Item: Slack
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Slack is used by my organization to coordinate ongoing tours and communicate among team members where we are and provide updates to tour coordinators. It helps us to manage where groups are and manage different locations where there may be too many groups, or where we have to manage building occupancy.

Pros and Cons

I really like that you can easily manage different groups of people for chatting. It is super useful when working with groups of people you may not know particularly well. It's more useful than other messenger apps as they are full of other distractions (games, etc).
It has a really easy to use interface that is easily understood by most people.
There is plenty of message storage, which is really useful when going back through messages to find information.

When there are a lot of groups going it can get confusing which one is which. You can end up with tons of notifications from people messaging.
There aren't a lot of customizable options. While this isn't super necessary and makes the app simpler, it would be a nice feature to be able to use.

Return on Investment

We use it to coordinate free tours to engage with high school students and their families about post-secondary options. We've received plenty of positive feedback about how organized and well-done our tours are.

Usability

For a free app, Slack is incredibly user-friendly. It allowed us to easily coordinate groups, even the first time we tried it we were able to figure it out pretty quickly.

Support Rating

So far we haven't had to contact customer support, as the FAQ is pretty good at answering most of the questions that come up. They also have a tutorial on their website to walk you through how to use the app if you need it.

Alternatives Considered

This is the first product like Slack we've used in a professional setting.

Other Software Used

Google Drive, Dropbox, Eventbrite

Likelihood to Recommend

Slack is really great for having casual communication among team relatively small groups. When you get into larger groups it can become frustrating due to too many notifications. Its better than email because its more casual, and because it is more immediate than email, which is important in environments where you need to communicate information quickly. When you get to larger groups it can somewhat irritating as there are too many notifications from people that are not necessary.

Perfect for casual communication and organization

Overall Satisfaction with Slack