Meet Slack Templates: The Fastest Way to Start Work

Getting work started is often the hardest part. Before beginning an important task, you have to know where to start and how to get it to “done.” But if you’re spending time figuring this out, you’re slowing down progress. Inefficiencies like these can drain up to a third of a company’s annual revenue, and organizations are left struggling to prioritize high-value work like closing deals, building products, and launching new campaigns. When teams have all of the tools, data, people, and processes they need in one place, they’re able to hit the ground running and set up for long-term success. 

Today we’re introducing Slack templates, which help you to start and scale projects, programs, and processes across your organization. Templates include pre-configured canvases, lists, and workflows, curated by lines of business and common use cases. With one click, you can create a new channel complete with your templates so teams can collaborate and move work forward.

Whether you’re launching a marketing campaign, onboarding new clients, streamlining approvals, or simply starting a cross-functional project, there’s a template for that and more. Let’s dig into what templates are, why they matter, and how they work. 

Kickstart projects with a single click 

Remember the days when you had to search across multiple tools or systems to find the information you needed? That’s why we’ve brought best practices from years of customer feedback to templates. Templates are curated based on solutions for lines of business (like sales or marketing), general productivity, and team collaboration – or you can create your own set.

Here’s how it works: Kick off your workstream by choosing from a library of templates. With one click, Slack will automatically create a channel so you can jump right into action. In your channel, you’ll find a canvas and a list with prompts to enter details about what you’re working on. There are also pre-built workflows to help you complete relevant tasks more quickly. Thanks to templates, you’re ​​guaranteed a standardized, predictable output every time, so anyone can easily deliver on expectations.

 

Work faster with automation every step of the way 

Knowing how to get your work done helps you move quickly, and that’s why automation is built in at every step of a template. 

Workflows automate manual, low-value tasks that take up time and effort, so you can focus on the work that matters most. Workflows can help you collect incoming requests and store them in a list, remind teammates to share progress updates, send timely alerts into a channel, generate weekly activity summaries powered by AI, and more.

As you’re getting started, the channel is automatically created with everything you need for that project. Plus, you can connect your apps and tools to bring your external processes right into Slack so everyone can work faster together.

Let’s say you have to create a new internal help desk for your team. Instead of putting together something piecemeal, you can use a help desk template. When someone needs to make a request, they’ll fill out a workflow to collect all of the necessary details (and they can find knowledge in a canvas). Once a request is submitted, your IT team can triage, manage, and close out the request with the help of lists. Now filing a ticket is an easy, standardized process across your organization, and that work can be checked off fast. 

Create your own templates for more complex work

Every organization has its own processes and best practices, so one size may fit most but not all. That’s why templates are customizable, so teams can tailor them to their ways of working and scale across the organization.

To create your own template, you can combine your most useful canvases and lists with pre-made workflows that fit your team’s needs. And if you’re currently using a custom canvas template, you’ll have the option to select that as well. Then simply publish that to your templates hub, complete with details on what type of project, program, or process it covers, and your team can easily find and use it.

Custom templated solutions with org-wide publishing capabilities are available to customers on the Enterprise Grid plan. 

 

Start using Slack templates today

Teams across every line of business and industry, from small businesses to large enterprises, can use templates to minimize the time it takes to implement new projects and processes, improving time to value.

With templates, Slack continues to deliver on our vision of bringing together all your people, work processes, tools, and data in a single work operating system. Templates are now available on paid plans. Head to the Template Gallery to get started, and join us for a webinar to learn more.