Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Slack

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
Score 8.9 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.
$1,950
per year per installation
Slack
Score 9.0 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…
$0
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 1950
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. 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
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

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
9% above category average
Slack
7.8
395 Ratings
0% below category average
Task Management8.72 Ratings7.7249 Ratings
Search8.42 Ratings8.2380 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings7.061 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings7.8207 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings7.8224 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings9.2382 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings7.2150 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
-
Ratings
Slack
8.6
405 Ratings
7% above category average
Chat00 Ratings9.6405 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings8.9401 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings9.2392 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings8.2245 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings7.7245 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings8.5111 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.5184 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings8.3122 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
-
Ratings
Slack
8.4
379 Ratings
3% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.0181 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings8.5335 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings8.5330 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.1266 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.2245 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.1210 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings8.8213 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings9.1269 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Small Businesses
Stackby
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(4 ratings)
9.3
(405 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.4
(20 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(29 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
1.0
(65 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 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
I think Slack works really well in office settings, or even for any group of people who need an easy way to communicate with each other through organized channels. It may not be the best for those who intend to use it as a social media type app, it is more geared towards business use.
Read full review
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
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Salesforce
  • Automated Notifications: Integrated tools like Jira, Trello, and Google Drive to receive automated notifications and updates directly in Slack, improving visibility and efficiency within the team
  • Message Encryption: Slack encrypts the messages in transit and at rest, ensuring the security and privacy of sensitive information and making our IT team's life much easier.
  • Reminder Bots: We used Slackbot to set reminders, automate follow-up actions, and provided information based on user queries.
  • SurveyMonkey Integration: Integrated our Slack with SurveyMonkey to distribute surveys and collect feedback from team members, streamlining the feedback-gathering process which was a huge support to our HR and Admin team.
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Cons
Lightning Tools
  • Mobile Friendly
  • Calendar/Gantt views
  • Complex/Custom Logic
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Salesforce
  • The only thing I can think of is that it is easy to create too many channels. This has more to do with the team using Slack and less to do with Slack itself. maybe some direction on Slack's part on how best to utilize channels would be helpful.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
As useful as Slack has become within our company, I feel fairly confident we will continue to use Slack as a communication tool. They continue to improve their software and add value to its use within our office. Customer service delivers, which is an absolute must. Looking forward to how they improve.
Read full review
Usability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
As long as you use the basic chat features and nothing more, it really is super easy to understand and use. Once you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features and capabilities, that's when things get complicated. Anyone who has use SMS or a chat program before will be able to figure out the basics though, so rolling this out should be relatively straightforward and not required exhaustive training. Teaching chat etiquette is something else though.
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Support Rating
Lightning Tools
The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
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Salesforce
I've never had to contact support for Slack which is a great testament to its ease and use. Adding people outside of the organization takes a little getting used to, but ultimately allows for greater collaboration between FTE and contractors. There is no clear alternative to this software, so it's the best we can do for now.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
It always helps if you communicate to everyone in the organization how important it is to drop whatever other chat tools they are using and jump quickly to Slack. They will all fall in love with it.
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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.
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Salesforce
Slack is the superior offering for what we do and who we communicate with. The other programs offer basic features, but Slack continues to innovate and is business-first, which is very helpful for our small team. The feature set and integrations are better in Slack than other offerings we have evaluated
Read full review
Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
  • Policies easier to portray
Read full review
Salesforce
  • We have a story when one guy mentioned in a our site group with tag @here about his wedding, he didnt know that @here works only for people who are online, so most of the people missed the message, slack is not the best place to update about the important things
  • Slack helps to solve and be updated if you have an internal problems and you want to know how the solving goes
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 HIGHLIGHT KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN YOUR 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.