Slack Is Adding Email Conversations, Improving Calendar Integrations And Search Feature

When it comes to workplace, Slack is one of the few where you can find and do almost everything. They have got you covered from chats, being able to send and receive files, create channels for various tasks and many others.

And now, the company is going a few steps further by adding a few useful features. Slack is bridging email to chat, improving calendar integrations and an overhaul on the search feature as well.

Slack Adds Email-Chat Conversations

The popular app is adding a bunch of features that will keep you chatting your way to your co-workers without having to open new tabs or applications.

Although the app boasts tons of useful features, you can’t expect everyone to join in and sign to Slack immediately after being invited. But here is where the service bridges that gap.

In the coming months, users will be able to chat with people who have yet to sign up to the app straight within Slack. You will be able to @-mention these people in certain channels or send them direct messages. The messages will be routed straight to their email inboxes.

Once these people will reply, it will come straight back to the Slack app. And the back and forth exchange will transform into a full Slack history if the person ever decides on joining the app.

But here’s a catch: this bridge is only enabled if admins have provisioned Slack users inside the organization. There might not be converse with people outside the Slack app in this manner just yet.

Though it is the first step towards fully bridging email into Slack. And in the future, Slack might let you send emails to your contact outside your organization and directly connect to a messaging service.

This could truly help move email from a back-and-forth system to real-time communications. It is safe to say that Slack is promoting user convenience with its upcoming features.

Improved Calendar Integration With Other Platforms

The company is also has made its move with integrating a more reliable calendar integration. You will soon be able to sync your Slack status to your Outlook or Gmail calendars so your co-workers would know whether you are in a meeting or out of the office.

Slack can also detect when you are talking about creating a meeting and underline things like “today”, which can click and create a meeting on Gmail or Outlook.

Calls are definitely necessary when it comes to meetings. And Slack is going to allow its partners like Hangouts, Zoom, and Webex to show who is on the call within Slack and the ability to quickly join.

If you missed a meeting, Slack might even display a replay in a common view. This smart and innovative calendar integration will be available later this year.

Slack Overhauls Its Search Feature

And the most exciting feature that will be rolling out to Slack is its expanded search feature. If you have been in Slack for a while now, you know it can be tedious job to look for things you said days or weeks ago, especially in the chat box.

The universal search will now display a list of unread channels and direct messages. It will also display channels, files and people you interact with the most.

And Slack is also promising a quicker search results that show prior discussions and other materials shared on the app.

Lastly, Slack will be introducing the “workflow builder”. Essentially, it lets Slack users create an app for routine tasks. The app’s approach lets you create many things like employee surveys, departmental guidelines, and even welcome message for new hires.

Surely, users will come up with different and interesting ways on using this new feature. It could be used in creating work-related routines or just fun and personal tasks like exercise and organizing lunch spots.

Slack Features Will Be Available This Year

There has not been an exact date on when each of the features above will be rolled-out to the Slack app. One thing’s for sure, all of the feature will be available before this year ends.

So it’s only a matter of time before users get to experience these useful features. And maybe this will also entice others to join and sign up on the app as well.