How to use (and improve) Slack for project management

As of this 2019 GP Bullhound report, Slack was one of the fastest-growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies in history, reaching an annual average recurring revenue of $400 million in less than five years.

Then the pandemic hit, and with that — well, you’ve probably seen the memes. Slack went from one of the leading business collaboration tools to a household name that remote workers everywhere rely on to stay connected to their teams.

We all know and love Slack as a great communication channel for brainstorming, holding standups, and more. But one thing Slack isn’t known for? Project management. However, with the right tools in place, you can turn it into an amazing project management app.

To that end, we’ll show what makes Slack a great project management software option — and we’ll show you how to integrate it with Teamwork to make it even better. 

Reasons why Slack is a powerful tool for project management

Credit: Slack

Slack is most often billed as a communication tool for remote, hybrid, and distributed teams — but with the right integrations, it can be so much more than that. You can use Slack integrations for Teamwork and other apps to facilitate team collaboration, project planning, task management, and more.

1. Turns ideas into actions by creating tasks or messages

Slack is an excellent tool for brainstorming — and once you’ve integrated Slack with Teamwork, you can easily transform those ideas into tasks or messages. Creating a task is as simple as using a slash command directly from Slack, which will bring up a template for you to fill out with the tasks details (the assignee, the date, and so on).

You can also use the integration’s tools to add Slack messages to Teamwork as either comments or messages. All you need to do is click the Options dropdown in Slack to reveal options for adding conversations as messages or comments to Teamwork. This way, you and your team won’t need to waste precious time hunting through Slack for those amazing ideas you had.

2. Provides real-time updates on current projects

While Slackis a great tool for asynchronous collaboration, it's also awesome for teams working together in real time. That’s why, in a post-pandemic world, it has become one of the leading communications tools for remote teams.

When you integrate Slack with Teamwork, you can turn Slack into an app that delivers live updates on important action items. Get alerts on project status updates, respond to new tasks as you receive them via Slack, and more. The Slack integration for Teamwork also makes it easy to add comments to task updates as you receive them.

3. Aligns team members with clients and vice versa

Within Teamwork, you can set up dedicated Slack channels for each of your projects, then invite everyone involved to those channels. That includes not just the teams working on the projects, but clients and stakeholders, too. It’s an easy way to keep teams and clients in the loop and up to date.

Here’s a tip: Make sure your team knows which Slack channels are client-facing. That way, they can keep all the team chit chat and memes private, andproject-centric discussions focused in client-facing channels.

4. Provides automated task reminders and updates

One of the best things about the Slack integration for Teamwork? Automation!

With automations, you can get updates in Slack whenever tasks in Teamwork are updated, which gives everyone real-timenotifications to help keep track of updates. You can also set up notifications or reminders that happen automatically whenever a trigger event happens — like sending out a reminder whenever a task’s due date arrives.

5. Allows team members to share documents seamlessly

In Slack, you can share links to documents and other project resources. When you’ve integrated Slack into Teamwork, you can take these links and add them to your links library in Teamwork — instantly. Not only can team members share documents seamlessly this way, but you’ll build up a well-organized repository of project resources that you can access from anywhere.

The power of Slack and Teamwork.com together

Consolidate communications into a centralized space. Pull content, ideas, or requests from Slack into the Teamwork.com platform and instantly convert them into project-managed tasks.

Add Teamwork to Slack

Between these two apps, you can create automations, share files, build a resource library, manage your to-do list, and more. It’s the perfect combination for agencies that need to track, manage, and collaborate on multiple projects.

Tips for staying productive while using Slack for project management

According to an IDC report, Slack has enormous advantages in terms of productivity. Users report 32% fewer emails to sift through and 23% fewer meetings. That said, time management can be tough when Slacknotifications are constantly pinging away. Follow these tips to make the most of Slack’s project management benefits — without the distractions.

Create team guidelines

The most important thing you can do is create a set of team guidelines that outline how to use Slack to stay productive. Consider guidelines like:

• Keep individual project discussions confined to the relevant private channel — no clutter in project-related channels.

• Keep watercooler chat in a watercooler channel so that project discussion doesn’t get lost in chitchat.

• Set a timeframe to respond to Slacknotifications. Most people won’t want to interrupt workflows to respond immediately — but notifications shouldn’t sit indefinitely, either.

• Set guidelines for which updates should be posted in Teamwork, and which can be posted on Slack.

Those are some examples. As you and your team use these apps, you’ll likely come up with some additional guidelines that help everyone streamlineteam communication.

Use your primary project management tool for important updates

Slack is great for hosting discussions and for brainstorming — but it can also lead to information overload. Like we’ve said, since Slack messages tend to ping all day long, many team members are liable to save messages for later so that they’re not interrupting project work to formulate responses.

So, if you’re using Slack to send out priority messages and important updates, they can get lost in the shuffle. Instead, use your primary project management tool to send out updates for the biggest, most important things. This way, your team knows which notifications to check pronto, and which can wait until later in the day.

Learn all of Slack’s functionality – keyboard shortcuts, formatting comments, and creating your own commands

Lots of people treat Slack as a basic messaging tool for remote work — but it has so much more functionality than that. To make the most of the Slack app, be sure to learn all of its features.

For example, keyboard shortcuts let you do things like compose a new message, upload a file, add emojis, toggle video, and more. Here’s a list of commands you can use.

You can also use formatting features to create comments and messages that are easier to read. Use bold text, block quotes, bullet points, and other text formatting tools to make parts of your message stand out.

Last, the Slack API lets you create your own slash commands. This is incredibly useful if your team performs certain actions often. You can learn more about creating your own slash commands here.

How to implement Slack for project management

Ready to make the most of Slack project management features? We’ll show you how to integrate Slack with Teamwork so that you can create the perfect workspace for your team. Follow the steps below to get started.

Integrating from Slack

If you already have Slack, then here’s what you need to do to integrate it with Teamwork. And before you start, here’s a hint: If you plan to have a dedicated Slack channel for Teamwork updates, be sure to set it up before following the steps below so that you can select it during the integration process.

1. Go to the Teamwork app page within the Slack app directory.

2. Choose the Slackworkspace that you’d like to integrate with Teamwork.

3. Sign into the selected workspace.

4. Click Add to Slack to begin the setup process for Teamwork.

5. Select an existing Slack channel or direct message — this is where your updates from Teamwork will be posted.

6. Click Allow to grant Teamwork access to your Slackworkspace.

7. You’ll be asked for your Teamwork login credentials. Log in, and select the relevant Teamwork site that you want to connect.

And that’s it, you’re done!

Integrating from Teamwork

If you’re starting from the Teamwork side of things, you’ll need to follow these steps:

1. Click Jump to in Teamwork’s main navigation menu.

2. From there, find and select a project.

3. Switch to List or Table views (which may be located under the More… section).

4. Click Automate to enter the automations builder.

5. Next, click Browse Templates.

6. From there, select Slack in the Integrations section, which is in the left navigation pane.

7. Select one of the predefined Slacktemplates.

8. Click Connect to Slack in the Then section.

9. Enter your Slackworkspace name, which is formatted like a URL (example: mycompany.slack.com).

10. If you have multiple Teamwork sites, the next step is to select the relevant site to select — otherwise, you can skip this step.

11. If Slack asks for your login credentials, enter them.

12. Click Allow to grant Teamwork access to Slack.

13. You can stop here — or you can go back to the automations builder to create Slackautomations.

That’s all it takes to connect Slack from Teamwork. Once these steps are out of the way, you’ll be good to go.

Try the TeamworkSlack integration today!

Ready to get started with Slack for Teamwork? It’s easy — and you’ll unlock a whole lot of functionality that makes Slack more useful for agencies, agile project management, scrum, and more. Between Teamwork and Slack, you’ll have all the tools needed for time tracking, task management, project planning, and more — across all of the projects that your agency handles.

Just follow the steps above, or visit this guide, which will walk you through the process.