How to use slack to post your location
This is the fourth and final part of our series exploring how we use Slack here at Brightec.
So far we have looked at how to set up Slack, the house rules we use to get the most out of using slack for our team of mobile app developers and designers and our tips for how to simplify your workflow using slack.
In this final blog of the ‘how to get the best out of slack’ series, we explore how we use Slack to help us fully benefit from remote working.
Brightec have always encouraged our mobile app developers and designers to work remotely for at least part of their working week. Find out our favoured ways to connect to a remote team.
We also heartily recommend the book Remote by 37Signals.
Who is in?
One drawback of remote working is knowing quite where everyone is. In particular; who is working in the office?
Of course, rigorous calendar scheduling and syncing would be one fix but that’s just another unwanted administrative burden. We’re always keen to find the smart and simple solution instead. You can read more about our company values here, they form the basis for how we conduct ourselves, make decisions and grow as a creative team.
Slack only gives you an indication of whether the user is active or inactive and although our calendar indicates the days we intend to work remotely. Slack doesn’t take into account meetings out of the office or other unplanned events. They have to be added to calendars manually.
When we first started using Slack in 2015, we wanted to automate this process, so that we could have an easy indication of whether someone was working in the office or not.
Discover how Brightec favours flexible, hybrid working.
IFTTT has some great recipes for Slack and we discovered a couple of great recipes for figuring out when our team members were in the office. Read more of our tips on how to simply your work life using Slack.
There is a guide for Android users to post to Slack when they arrive at work and how to post to Slack when they leave work.
For iOS users, this is the same when entering or exiting an area to post to a Slack channel.
Update
IFTTT now have a collection of applets for location services and slack on this page: https://ifttt.com/connect/location/slack
We set these recipes to post to a channel called #location every time one of our team enters/exits the office. That way any staff working remotely could just check the channel to see who is in and out.
Discover how Brightec favours flexible working, over remote working and an insight into the decisions behind how, and where, we work.
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