In recent months, organizations around the globe have transitioned to remote work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. As a result, remote teams are leveraging a vast suite of collaboration tools like Slack and Zoom as part of the virtual workday. Rather than using these tools individually, it's possible to connect some of these platforms for added functionality. A popular platform pairing involves syncing Slack with Outlook Calendar.
Earnings for Slack Technologies are expected to grow in the coming year, from ($0.55) to ($0.49) per share. Price to Earnings Ratio vs. The P/E ratio of Slack Technologies is -73.12, which means that its earnings are negative and its P/E ratio cannot be compared to companies with positive earnings. Price to Earnings Ratio vs. Slack adds tighter integrations with Microsoft Outlook, OneDrive. New Slack apps for Outlook calendar and email, plus an updated Slack OneDrive app are available to users who want more seamless.
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Once synced, Outlook Calendar will automatically update statuses in Slack to let others know when a team member is busy or inaccessible throughout the workday. Additionally, the app will send a notification at the start of each day to provide a concise rundown of scheduled engagements. The app will also notify people before scheduled meetings and provide links to Zoom, Skype, Webex, etc., to streamline the process. Below, we've detailed a step-by-step-guide explaining how to sync Outlook Calendar with Slack.
© Image: iStock/oatawaHow to sync Outlook Calendar and Slack
First, people will need to select Add Apps below the apps section on the left sidebar in Slack. Next, the apps page will open with a search bar at the top and suggested apps below. If Outlook Calendar appears as one of the top apps on the page, select this option. If Outlook Calendar does not automatically load under your top apps type Outlook Calendar in the search bar and press Enter.
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A page will load detailing the myriad capabilities enabled by syncing Outlook Calendar and Slack and people must next select Connect Account at the bottom. This will open a new tab where individuals will need to enable Outlook Calendar to access their Slack workspace by selecting the green Allow button at the bottom of the page.
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If you have successfully synced your Outlook Calendar and Slack workspace, an Outlook Calendar option should appear below the apps section on the left sidebar on Slack. People will also receive an Outlook Calendar app Slack notification with the option to enable automatic status updates. To enable these automatic updates, select Turn On below the message, at which point, the accounts should be synced.
People may want to test the cross-platform functionality to ensure the connection has been successful. To do so, schedule an imminent meeting in Outlook Calendar. If a Slack notification is sent via the Outlook Calendar app to coincide with the scheduled meeting, the two platforms are synced.
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Slack, the teams communication app with 10 million daily active users, today announced several new features in the pipeline to help users get things done at work, including the ability to respond to messages via email and deeper calendar integrations for channels.
Replies to Slack direct messages and channel mentions via email will be available to all users later this year.
The new feature may prove helpful for new hires with an email address but no Slack access yet, but it’s more than likely aimed at people who prefer their email inbox over Slack as a main means of communication at work. Either way, it’s meant to make Slack a place where you can get everything done without the need to bounce back and forth between applications.
Email responses to Slack messages are being rolled out now and should be fully available this summer, the company said in a statement shared with VentureBeat.
All @ mentions and responses will be shared via email, but not one at a time, Slack platform product head Andy Pflaum told VentureBeat in a phone interview.
“The way people do real-time messaging with Slack, they might bat out five messages in short succession. We do smart batching over that, and deliver those across as notifications to the person to email,” he said.
Pflaum joined Slack last fall after the acquisition of email app Astro. Since then he’s been part of efforts to build out deeper Microsoft Office 365 and G Suite integrations at Slack. Earlier this month, Slack introduced the ability to share Gmail and Outlook emails in Slack as well as an integration with Outlook calendar.
Slack Outlook Integration
Bringing calendars deeper into the Slack experience was a main theme of news shared Wednesday.
Channel calendars for teams were also announced today, which will bring your team’s calendar into the main channel view alongside pinned documents and channel members.
Calendars can be assigned to specific channels today to provide a daily event rundown, and apps like Google Calendar for Team Events can alert the team when an event on its calendar is about to begin, but calendars in channels will provide a Slack-native way to see a live team calendar.
The new features signal that Slack may be moving toward the ability to create events for teams in specific channels and note that an event was created in a specific channel.
“We’re going to make sure we do that in a smart way because large organizations don’t necessarily want to open up event creation in a channel of 1,000 people, but we will be moving toward that in the future, and the initial creation of an event with a couple people is a start for that,” he said. “This is a step for us on a journey, not an end point, so what we’re announcing and previewing at frontiers is one point on the arch of things we want to enable people to do.”
Integrate Slack And Outlook
Smart meeting suggestions was also introduced today, which recognizes when someone in a direct message talks about a meeting and prompts users to create a meeting. Similar predictive services designed to detect words used in conversations and predict their needs are available in other apps like Facebook Messenger and Android Messages.
Smart meeting suggestions will begin with “today” and “tomorrow” text prompts, but the company plans to evolve the tool to tackle more use cases that will roll out later this year, Pflaum said.
Video cards to announce video meetings on your calendar are also getting an upgrade. When a video call starts with Zoom, Hangouts, or WebEx, cards will now display icons for meeting participants, as well as the meeting agenda or relevant files.
Also new today: Slack is bringing shared channels to Enterprise Grid, its service for entire organizations to join Slack, just not a handful of teams within an organization. Like shared channels for paid users, which was introduced at the first Frontiers conference in 2017, shared channels for Enterprise Grid can only connect two organizations today. A shared channels beta will be made available this summer.
Approximately 13,000 teams currently use shared channels on Slack, Pflaum said.
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