Slack - The Basics – Schneider Electric

Summary

Everything you need to get started with our internal communication app: Slack

Slack is automatically given to every Zendesk employee, and you can access it via your Okta page or from the Desktop App preinstalled on your computer.

More information is available via this link to the Slack Help Center!

Sections in this Article

What is Slack?

Slack is a chat system for teams. It allows you to message anyone else on our Slack easily, and there are a myriad of channels - locations where multiple people can talk to each other in a chat room format - available throughout the company. For instance, there is a channel called #it-collab-tools for anyone that has questions relating to our collaboration tools, like Slack, Zoom, and Gmail.

Slack Etiquette

For a comprehensive look at Slack Etiquette and Guidelines, head over here.

Join Channels, but mute those that may be noisy throughout the workday (instead of requesting members of the channel to "stop" or "reduce the noise.")
Thread your response to a question to keep the Channel clean and easy to view
Direct Message conversations that are private or not relevant to everyone
Avoid using @here and @channel unless it is urgent/important
- @here will notify everyone online currently
- @channel will notify everyone in the Channel regardless of their status (online/offline)

How to Customize Your User Profile

Customize Your Profile

Navigate to your User Profile and select Edit Profile

You should see the following fields to update:

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Personal Info

First Name

This field is pre-populated by your information in Okta / Workday

Last Name

This field is also pre-populated by your information in Okta/Workday.

What I Do

This field is pre-populated with your Job Title from Workday.

Profile Photo

You can upload a headshot here.

Display Name

Your display name is the username of your email address (everything before the @). There are some exceptions to this as there are users with email addresses that were created before the current email format we use.

Other users have been granted exceptions based on the following:

The requester has had a Legal Name Change
Zendesk-issued Slack handle is excessively long, or challenging to type (especially when corresponding externally or with customers/clients)
Zendesk-issued Slack handle is inadvertently inappropriate

Time Zone

If you travel, it is helpful to update your timezone. This will allow notifications from Slack to be sent to you only during your working hours.

Pronouns

This is an optional (but highly encouraged) free text field to display your pronouns on your Slack profile.

What does this mean?
Employees can now choose to enter pronouns to their Slack profile in a free form text box.
Employees can view their colleagues’ pronouns if filled in.

What are pronouns?
Pronouns are what we use when we refer to people without using their name, i.e. “Meg led the meeting today, she did an awesome presentation.” Common examples include; she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, find more here.

Why is this important?
It's important to share pronouns rather than assume them so that we can ensure we are referring to each other accurately and with respect.

Where can I learn more about pronouns at work?
Here is a link to a Human Rights Campaign page that dives into more detail.

How to Join Channels

In the sidebar on the left, click on Channels

This will show you a list of all existing available channels, which you can search through to find things relevant to your work here. (There are MANY channels at Zendesk!)

You can preview the channel or click Join Channel when you're ready to join the conversation! Once you've joined a channel, it will also show up in your sidebar as an existing Channel so you can find it easily in the future.

How to Private (Direct) Message a Person or Small Group

You can start a private, direct message conversation with one or more people by clicking on Direct Messages in the sidebar.

This will let you search through the directory of users on Slack, and start a conversation with one or more of them. The list on the left will also show you some of the more recent Direct Message conversations you've had - if one drops off this list, you can go through the process of making a conversation again and it'll show the existing history too.

Tips, Tricks & Commands

@here vs. @channel This is a big one. @Here will notify everyone that is currently online in that channel. @Channel will notify everyone in that channel regardless of online status. @Channel should only be used in an absolute emergency or for something critical to the knowledge of every single person on that channel. @Here should be used sparingly as well and only for things that are urgent for everyone that is online.
Command + K Universal Search in Slack. Find a person, a conversation, a word, a sentence or pretty much anything you're looking for.
/invite @username by using `/invite`, the invitee joins the channel silently, with no visible update sent to other members of that channel.
/giphy vs. /gif /Giphy will let you cycle through gifs and select which one you'd like to use. /Gif picks one at random and can sometimes pick NSFW gifs. Use /gif at your own risk, but know that it might get ugly.
/vandelay Sends your favorite Seinfeld gifs to all your friends and finally achieve serenity now!
/remind me Sets up your to-do list for the day with the help of Slack! You can set it to remind you to water your flowers or send that super important email.
Mute noisy channels such as #madison-pointless-arguments because a pizza is an open-faced sandwich, but you might not need to know that during the workday :)
Automatic Do Not Disturb Definitely poke around all of your notification settings, but one I find particularly useful is auto DND from 5 PM-8 AM. That way your time away from work is truly away from work!
Command+[ and Command+] Command and the left bracket will take you back to the last conversation you were in. Command and the right bracket will take you forward in conversation

Slack Mobile Sign-In

Download Slack from your mobile device's app store and launch app

Tap Sign In and enter your Zendesk email address (it may say something about email verification. You can disregard this, you're already all set up!)

Instead of verifying the email address just tap continue and you will be presented the below screen. Enter our workspace URL

It will ask if you have a Slack account. (YES, you indeed have one of those already)

Enter your Okta credentials, the DUO app will prompt to authenticate, and then you will be signed in to Slack!

Slack - The Basics