What’s new with Slack? A fair amount according to 2024! Earlier this year, we saw the arrival of Slack AI, which gave us summaries, recaps, and enhanced search functionality to help us find answers, catch up on missed messages, and declutter our days. Slack’s roadmap looks equally rosy, with Copilot and record channels landing in the autumn (fall).
As of World Tour London (June 6, 2024), “Lists” is the latest Slack feature to join Team GA, so let’s take a look at this in a little more detail, with additional insights from Salesforce Ben’s resident Slack Admin, Andrew Cook.
Manage Your Projects With Slack Lists
Wouldn’t it be nice to capture key tasks and projects in real-time conversations, all from a single platform, without having to constantly hop around from tab to app? You can probably see where we’re going with this…
It’s time to give a proper introduction to Slack Lists – new functionality that has been designed to keep collaboration meaningful, streamlined, and inside the app. This powerful enhancement allows you to harness the conversations you’re already having and turn them into actionable projects that can be shared, updated, and tracked, with essential fields (like owner, due date, and status) displayed in nice, easy-to-navigate columns.
Sounds good, right? Take a look for yourself as Andrew explores the feature in more detail.
What Are the Main Benefits of Slack Lists?
Enhanced Project and Task Management
Slack Lists offer centralized tracking, providing a single location within Slack to manage projects, tasks, and deadlines – eliminating the need for multiple tools. They improve organization with customizable fields for assignees, due dates, statuses, and priorities, ensuring teams stay organized and accountable. Additionally, Lists integrate with existing Slack features like Workflow Builder and Canvas, streamlining collaboration on tasks and projects.
Increased Productivity
Slack Lists minimize context switching by keeping project and task management within Slack, allowing teams to focus on their work without needing to switch platforms. They also enhance prioritization with clear visibility of tasks and deadlines, enabling teams to allocate resources effectively. Additionally, the integration with Workflow Builder automates routine tasks, freeing up time for more strategic work.
Improved Communication and Transparency
Slack Lists ensure clear ownership and accountability by assigning owners and due dates to tasks, so everyone knows who is responsible for what and when it’s due. They provide real-time updates, allowing team members to see task and project progress, keeping everyone informed and aligned. Additionally, they simplify communication by enabling discussions and updates directly within the list item, reducing the need for separate meetings or emails.
Flexibility and Customization
Slack Lists are adaptable to various use cases, including project management, request tracking, and high-level planning. They offer customizable templates, allowing teams to standardize processes and streamline task creation. Overall, Slack Lists aim to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and improve collaboration by providing a comprehensive project and task management solution within the Slack platform.
How Do Lists Work With Existing Slack Features?
Canvases
Embedding Lists in Canvases allows you to provide a visual representation of project progress alongside other relevant information. This enhanced context lets teams view project timelines, deliverables, and associated tasks within a single, organized space.
Workflow Builder
Automation triggers in Workflow Builder can be set to initiate actions based on List updates, such as sending notifications when a task is completed or due. Additionally, workflows can collect data from other sources and automatically create List items, streamlining the intake process.
Save a Message
You can save important messages directly to a List item, preserving context and making them easy to reference later. Additionally, these messages can be converted into tasks, ensuring that action items are tracked and completed.
How Easy Is it to Use Slack Lists?
Slack Lists are designed with user-friendliness in mind, aiming to simplify project and task management within the familiar Slack environment. Here’s an overview of their usability and standout features:
Ease of Use and User-Friendliness
Slack Lists follow Slack’s clean and straightforward design principles, making them easy to navigate and understand. You can quickly create a new List directly from a Slack channel or message with just a few clicks. Managing tasks is simple with clear instructions and prompts for adding, editing, and assigning tasks. Team members can easily collaborate in real-time, commenting and updating statuses, while helpful notifications and reminders keep everyone on track.
Key Features that Enhance Usability
Slack Lists include drag-and-drop functionality for easily reordering tasks and moving them between columns. Customizable fields allow you to track specific information relevant to your project or task. You can filter and sort tasks by assignee, due date, status, or other criteria for better organization. Reusable templates help standardize processes and streamline task creation. Additionally, Lists seamlessly integrate with Canvases, Workflow Builder, and other Slack tools for enhanced functionality.
Best Features for Improved Productivity
Slack Lists provide centralized task management, keeping all your tasks and projects in one place and eliminating the need to switch between multiple tools. Enhanced collaboration features allow team members to seamlessly work together on tasks, share updates, and discuss details directly within the list item. Automation of routine tasks and workflows saves time and improves efficiency. With clear visibility and transparency, you get an overview of project progress, deadlines, and individual responsibilities.
How Do You Build a List?
To get started with building a list, simply select Lists from the Slack sidebar. Once here, select New List to either start from scratch or select a template.
There are a number of templates you can use to get started, including To-Do List, Project Tracker, Feedback, Quarterly Planning, Help Requests, Bug Tracker, Backlog, and Deal Tracker.
You can then customize your List to fit your specific needs. Add custom fields such as Text, Number, Date, People, and Tick Box.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it: Slack Lists in a nutshell! Thanks to Andrew for diving into this new feature, which is now generally available.
Following a few false starts with various changes in management and recent dramas around policy confusion, it’s really nice to see Slack having its moment in the sun, with lots of great new functionality arriving this year.
From the keynote to the dedicated Slack panel, World Tour London provided a great opportunity for Salesforce to shout about Slack, with Lists taking center stage.
Asked about Slack’s position on the project management scene, Peter Doolan (Chief Customer Officer at Slack) advised that Lists have not been designed to replace the sophisticated heavyweights that are – likely – already in place for larger organizations. Instead, the list functionality lends itself to simple projects built around real-time conversations.
Fuelled by positive early feedback, Slack will scale and reiterate in line with the response it receives from customers. Regardless of intention, it will be interesting to see how this functionality evolves.
Is Slack your company’s platform of choice? If so, these enhancements will be music to your ears. And if not, perhaps Slack is now on your radar as a serious contender.
