Slack

The greatest thing I like about slack is the ability to create different channels to assist on different topics , groups, and teams within the organization! I also like the accessibility features! You can access Slack from virtually any device! I travel a lot and this feature is extremely important!

The software features can take some time to get use to if you have no computer experience. For me my biggest challenge was learning on how to use the alerts and notification features within the program. But in fairness I was able to grasp everything within a few days. So not that long at all.

I like the ability to stay in touch with our users via whatever device I'm currently using. For example, I can respond from my home computer, tablet, work computer or via my phone.

I especially like the ability to be notified of a new message via my phone where I can read the message on the phone but can step over to my laptop to reply.

I also appreciate the ability to add an email thread to a Slack Channel by simply adding a slack email address (each channel has a unique email address) to the CC field when I reply.

The biggest con for me is the extremely limited amount of formatting available to Slack messages. I can make a font bold and add links to files/images but I really miss the rich text features many similar apps provide.

It's also frustrating to need to keep typing adding the user name(s) when I'm responding to a message. I'm assuming that this is by design but it would really be nice to be able to "Reply All" to a conversation thread.

The desktop Slack application (running on Windows 10 Pro) has a "clunky" feel to it. It's written with a framework that allows the Slack developers to write HTML and JavaScript code that is essentially compiled into a Windows application and it definitely shows. Something as simple as selecting text is counter-intuitive (until you realize that it's essentially a web page mascaraing as a Windows application.

I love the easy creation of team channels for different topic, and the message threads. I honestly find it very difficult to use a platform without this feature any more. Not needing to spam the whole team with a smaller conversation is great, especially for younger teams. Also third party integrations is a feature I use all the time, mostly Google drive and simple poll for now.

Sometimes the notifications on my phone don't work very well and i occasionally have some complaints from third party apps (which has little to do with Slack though), like not being able to edit polls from simple poll etc.

Slack is a user-friendly, robust collaboration tool that allows for quick setup and access to channels both public and private. Asynchronous communication is a cinch and the Mentions and Reactions feature allows for easy access to what recent messages you have received.

Due to Slacks' third party app space, there are some features that might seem to be missing at first but need to be found as a third party feature. This involves an admin or an owner having to approve the app being installed. This can sometimes be a bit of a headache on the admin end, as it requires going to obscure parts of the app to approve. It could be an easier experience.