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The Complete Guide to What is a Slack Channel | Top 14

Slack organizes discussions into distinct areas known as channels. What is a Slack channel? Slack Channels are the different spaces in Slack that add structure and clarity to your work; they’re an excellent method to interact with coworkers and manage projects and teams. Slack channels enable teams to communicate ideas, decide, and push work forwards by allowing you to effortlessly put all the right people and information into one spot. It is very effective for team building and unifying the team.

What is Slack?

Slack is a business chat platform that links users to the data they require. Slack changes how businesses communicate by uniting employees to work as a single cohesive team.

Users can divide audiences into channels to aid to promote teamwork among your staff members.

According to the Slack plan your company has chosen, Slack now supports four different channels: Public, private, channels, for many workspaces, and shared.

Each sort of channel ideally fulfills the same overall function. A channel is essentially a configurable container for conversations with other users in the Slack community.

Although slight, the variations are important. For instance, privacy settings and other people’s access are the main distinctions between public and private channels.

Slack groups communications into designated areas known as channels for your workplace.

Channels assemble the appropriate individuals and information for a shared objective, such as a particular project, subject, or team.

Difference Between Slack channels

Slack channels can be classified as either public or private.

Now let us examine how the two vary and some instances of each type of use:

Public Channel

Everyone in your workspace (with the exception of guests) can browse public channels, and anyone is welcome to join.

In a public Slack channel, all participants will have access to the same shared data. A public Slack channel’s users have the ability to search for any posted files or conversations.

Public Slack channels are a terrific approach to encourage diversity and transparency in your company.

For instance, you could create a new employee channel to tell your community of any new members and offer them the chance to get a hearty welcome.

Private Channel

50 percent of us believe that task switching causes us to waste time each day. With private Slack channels, you can communicate with a smaller group of people without distracting larger teams or departments with irrelevant messages.

Those who have been invited can only view any messages or files in a private channel (by an already-existing member).

Multiple-workspace Channel

If your company uses Slack but various departments have their own workspaces set up employees would want to be able to interact within the same channel, send messages, and share files.

Slack’s multi-workspace channels enable such scenarios. If you don’t use or plan to use Enterprise Grid, you can skip the next section.

Let’s say you work in the financial division of your business. Despite the fact that the two groups work in distinct workplaces, you wish to share a channel with your accounting colleagues.

Shared Channels

This is a cooperative society. You may at some point desire to collaborate with individuals from other companies and other parties who also use Slack.

Here are several examples: suppliers, customers, and partners.

Premium Slack users have the option to share channels with outside organizations.

Up to ten distinct organizations can now use the same channel on Slack. Of course, every company needs to have a premium Slack plan.

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How to Create a Slack Channel

1. Where you see a plus sign, move your mouse over the “Channels” subhead in the left column. You’ll notice a pop-up label that says “Add channels” Press that button.

2. Select the option “Create a channel.”

3. A “Create a channel” pop-up will appear. Enter a name for your channel first. The majority of Slack channels have names that are broken into two parts by a dash, with the first portion describing the channel’s basic purpose and the second part being more detailed. (For instance, “Proj-dollhouse” could include creating a brand-new dollhouse.) Slack may provide some recommendations for categorizing your name as you type it; you can choose to utilize these choices or come up with your own.

4. Describe the item if you’d like.

5. If you want to make the channel private, only the people you invite will be able to view it or join it. The public channel is the only one users recognized as owners or admins can make private at any moment; however, once it has been made private, it cannot be made public again.

6. Select “Create”

7. You’ll see a window appear where you may invite people to join your channel. You have the option of adding everyone in your office, a few particular individuals, or no one at this time.

Additionally, you can configure the channel such that anyone who joins your workplace will be included automatically. Make your options, then press the “Done” button in the window’s lower right corner. To skip this stage, you may alternatively click the “X” in the top right corner of the window.

Joining a Slack Channel

Using the “Channel browser,” you can locate channels to join. It can be activated in various different ways.

1. Select “Browse channels” from the drop-down menu after clicking the + symbol next to the label “Channels” in the left column.

2. Clicking Ctrl + Shift + L on a Windows computer or Command + Shift + L on a Mac will also launch the channel browser if you’re using the Slack desktop client.

3. If you use Slack online, you can choose “Channel Browser” after clicking “Browse Slack” (which should be located above the left hand “Channels” subhead).

4. The channel browser will show up at the top of the left column regardless of how you access it. The channels you already belong to will be marked with the word “Joined” when you click to view a list of the channels available in the main window. By entering your search terms in the top search field, you can filter the channels.

5. To join a channel, click “Join Channel” at the bottom of the page after clicking the channel name to open it.
You can type the name of the channel you wish to join in the search bar at the top of Slack’s home screen if you already know it. A list of channels will appear as you type.

6. To join a channel, first, choose it by clicking on it, and then select “Join Channel” from the menu at the bottom of the page.
In order to join a channel without first previewing it, you can also put “/join [channel name]” (without quotation marks) in the message box at the bottom of the main screen.

How to Add Someone to an Existing Slack Channel

Anyone can join a workspace in public channels, but in order to join a private channel, they must first be added by an existing user. Here’s how to add a new member to a public or private channel if you’re a member:

1. Open the channel, then click the icon of the person you want to add by clicking the button in the upper right corner of the screen.

2. Then select ‘Add channel’

3. You can select “Add to (channel name)” to give the new members access to the channel’s history, or you can select “Create a new channel” to create a new private channel with the members of the existing channel in it. After making your choice, click “Continue.”

4. The “Add people” window will then be displayed to you. (If you’re inviting people to a public channel, you won’t see the previous window; instead, you’ll be taken directly to the “Add persons” pop-up.)

5. Enter the name of the person you wish to add to the bar in the “Add people” window. Names of those using the workspace will display below the bar as you type. After selecting the names you want to add, click “Done.”

6. The “Add people” pop-up window will also enable you to enable the option to automatically add anyone who joins your workspace if you built a public channel and are adding people to it. Click “Done” when you’re done.

Setting up a Slack Channel

The channel topic can be found above the channel name at the top of your screen. Topics can be useful in keeping viewers informed about the discussions or the channel’s current objectives.

Additionally, you can provide a channel description that informs users of the purpose of the channel. When you browse the channels, the topic will show up beneath the channel name, but the description will show up instead.

The topic or description of the channel can be set or changed at any time. To set the topic of a channel;

1. Open a channel.

2. Select the channel name by clicking the down arrow.

3. In the appropriate fields, enter or modify the topic or description, then click “Save” when finished. It’s important to take a look around; you can also initiate a call, activate notifications, archive, or deactivate the channel by selecting the “Settings” option.

Frequently Asked Questions

Slack is a business chat platform that links users to the data they require.

In a workspace, all users (but not guests) are free to browse and join public channels. But you need to be invited to join a private channel by another channel member. 

Small and medium-sized businesses can use a single Slack workspace with the Free, Pro, or Business+ accounts. With some restrictions, you can use the free option of Slack, or you can upgrade to a paid membership to access more features.

$7.25 USD can be paid monthly for each active user. Or $8.75 USD, payable once per year for each active user depending on you.

You should know nothing is truly private when using an app to exchange work-related conversations. Slack users can build and communicate in both public and private channels, though.

For the duration of your workspace, Slack will by default keep all messages and files (including audio and video clips).

Slack threads help you organize conversations around individual messages. They allow you to go into greater detail on a subject without clogging up a channel or direct message.

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