A Guide to Migrating From Microsoft Teams to Slack

If you’re an IT decision-maker or sales leader, you have likely heard the common concerns about migration complexity. But with a structured plan, moving from Microsoft Teams to Slack is a smooth transition that delivers immediate results for your team’s productivity.

This guide draws from real-world enterprise migrations to provide a comprehensive roadmap for making the switch successfully.

Note: The self-service tips in this guide are designed for organizations using Slack Free, Pro, and Business+ plans. If you are an Enterprise organization with specialized security, compliance, or complex multi-workspace needs, please contact our Sales team for a customized migration consultation.

Why organizations are making the move

Teams is often the default choice in the Microsoft 365 suite, but more organizations are moving to Slack to stay agile. Microsoft’s recent decision to unbundle Teams globally — requiring customers to purchase it separately or opt for Microsoft 365 without Teams — signals a shift. For many, it’s the perfect moment to reassess whether being tied to a closed ecosystem still makes sense.

By moving to Slack, you’re investing in an open ecosystem designed for interoperability—one that gives you the freedom to connect with over 2,600 apps on your terms.

Beyond openness, Slack is built for how people actually work. This focus makes finding information intuitive rather than a chore, thanks to organized channels, threads, and a powerful, AI-driven search that actually surfaces what you need.

Your migration roadmap

A common concern among leadership is that migration will be disruptive. However, most enterprises achieve majority adoption within 90 days by following a phased approach.

Weeks 1-2	Planning and baseline establishment
Weeks 3-4	Technical migration and initial rollout
Months 2-3	Optimization and expansion of use cases
Month 6	Full adoption and sunset of Teams

Weeks 1-2: Establish your baseline 

Start by understanding your current state:

• Audit your Teams usage: Identify which channels and workflows are critical vs. dormant.
• Interview stakeholders: Conduct conversations with teams to understand their needs, concerns, and communication preferences.
• Plan your identity management: Ensure all users can sign in through SSO seamlessly—Slack supports all major identity providers.
• Identify your Workspace admins: Determine who will manage settings and larger user populations. Slack’s granular Channel Manager role makes it easy to distribute administrative tasks.

Weeks 2-3: Set your vision 

Successful migrations aren’t just technical — they’re cultural:

• Define your collaboration principles: Create clear governance and guidance for how Slack will be used (e.g., using #proj- for project channels). TIP: For organizations keeping Teams for meetings, you can set Teams as the default calling provider in Slack, allowing users to continue scheduling and joining Teams meetings directly from Slack. This lets you migrate collaboration and messaging while maintaining your existing meeting workflows.
• Get leadership buy-in: Have executives author and promote the vision of consolidated collaboration in Slack, with concrete examples such as “Need IT help? Post in #help-it instead of DMing.”
• Establish your timeline: Be clear about migration milestones, including when Teams will be sunset
• Communicate transparently: Share progress through asynchronous video clips in channels

Weeks 3-4: Execute the technical migration 

Here’s where concerns about data loss often arise, but Slack makes this part straightforward:

• Set Teams to read-only: Turn off non-essential Teams channels to read-only status and communicate the timeline early.
• Migrate your data: Use Slack’s built-in tools to import Teams channels and message history via CSV files.
• Transition critical workflows: Identify your most important Teams use cases and rebuild them in Slack first—this drives immediate adoption.
• Handle your O365 connector retirement: Since Microsoft is forcing this change anyway, migrate those workflows to Slack’s more robust integration ecosystem.
• Update meeting defaults: Configure Outlook to default to your preferred video platform (Slack works beautifully with Zoom, Webex, and others).

Key advantage: Messages can be pushed from Teams to Slack, but not vice versa—making this the natural migration path.

Tips for a seamless migration

Tip 1: Create a channel strategy: the foundation of success

Channels are the heart of Slack, and setting them up right prevents future confusion:

• Define default channels: Set up default channels that every employee joins automatically (like #announcements-global)
• Establish naming conventions: Use clear channel naming conventions (e.g., #proj- for projects, #team- for departments, #help- for support)
• Create onboarding channels: Set up temporary channels like #help-new-to-slack to support newcomers
• Archive obsolete channels: Clean house by archiving channels that won’t be relevant post-migration
• Create your tool matrix: Develop a clear decision tree so employees know when to use Slack vs. other tools

Tip 2: Show immediate value through automation

The fastest way to prove Slack’s value is through high-impact automation that eliminates “busy work.” Here are some simple examples — which anyone can share and reuse across channels — using our code-free automation tool, Workflow Builder:

• One-click approvals: Streamline PTO, expenses, and travel requests via Workday integrations, allowing managers to take action entirely within Slack. This can increase approval rates by 40%! Share the workflow link so other teams can instantly deploy the same automation.
• Seamless onboarding: Use a canvas to provide new hires with automated checklists and hardware request forms directly in their onboarding channel. The workflow can be packaged and shared across all hiring managers.
• IT support automation: Intake help requests through no-code forms that integrate with ServiceNow for automated ticket creation and “case swarming” to resolve issues faster.

Tip 3: Empower your internal evangelists

Technology alone doesn’t drive adoption! Here’s what has worked for our customers:

• Build a champions network: Recruit volunteers from each department to offer coaching and lead by example
• Encourage best practices: Have champions gently guide newcomers (e.g., reminding them to use threads for organized discussions)
• Gather continuous feedback: Use workflow forms to collect qualitative feedback from users
• Celebrate wins: Share success stories and adoption metrics in leadership channels

4. Share self-service resources to accelerate adoption

Transitioning your organization doesn’t require a massive retraining program. Instead, you can empower your users with on-demand resources that allow them to learn at their own pace. You can also empower your users with these on-demand resources:

• Slack Help Center: This is your comprehensive home for documentation. Whether a user needs to know how to set up their notifications or an admin needs to configure an integration, the Help Center provides clear, step-by-step guides for every feature.
• Slack Skills badges: We offer a free certification program designed specifically for users. These interactive courses allow your team to earn badges in areas like “Slack Basics” or “Workflow Builder.” It’s a great way to gamify the learning process and recognize the internal “Slack Champions” who can help their peers.
• The “Slack 101” canvas: Consider creating a permanent canvas in a company-wide channel (like #announcements or #general) that links directly to these resources. This gives everyone a single, unmissable jumping-off point for their Slack journey.

Ready to explore a migration from Teams to Slack?

The switch from Teams to Slack is a strategic opportunity to transform how your organization collaborates. With the right approach, you’ll wonder why you didn’t make the move sooner.

Here’s how to get the ball rolling:

• Request a demo: See how Slack addresses your specific use cases
• Run a pilot: Start with one department to prove the value
• Build your business case: We’ll help you calculate ROI based on your organization’s metrics
• Plan your migration: Work with our Customer Success team to create your customized migration roadmap

You can also contact our Sales team to learn more about our solutions or migrating to Slack.

Frequently Asked Questions

“Can Slack and Microsoft 365 integrate?” 

Absolutely. Slack is designed to be the collaboration layer that sits on top of your existing technology stack so you can:

• Continue using Microsoft 365 for documents, email, and calendaring
• Connect Outlook calendar to Slack for status updates
• Share OneDrive and SharePoint files directly in Slack channels
• Use Microsoft authentication for SSO

Slack doesn’t force you to rip out your existing infrastructure—it makes it work better together.

“What about our existing Teams data?”

All messages, files, and channel structures can be migrated. Nothing needs to be lost.

“Will we need to retrain everyone?”

Slack’s intuitive interface means most users are productive within hours. Offering optional Skills Badges training accelerates advanced feature adoption.

“What about compliance and security?”

Slack is SOC 2, SOC 3, ISO/IEC 27001, and HIPAA compliant, with enterprise-grade security features including Enterprise Key Management, Data Loss Prevention, and eDiscovery. For an added layer of security, you can also require your members and guests to use two-factor authentication (2FA) when they sign in to Slack.

“How much will this cost in time and resources?”

Most migrations require 1-2 weeks for planning and 2-3 weeks for execution. The productivity gains typically offset costs within the first quarter.