What is a Shared Channel in Slack?

A Shared channel allows Slack teams in different organizations to work and collaborate as easily as they do internally.

A shared channel works just like a standard channel in Slack. The difference is that a shared channel connects two organizations. A team from Company A can communicate with their partners at company B in the same slack channel.

New members joining a project can easily access the project’s archive, allowing them to catch up quickly.

For example: Suppose you are working with a marketing team outside your organization. Now a new intern joins the marketing team to work on your project. By using the shared channel, the intern can see a full history of the prior work. This helps him to keep up to date with the project.

Each side can set the name of their respective shared channel. They also have the option to decide whether the channel is private or public in their workspace.

Once created, members can invite their respective colleagues without any admin involvement.

Benefits of Running Standups in Shared Channel

1. Reach the Right People

Shared channels allow you to work with the right people- vendors, contractors, and partners. It helps to keep everybody on the same page.

2. Streamline Communication

There is no need to manage and keep track of the critical conversations happening across emails and phone calls. With everything in one place, both organizations can save time because there is less context switching.

3. Share Information and Context Faster

Shared channels in Slack facilitate real-time collaboration. It means a smooth flow of information between the teams, which allows the work to move forward.

When new members join the channel, they can access the channel’s entire history, quickly getting them up to speed.

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4. Build Trust

Build trust and more robust relationships with external partners by making communication easier, transparent, and more casual. Each team can see what is happening and who is responsible for which task.

Teams can also build trust among their customers by resolving issues efficiently using shared channels.

How to Create a Slack Shared Channel?

To join your Slack channel with another team, you will need to:

1. Be a Slack Workspace admin or owner
2. Have a Standard/Pro plan in Slack (there is no option to share channels from a free account)
3. Know the Slack Url of the organization you want to invite
4. Know the Email address of the Slack workspace admin for the other team
   

There are two ways to create a channel with an outside organization.

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Share an Existing Channel

1. Open the channel you want to share
2. Click the details icon in the top right corner.
3. Click Organisations
4. Click Share Channel
5. Enter the email address that you would like to send an invitation link to, and then click send
6. You can click on the Copy Share Link button to share an invitation link outside Slack.
7. Click Finished.
   

When you share an existing channel, members of the other team can see the channel’s message history.

If you don’t want that, you can create and share a new channel.

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Create and Share a New Channel

1. Select the Workspace where you to create a shared channel
2. Select create a channel
3. Enter the channel name and description. You also have the option to make the channel private.
4. Tick the box next to Share Outside (your workspace name)
5. Click Next
6. Enter the email address that you would like to send an invitation link to, and then click send
7. You can click on the Copy Share Link button to share an invitation link outside Slack.
8. Click Finished.

The Slack admin of the other organization has the option to accept or decline your invitation.

When your invitation is accepted by the other organization, it must be approved by someone from your team who has permission to manage shared channels.

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Setting Up Slack Shared Channel Standup

Learn how to set up a Slack Shared Channel Standup (Step by Step) using Troopr. Please note that you can create a Shared Channel Standup from within a shared channel only.

1. Invite Troopr to your shared channel and type the following command to get started.

/troopr standup

2. Click on New Shared Channel Standup

3. Enter the schedule details and click Next

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You have to name the standup, pick a schedule, and decide the time to run the shared channel standups.

You have the option to run standups based on each member’s respective time zone.

4. Enter the standup questions and click Next

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Besides the three daily scrum questions, you can also do a mood survey and ask custom questions.

5. Enter the reporting details and Click Submit

Report Delivery: Do you want to send responses to the report channel immediately or after some wait time.

Wait Time: If you choose “Wait Time” in report delivery, you will have to specify the wait time duration.

Send Report to Channel: This is the Slack channel where the summary report will be sent.

Send Report to People: If you want to send the summary report to people in channels other than the shared channel, you can add the user here.

Group responses in thread: Choose if you want to group the participant responses into a Slack thread.

Show task activity: You have the option to pull user activity from connected tools like Jira and Github.

Limitations

If the other team does not use Troopr, then there will be some limitations.

Troopr cannot reach out to external members directly. So, it will not be possible to send reminders to them for pending responses.

The external team cannot log in to Troopr's web portal and use any of the features like Standup history, engagement report, and setting calendar holidays.

Troopr is the only scrum bot that allows running cross-team meetings on Slack Shared Channels. In fact, it incorporates all the features present in a standard standup meeting.

To use Troopr Shared Channel Standup to the fullest, both the teams should install Troopr Slack Standup Bot.

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