Six Methods Channels In Slack Can Use To Revolutionize Your Work

A closer look at one of Slack's fundamental features

Slack is built to help everybody collaborate at work in a variety of ways - but at its core are channels. They're how Slack organizes conversations and they help tie everything together.

Over the coming months, we'll take deep into all the ways chennels work, but we wanted to start by talking about what channels are and how they can transform your work, while keeping things organized.

1. Channels bring order to conversations

You work a lot of different projects at once, and it's not easy to keep track, especially when lots of other people are involved.

Creating a new channel in your Slack workspace is the first step in bringing order to the chaos. Channels let you organize conversations in the ways that make the most sense for your team. Create channels for every function, project, or by subject matter, so everyone has a space to discuss their work.

2. Channels help you navigate and search your company

Working in Slack means everything is archived and saved, all organized by channel. While channels have members who can come and go as needed, you can search messages and files posted inside channels, including those you're not part of. You can scroll back and read, or search for specific context, insights, and data you need to get your work done, across the company.

Say you want to find mockups from a project completed last year. Where do you even begin to look?

In a well-organized Slack team, you can check for any existing project channel (maybe it's #project-strategy), or ask the right people in #team-marketing and boom,, you can dig up exactly what you needed.

3. Channels increase team cohension

At a busy company, it can be hard to track whether you're looping in the right people at the right time. If they weren't included in previous conversations, getting them up to speed is key.

Channels make it easy to include new people at any point an a project, as channels can exist before someone arrives and exist after they leave.

Invite them to a channel, and they can read the full history by scrolling up. It beats the old days where new team members started with an empty unbox and slowly caught up as messages arrived with new information.

It's worth noting that public channels are transparent to everyone within a Slack workspace. Work and information that before have been stowed away in disjointed email threads and direct messages are now accessible to anyone reading those channels. When every member of the team can learn from contribute towards common goals, it leads to a more inclusive way of working and communicating.

4. Channels are also where your apps live

At work, you likely have to juggle a dozen or more online tools. You’re constantly switching context and it’s hard to share information from one service to another, especially in a way that’s relevant and actionable.

Channels let you bring the tools and services you use, like Salesforce, JIRA, and Google Drive, right into the conversations you’re having with your teammates. You don’t have to switch gears; you can share files and tickets easily, and all of the context is there.

5. Channels help you focus on your work

With so many projects and people competing for your time and attention, it can be hard to stay on task; you know you should prioritize, but you don’t want to miss out on anything important.

Channels in Slack can help you focus, so you don’t have to keep track of absolutely everything going on around you. Star and read the channels that are most important to you. Set custom notifications to ping you only when your core team and project channels post new messages. For channels you might only need to review once in a blue moon? You can mute them and they’ll fade from view. You can also leave channels when they’re no longer relevant for you, or archive channels when the work within them is completed.

6. Channels will be the new standard of work

A well-organized Slack workspace is a beautiful thing. And channels aren’t just confined to your organization. With shared channels, your team can work with outside collaborators, colleagues, and even entire agencies by sharing channels between organizations.

Modern teams need to be ready for anything, and channels help move everyone in the same direction quickly. They give everyone context for what’s happening across an organization, and help create a shared sense of purpose and belonging. Channels are the future of work, and it’s why channels are the heart of Slack.

Channel Search - An Easier Way To Find Channels in Slack

Millions of people work in Slack channels each day. But as the number of channels within your organization grows into the hundreds or even thousands, finding the right one becomes more challenging. While clear naming conventions help with channel organization, it can be tough to discover relevant public channels you’re not yet a part of, especially if you don’t know the exact channel name.

Starting today, searches in Slack will help you find not only key conversations and files but also the channels where that information lives.

How channel search works

Finding channels is just like searching in Slack currently. Just enter the terms you're looking for into the search bar and proceed. Besides the existing “Messages” and “Files” tabs in the results, you'll notice a new tab called “Channels.” This tab will display the public channels, as well as the private channels you are part of, that are most relevant to your search.

To enhance your search, you have the option to filter and organize the results by channel type (public, private, or archived) or by workspace. With a single click, you can preview or join the channels that catch your interest.

Channel results, tailored to you

Search functionality now goes beyond just matching the channel name. It also takes into account other useful indicators, such as the channel's purpose and frequently discussed topics. Additionally, it considers how relevant the channels are to you and your closest collaborators, increasing the likelihood of finding the appropriate channel.

Whether you're a new employee trying to find channels to get up to speed with your work or you want to verify if a channel already exists before creating one, these search enhancements provide confidence that you're accessing the necessary channels.