Slack? What is it?
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
I am looking at Slack for a customer. I've never used or seen it. I hear about it all the time, and I know many people here use it regularly.
It's the "new" industry standard messaging platform. Think XMPP for the modern era. It's what replaced that.
All the major messaging players today are clones of Slack: Mattermost, RocketChat, MS Teams, Zoho Cliq, and on and on.
Slack isn't bad, it's actually quite usable. I like it a lot. I no longer have any customers on it and we don't use it internally (we use Cliq and Rocket) but I've always had good experiences with it. It's fully hosted and I think offers some decent free levels.
It's biggest competitor is that ANY business class messaging platform (MS 365, Zoho WorkSpace, etc.) has something that matches Slack built in already and automatically integrated with other things. So who needs Slack today?
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
The sole purpose for looking at Slack for this customer is to send appointment reminder vis SMS using Skyetel's "Postcards for Slack" feature.
That feels like a super weird use case. Just use the API and send through something else.
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@flaxking said in Slack? What is it?:
I have never heard of Slack being the only interface for something except for internal tools.
Skyetel used it as an API implementation example. It's not unique for that purpose. NTG has HumaniSMS that does that too using the same API, for example.
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@Pete-S said in Slack? What is it?:
What is Postcard? I thought SMS postcards was SMS mass marketing?
It's a weird SMS example interface that Skyetel open sourced to use as a code example.
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@Pete-S said in Slack? What is it?:
If you want automatic calendar reminders to go out then it's not what you're looking for. Then you want something that can integrate with Skyetel's SMS API directly.
This doesn't exist and I am not building one.
Yes it does and you already work with the phone company that makes it, lol. The text messaging component of NTG's telephony platform does EXACTLY that.
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@Pete-S said in Slack? What is it?:
Why does it have to be Skyetel? If it's just a reminder, like "don't forget your dentist appointment tomorrow" the number used doesn't matter.
We have this requirement too, hence why we built the matching solution. It's so that the main phone number can double as the texting number in most cases.
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@JaredBusch said in Slack? What is it?:
I do not use postcards, but making a direct to slack SMS connection is flaky at best.
This is exactly what I am planning to do. They make it so easy.
Except that it does not consistently work.
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@Pete-S said in Slack? What is it?:
Because you said: "The sole purpose for looking at Slack for this customer is to send appointment reminder vis SMS using Skyetel's "Postcards for Slack" feature."
I just assumed those were the requirements and if there were other requirements that were relevant, you would have mentioned them.
Appointment reminders are very common, almost SOP in some businesses.I appreciate your trying to help, but as I said in my query, my desire is to use Skyetel's "Postcards for Slack".
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@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
So who needs Slack today?
They have NOTHING now. And since the SIP provider has an interface already built for it, why not use it?
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
So who needs Slack today?
They have NOTHING now. And since the SIP provider has an interface already built for it, why not use it?
Well, that feels like a gap. How do they have nothing as every business class messaging platform includes something? Do they not have business email?
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Do they not have business email?
Exchange.
Legacy Exchange, not MS365? If so, Teams isn't pre-provisioned automatically, but it is installed automatically on Windows. So, while not the one that I like, one of the key Slack competitors should be pre-installed for you and they "have it", you just have to configure it to integrate with Exchange that way. MS365 Exchange always has Teams pre-integrated.
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@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Legacy Exchange, not MS365?
Intermedia Hosted Exchange 2016
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Legacy Exchange, not MS365?
Intermedia Hosted Exchange 2016
Ouch. I've been shafted by Intermedia a time or two.
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@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Think XMPP for the modern era
Are there any intra-office apps for this? We have been using Spark on top of Ignite for many years.
Is there anything you like btter?
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Think XMPP for the modern era
Are there any intra-office apps for this? We have been using Spark on top of Ignite for many years.
Is there anything you like btter?
For Microsoft users Microsoft Teams is the goto intra-office messaging platform.
As Scott mentioned earlier all the business messaging apps are on parity with each other.
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@JasGot said in Slack? What is it?:
@scottalanmiller said in Slack? What is it?:
Think XMPP for the modern era
Are there any intra-office apps for this? We have been using Spark on top of Ignite for many years.
Is there anything you like btter?
That's what we replaced with these tools specifically. Slack, Rocket, Mattermost... those seem to be the best for crossing company boundaries. Cliq, Teams, etc. are great for inside a single controlled company, but don't fare well at going between them. Especially not Teams, what a mess that is.
