Slack Tip: Create a Group Chat on the Fly

Slack is one of the most popular instant messaging clients available and it’s growing fast. It allows people to communicate with their colleagues and co-workers for collaborating on projects. People working in different groups cannot only talk to each other through direct messages, but the leader or anyone from the group can create a group chat, so everyone in the team is on the same page when it comes to projects.

If you’re using Slack in your organization and want to create a group chat, follow some simple steps below, and you’ll be ready in no time.

Create a Group Chat in Slack

Log in to your Slack account and you’ll see a list of groups and people you can send messages to in the left sidebar. Once you’re logged in, click on the small “+” right next to direct messages, and it will pop up a new dialog box.

In the dialog box, you’ll see a group of people from your organization who are using Slack. Just select the people you want to create a group chat with, either by choosing from the list or typing them manually and click “Go”.

There you go guys; it’s as simple as that. You can now talk to the people in the new Group Chat. You can also add more people to the group chat if you want to. Click on the “Channel Details” icon on the top of the group chat as shown below.

Now, a sidebar will pop up on the right side, click on the “Members” drop-down menu and select “Add someone”. From there, just choose the person you want to add to the conversation.

This feature is quite useful when working with specific individuals on projects or for having an online meeting.

And while we’re talking about Slack, it’s worth noting that it has been recently updated to version 2.0.6 which hides the team switch panel:

After an outpouring of consternation regarding the team sidebar, we’ve listened, thought hard, and removed it. Those signed into a single team will find the sidebar hidden once again. It’s as if we never changed it! Or rather, it’s as if we changed it, and then changed it back. In fact, it’s EXACTLY like that.