Item: Slack
Rating: 9
Author: Denise Olivares, CLU, ChFC

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Slack is currently being used throughout the entire organization. It is the only way we really communicate with each other. We also use it with clients if they are permitted to connect with a 3rd party for chat. It allows us to converse on project needs, challenges, and confirm decisions or sign off.

Pros and Cons

Easy creation of messages on both public or private channels.
Allows integration and reliability with GoToAlly and 7 Geese.

Searching is not great. Although partly it is due to our own inconsistency in words we use sometimes.
I wish the mobile app had full search filter capabilities.
Notifications don't seem to work as I set them.

Return on Investment

Positive - Makes agile operations and product teams more efficient.
Positive - We are able to use it with third parties.

Usability

In addition to what I have noted above, I would add that it easy to get assimilated with it so new employees don't lose time ramping up on this tool.

Also, my IT team says they are reasonably priced and responsive to suggestions and problem resolution.

Support Rating

On a few occasions, the tech team at my company has made a request or suggestion and the Slack team is quick and thorough in their response. Also, they have outages very rarely.

Other Software Used

Atlassian Confluence, GitHub

Likelihood to Recommend

Slack is very well suited to agile work teams. It helps keep them engaged and able to share. It is easy for business people to use when they are driving product development and product management. It is also super nice to be able to have conversations with our client engineers so that we don't have to go back and forth from email to Slack and back again.

Get some Slack in your day

Overall Satisfaction with Slack