No Jitter is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Salesforce Gets Job, Industry Specific with Slack Update

As expected, Salesforce prominently featured its newly acquired Slack platform at its Dreamforce event this week, revealing more of its progress on bringing Slack into its platform and shared updates to the collaboration hub.
 
Slack Adds Another Asynchronous Feature
On the latter, Slack introduced Clips, a feature that allows users to create and share audio, video, and screen recordings within channels and direct messages, including externally via Slack Connect. In addition, a Clips playback feature allows users to speed up or slow down the clips, watch live captions, and open and search the transcripts archived with all recordings, Slack said. Clips, which starts rolling out today, will be available for all paid teams by this fall, Slack said.
 
Besides this new asynchronous feature, Slack has updated how Enterprise Grid users can collaborate with external parties. With the update, an enterprise Slack customer can host an external company within its digital HQ, even if that company doesn’t have a paid Slack plan, Slack said. The enhancement will be available this fall, Slack said.
 
In addition, Slack introduced a government-certified cloud environment called GovSlack. The offering will comply with federal government requirements, including FedRAMP High and DoD IL4 certifications, Slack said.
 
Slack-First Capabilities, Industry-Specific Offerings
Outside of updates for the Slack communications platform itself, Salesforce shared a host of new Slack-First capabilities designed with specific departments and industries in mind.
 
Adding to its previously announced Slack-First Sales capabilities, Salesforce has announced Slack-First initiatives for:
  • Service — For service teams, Slack-First capabilities include the previously announced incident swarming and expert finder features, for collaborating on priority incidents.
  • Marketing — Within Slack, marketers, along with sales professionals and service teams, will be able to collaborate within digital workplaces with capabilities such as Marketing Cloud journey and Pardot automation. Both Marketing Cloud Journeys for Slack and Pardot Automation for Slack will launch with the Spring 2022 release, Salesforce said.
  • Commerce — Within Slack, commerce teams will be able to track business trends; receive B2C Commerce Alerts for things like promotions, certificates, price books, campaigns, and coupons; and set up Order Management Exception Alerts for order issues, Salesforce said. The B2C Commerce Alerts feature is now available, and Order Management Exception Alerts in Slack is expected to launch by the end of this year.
  • Digital Experiences — This will allow Salesforce users in Slack to track digital activity. The Salesforce CMS Integration for Slack feature will alert internal and external users in a shared space when content is published, including new blog posts and LinkedIn news from a prospect, Salesforce said. Salesforce CMS Integration for Slack is expected to launch with the Spring 2022 release of Salesforce.
  • Platform — Admins and developers can use Slack-First Platform to build apps with low-code tools like App Builder for Slack, which can surface Salesforce data directly into Slack. With Flow for Slack, teams can create end-to-end workflows to route approvals through internal and external stakeholders. Flow for Slack will be GA with the Summer 2022 release.
  • Trailhead — Available now, Slack-First Trailhead uses Salesforce's Einstein AI capabilities to recommend learning and training opportunities to users inside of Slack. With slash commands, employees can discover, share, and favorite Trailhead and myTrailhead learning content, Salesforce said. Additionally, employees can view in-progress, favorite, recommended, and assigned content from a home tab.
  • Analytics — Teams can leverage data to stay up to date on relevant trends and information with automated alerts. With Einstein Discovery in Slack, users have the ability to create AI-powered predictions and recommendations from their data directly in Slack, Salesforce said. Additionally, users can ask business questions directly in Slack using the Ask Data and Explain Data in Slack feature. Einstein Discovery in Slack is expected to launch with the Spring 2022 release of Salesforce, the Ask Data and Explain Data in Slack feature will be available next year, and Notifications in Slack are already GA for Tableau and is expected to be available in Tableau CRM in the Spring 2022 release, Salesforce said.
A GA Slack-First Integration with MuleSoft will allow enterprises to connect apps and data to Slack without the need for coding. Additionally, users can receive automated app alerts within existing workflows, Salesforce said.
 
For industry-specific Slack-First capabilities, Salesforces revealed:
  • Sustainability — A Reduce Emissions from Suppliers Safely feature will allow businesses to use Slack Connect to collaborate externally on targets for reducing emissions, Salesforce said. This capability is expected to be GA next year.
  • Corporate and Investment Banking —These industry-specific capabilities will include Financial Services Cloud in Slack, which allows bankers to access account information in Slack channels, and Interaction Summaries that provides bankers with the ability to create, share, and collaborate on meeting notes without leaving Slack, Salesforce said. Both capabilities will be available in the Summer 2022 release of Salesforce.
  • Healthcare and Life Sciences — For managing employee engagement, capabilities include a centralized onboarding experience and Employee Engagement for Health Organizations, which provides employees with real-time updates, wellbeing monitoring, and skill development opportunities. Additionally, Salesforce users can use new self-service options to troubleshoot issues. These capabilities are available now, Salesforce said.
  • Philanthropy — Volunteer organizations can use Slack-First Philanthropy capabilities, available in 2022, to allow employees to donate, volunteer, and share their activity within Slack. Additionally, employees can promote campaigns, causes, and events in Slack with the Promote Causes and Campaigns feature, Salesforce said.
  • Nonprofit — Charity organizations can use Slack-First Nonprofit capabilities, available in the Spring 2022 release of Salesforce, to connect with their communities. Users will be able to surface deadlines and updates from Salesforce directly in Slack and can engage with clients without leaving Slack. Additionally, teams can review and approve documents directly in Slack, Salesforce said.
  • Education — Slack-First Education capabilities, due in the Summer of 2022, will include Student Success Alerts, which allows faculty to notify advisors on student concerns.
These departmental-level and industry-specific offerings show that Salesforce is enabling Slack to go “beyond its develop community roots,” Irwin Lazar, president and principal analyst at Metrigy, told No Jitter. Additionally, he said, it’s the Slack-First departmental-level offerings align with Salesforce customer use cases, which should interest anyone who uses Salesforce.