Slack

What is Slack?
Slack is a messaging app that helps the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UI COM) students, faculty, and staff collaborate with each other better. Its key goal is to enhance student communications with key support staff and faculty advisors.

Slack brings teams together in real-time. It can run on your desktop, the web, or your phone, and stays in sync when you switch from one to the other.

There are many ways to share information in Slack. You can message a peer or colleague directly, or set up direct messaging with multiple Slack members at once. To chat with larger groups, you can create private channels around a specific project or topic or send messages broadly in a department-wide channel. Files and links can be shared, too. Slack integrates with other software, so you can do your work in one interface. Since messages are retained and searchable, you’ll be able to find historical information easily.

Whether your classmates and colleagues are in the same location or in different locations or time zones across the globe, Slack keeps everyone connected and aligned.

Be a Slack(er)

If you’re a student in the College of Medicine, or if you are an employee who regularly communicates with students, you are probably already a member of the UI COM Slack Enterprise Grid. If you’re not, it’s easy to request membership at uicom.enterprise.slack.com .

Join Slack and Find Workspaces and Channels

Once your Slack account has been created, log into your account using Shibboleth, and review Slack’s Quick Start Guide to learn the basics, including how to send a direct message.

You will automatically be added to the “U of I College of Medicine” workspace, and a handful of the more than 150 channels in that workspace. Check out the training material in the #slack-training channel, and take a look at the #slack-help channel.

You can install/access the Slack app from multiple devices. You can even access Slack from a web browser.

If Slack has not been configured in your Two-Step authentication app, you can log in with a two-step backup code.

Get More From Slack

You have the freedom to tweak Slack and expand your capabilities, so you can do your best work every day.

Slack Integrations
With Slack integrations, you can streamline other tools you use —  such as Zoom —  into a single interface. This helps you automate certain tasks and do others more efficiently. Hundreds of integrations are available in the Slack App Directory.

Slack’s Guides

If you’re using Slack, explore Slack’s online guides to learn how to do more.