email that looks like this. Open that up and click on the Join Now button
that's going to link you right into the "create an account for slack" page.
Here you will enter your full name and a password
now this account is separate than your make Haven login information although if
you use the same information we won't know. Here I've used a supplied password and
then you just go ahead and click create account.
You'll then be brought into the workspace. It will welcome you and invite you to get all sorts of tips the
first thing you'll see is our slack bot here who's just teaching you how to go
ahead and type something and send a message unfortunately a little cut off
on our capture here but you type something and it congratulates you on
doing that and then it's going to start popping up with some tips you can read
these tips if that is of interest to you or you can also just click done. On the
left hand side of the screen there's a list of all your channels we auto
populate with our most popular, most common interest areas our main
information does come into this general channel and you see in the white area
there the main part of the screen it's telling us that we have joined the
general channel. So here in the general channel is where you will find
information that applies to pretty much everyone, it's information about events
and other things that are coming up that are not specific to interest areas. You can
explore the other channels -- here we are in #made-at-makehaven which is a channel
where people can post pictures of things they make. We encourage people to do that
it's a great way to get a feel for what's happening in the space.
If you click on the word "Channels" up at the top here, you'll find that there are
more channels other than the ones that you are seeing, that you may decide you
want to join. You can scroll through the list of all channels or you can start
to type something. For example here we found the textile channel. You can choose
to preview it to kind of see what's happening in the channel and if it looks
like something you'd be interested in just click down there, "Join Channel."
Going back to our channel listing here I encourage you
just to scroll through and see if there are any channels that might be of
interest to you. You can always join and unjoin later. Just click on one,
#free-cool-stuff -- Click on that channel and you'll also see there's
an option to see more details about the channel, so if you click on that, you'll
have the option to see how many members there are and those sort of things.
and you can go ahead and join.
Sometimes slackbot may give you some suggestions for other channels to join, that's up to you.
Now if you want send a message to just one or two people
or a small group click on the "+" next to direct messages
It'll bring up this menu and you can start typing someone's name so you
could send just to one person, or you can add multiple people as you like, send to
a group... In this example we're just going to go ahead and send to one person, so when
you have your group you hit "Go," you'll see that you're in a private
conversation here. From this green "+" menu you have the option to add an image or file
from your computer or Google Drive or you can go ahead and just type the message.
In direct messages as with general messages you can click on the
smiley to add an emoji as you'll see in just a moment. Note the @ sign here can
be a little confusing. Clicking on the @ sign is how you would normally tag an
individual user, but if you do tag someone in a direct message who isn't
part of the conversation they will NOT be added to the thread, so if you need to
bring someone else in, you need to create a separate group to communicate with
anyone who's not on the initial conversation.
Going back to our channels,
one thing I want to point out is the reply feature. You'll notice on a
message that sometimes it has a reply kind of underneath it. When you click on
that you'll see the thread will pop up on the right hand screen and you have
the opportunity to write a reply. For example this conversation
has multiple replies. You do need to click on that "reply" piece in
order to view and add to the replies.
You'll notice when you click on an individual message you will have options
that come up that allow you to add a reaction which you can just add a simple
reaction to, you can also start a thread which will allow you to reply. Here (arrow) is
where you share the message, so you could send this message along to a particular
channel, if you think it should go also to the textile channel (for example). You can add a
message if you think that would be helpful. So if I wanted to send this
along I would go ahead and click "Share" but since it's just an example I'm going
to take this out and actually show how to share with an individual person
instead of using the hashtag (#) I'm going to use the @ symbol start searching
people and I find my individual -- I could add multiple people if I wanted to -- type
a message if I like, and then again just click "Share."
You can also star important messages and then see all your starred messages by
clicking the star in the upper right hand corner of the main screen.
These three dots are a bunch of other options not used as often, but you're welcome to explore those.
The only other thing I would remind you is that if you are
using this desktop application on a shared computer at MakeHaven or
elsewhere, to be sure you go ahead and click "Sign Out" when you're finished with
your session. You can now go ahead and enjoy #slack. There are mobile versions
for your phone as well as desktop notifications, so you can sign up for those.
As always if you have any questions you can email info@makehaven.org