended, as is sharing messages within relevant group chats when necessary.

When you're responding to something specific in a group chat, consider keeping the communication concise by responding in a thread.

You can easily view threads and refer back to them. This applies to messages that you Save as well, which is a handy feature to keep in mind.

Let Emoji's Do the Talking

You needn't respond to each announcement or message with works - using emojis for shorthand keeps the communication concise and clear.

For instance, responding with a tick or a smile conveys that the message was received and understood without having actually said anything.

5. Know Who You're Addressing

Akin to the above, keep these quick-fire tips in mind when addressing people:

  • You can use mentions to send specific notifications. Putting an @ sends a direct notification to a channel, group, person or project.
  • Use channel mentions to make announcements- use @here to notify all of the members currently online. In contrast, @Channel will notify all members, regardless of their online status (unless they have Do Not Disturb mode activated).
  • To notify all of the users in the #general channel, type @everyone.
  • To communicate directly with specific member(s), mention their name by typing @ and begin spelling out their name, or click the @ for a list of everyone and select the name from there.
  • If you need feedback from the team, you can use Polls in Slack. These can either be formal and created using an app or informal, where responses are emojis.

Master Slack From Home

Slack is a simple app to use, and mastering the best use of this platform is possible with the tips and tricks mentioned above. Customize your experience on the app to make sure you—and your company—are happy with your online status.