Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Slack

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
Score 9.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
The Lightning Conductor is a content aggregation tool for Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Users can build rich, modern content reports based upon SharePoint lists, SharePoint Search, Microsoft Graph or Microsoft 365 Groups. Content can be aggregated from lists and libraries, and other applications such as Planner, To Do, OneDrive, and Teams.
$2,200
per year per installation
Slack
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Slack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that aims to simplify communication for businesses. Features include open discussions, private groups, and direct messaging, as well as deep contextual search and message archiving, and file sharing. Slack integrates with a number of other tools, such as MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in December 2020. The product is free to use, and also has paid plans with more features and greater controls. The…
$8.75
per month per user
Pricing
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Editions & Modules
Lightning Conductor WSP
From 1950
per year One WFE
Lightning Conductor Enterprise Edition
POA
per year Four or more WFE
Lightning Conductor Online
From 2200
per year per installation
Lightning Conductor Plus (Includes Data Viewer)
From 2500
per year per installation
Lightning Conductor Online Enterprise Edition (>10,000 users)
POA
per year per installation
Free
$0
Pro
$7.25*
per month per user
Business+
$12.50*
per month per user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)*Per active user, per month, when paying once a year. Pro is $8.75 USD per active user when paying month to month. Business+ is $15.00 USD per active user when paying month to month.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Features
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
8.6
2 Ratings
10% above category average
Slack
8.0
625 Ratings
3% above category average
Task Management8.82 Ratings7.8428 Ratings
Search8.42 Ratings8.3605 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.961 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings7.8361 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.1394 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings9.4598 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings7.4273 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
-
Ratings
Slack
8.8
633 Ratings
10% above category average
Chat00 Ratings9.6632 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings8.9629 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings9.3617 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings8.2410 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings7.8409 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings8.9110 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.7182 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings8.9120 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
-
Ratings
Slack
8.5
600 Ratings
6% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.2324 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings8.3538 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings8.5525 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.0426 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.3409 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.3360 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings9.0211 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings9.0452 Ratings
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Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(4 ratings)
9.2
(631 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
10.0
(25 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(248 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.9
(68 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(5 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
Lightning Tools
Having experience of SharePoint On Premise and also SharePoint Online, there isn't an out of the box app/webpart that enables you to 'roll up content' from a variety of source's (in my case SP Lists, but there are many other data sources it works with) across site collections with an easy to use and intuitive interface which is what Lightning tools excels at.
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Salesforce
Slack is great for tracking commits to new coding projects. You can take parts of code that still need to be implemented later and easily search through the history of comments if there is something that goes wrong with a code commitment. It can be difficult for people that only like Teams to adjust to a new platform if you are using both to communicate.
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Pros
Lightning Tools
  • Aggregate documents across SharePoint site & libraries
  • Filtering for owner/person responsible & due dates
  • Ease of end-user filtering on columns
  • Color-coding & other formatting
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Huddles Run smoothly without any interferences.
  • Smooth individual calls quick and easy without any interruptions.
  • seamless notifications across multiple devices
  • The ability to easily tag a team member to urgently attend to a specific escalation.
  • Slack being user friendly and able to integrate easily with other platforms and apps.
  • How to easily open up different channels for different escalations and needs.
  • a safe direct messaging option.
Read full review
Cons
Lightning Tools
  • Mobile Friendly
  • Calendar/Gantt views
  • Complex/Custom Logic
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Would love a better integration with GitHub. For example, notifications when your PR is updated, when review is requested, @-mention in comments, etc.
  • Improved "Later" tab, for example the ability to create to-do lists or making the "Later" tab into a more powerful to-do list (annotate items with notes)
  • More powerful integrations, e.g. Google Calendar could render a calendar view within Slack, rather than sending the daily schedule
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
To be more transparent, I give 10 because Slack serves our collaboration needs. It provide us a good platform for team communication relaying important update within the company, it has even mobile app where you can install in your phone to monitor any updates within that team that needs your immediate attention and intervention.
Read full review
Usability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
My rating was 7. Its intuitive interface and user-friendly features like channels, threads, and integrations make it excellent for team communication and onboarding. However, its usability is held back by the resource-intensive desktop app and cluttered feeling in large workspaces. The mobile app's performance and unreliable notifications have also been noted as weaknesses.
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Reliability and Availability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Yes, the app works 24/7. I don't even recall having any period that we could not use since the implementation. Even the maintenance periods are barely noticeable and our work is not impacted by it when it happens.
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Performance
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Slack is a soft app, we don't have many issues with it. I recall one or two people complaining about something during our usage period, but I didn't have a bad experience. When the app is slow, usually the problem is with my computer or my internet. The app works just fine.
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Support Rating
Lightning Tools
The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
Read full review
Salesforce
Whenever I've had to troubleshoot an issue with Slack (which, to be honest, has not happened very often), their online documentation has been easy to locate, easy to understand, and effective in resolving my issue. Slack's ever-growing popularity also means that there's a large community of practice out there that can be depended upon.
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Implementation Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I was not part of the implementation team, but I recall being 100% happy and excited to learn and use a new tool. I'm still am to be honest.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Lightning Tools
I haven't found another product to compare this one to. Only in SharePoint Online which has a similar App 'Highlight Webpart' ... it's far too complicated to set up and requires learning yet another language and exporting and importing via PowerShell to get any real results that would be useful.
Read full review
Salesforce
I like Slack better than ClickUp, because I would spend 30-60 minutes a day updating my ClickUp tasks. The way ClickUp was used was very micromanaging. I billed by the hour, so I was willing to put in the time to alert the boss what tasks I was working on.
One of my jobs used Hive - I mostly just ran it in the background in case anyone messaged me. I did not use it often.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
  • Policies easier to portray
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Slack has been incredibly helpful in connecting various tech apps and ecosystems, creating a more streamlined and responsive process.
  • Slack has made it significantly easier to communicate with our team members across multiple time zones, creating a more engaging environment for our all-remote team.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor Screenshots

Screenshot of MODERN SHAREPOINT LIST ROLLUP
The Lightning Conductor is a SharePoint Content Aggregator that can be configured quickly by business users. The Lightning Conductor can be used to aggregate content from SharePoint Lists such as Tasks, Document Libraries, Contact Lists, and Custom Lists making it easy to view content in one place even if it is distributed across many sites and site collections. Key data can be highlighted using conditional formatting and data-bars as shown. Content from Search and Microsoft Graph can also be aggregated with the Lightning Conductor.Screenshot of CONTENT AGGREGATION WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Lightning Conductor Web Part can be used within Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Teams. Even if content is stored within SharePoint sites, it is useful to have aggregated Documents, Tasks, Announcements, Calendars or Custom Lists from multiple sites displayed in a single handy view in Microsoft Teams. The Lightning Conductor can be added as a Teams Tab in any Microsoft Teams Channel.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT GRAPH
The Lightning Conductor can be used (without code) to aggregate content from Microsoft Graph as well as Search and SharePoint Lists. This example displays Microsoft Planner Plans and Microsoft Planner Tasks where users can Add new Tasks, Assign Users to Planner Tasks, Delete Tasks, and Complete Tasks. The same can be performed on Microsoft To Do items and displayed within Modern SharePoint pages or Microsoft Teams Tabs. The Lighting Conductor can also contain multiple views of content, making it ideal to display all of your tasks from SharePoint Task lists, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner in a single web part or Teams Tab.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT 365 GROUPS
Powered by Microsoft Graph, the Microsoft 365 Group Rollup Provider enables users to aggregate content by browsing and selecting Microsoft 365 Groups. Within Microsoft 365 Groups, you’ll be able to select entities such as Drive Items, Owners, Members, Planner Plans, Planner Tasks, Events, Posts,  Sites, Lists, and Calendars.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of AGGREGATING USING SEARCH
When performance is critical, search can be used for rollups. The Lightning Conductor offers three data source configurations to get to content. Object Model (Real Time Aggregation from SharePoint Lists), Microsoft Graph (Aggregation from Graph Entities such as Planner, OneDrive, Outlook), and Search. The Search Data Source enables the aggregation of content from large SharePoint lists and libraries when performance is critical. Thousands of documents can be displayed in under a second using Search.Screenshot of HIGHLIGHTING KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN VIEWS
End users and Site Owners can highlight the data that is important to them, the data that they need to prioritize. Using conditional formatting, data bars, and icons, conditions can be configured to highlight the data that is most important. Icons and Data Bars can be any color or size desired. Examples include highlighting High Priority tasks, Showing data bars for the completion progress of Tasks, or indicating which tasks are assigned to any particular user.