Invite external organizations to share a channel
With Slack Connect, you can invite external partners to share a channel in Slack, allowing you to collaborate from your separate workspaces.
There are three steps to sharing a channel:
- Your organization invites other organizations (up to 19) to join one of your channels.
- Invited organizations can accept or decline the invitation.
- If accepted, the invitation must be approved before the channel is shared.
Note: To share a channel, every participating organization must be using one of Slack’s paid plans. If you're using the free version of Slack, learn how to upgrade your workspace.
Channel ownership
When you invite other organizations to share a channel, your organization will own the channel. Only the organization that owns the channel can do the following:
- Invite external organizations to share the channel.
- Remove organizations from the channel.
- Continue using the channel if it’s no longer shared (the channel will be archived for external organizations).
Invite other organizations to share a channel
You can share a channel from your desktop or mobile device. Keep in mind that invitation links expire after seven days. If an invitation expires before it’s accepted or approved, you can copy a new invitation link to share.
Note: If you'd like to invite additional organizations to a channel shared before June 24, 2020, someone from the invited organization will need to allow the channel to be shared with multiple organizations first.
Create and share a new channel
Desktop
iOS
Android
- From your desktop, click your workspace name in the top left.
- Select Create a channel from the menu.
- Enter a channel name and a description, and decide if you’d like to make the channel private. For more details, see Create a channel.
- Check the box next to Share outside [your workspace name], then click Next.
- Enter the email address(es) you’d like to send an invitation link to, then click Send. You can also click Copy share link to share an invitation link outside of Slack.
- Click Done.
- Tap the Home tab at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap the plus icon next to Channels.
- Tap Create in the top-right corner.
- Enter a channel name and a description, and tap the toggle next to Public if you’d like to create a private channel. For more details, see Create a channel.
- Check the box next to Share outside [your workspace name].
- Tap Share a Link to share an invitation link outside of Slack. You can also tap Choose from Contacts to search for and select the contacts you’d like to send an invitation link to.
- Tap Done.
- Tap the Home tab at the bottom of the screen.
- Tap the plus icon next to Channels.
- Tap the plus icon in the bottom-right corner.
- Enter a channel name and a description, and tap the toggle next to Public if you’d like to create a private channel. For more details, see Create a channel.
- Check the box next to Share outside [your workspace name].
- Tap Share a Link to share an invitation link outside of Slack. You can also tap Choose from Contacts to search for and select the contacts you’d like to send an invitation link to.
- Tap Done.
Share an existing channel
When you share an existing channel, members of other organizations can view the channel’s message history, members, and bots.
Desktop
iOS
Android
- From your desktop, open the channel you'd like to share.
- Click details in the top right.
- Click Organizations.
- Select Share Channel.
- Enter the email address(es) you’d like to send an invitation link to, then click Send. You can also click Copy share link to share an invitation link outside of Slack.
- Click Done.
- Open the channel you'd like to share.
- Tap details in the top right.
- Tap Additional Options.
- Tap Share with another organization.
- Tap Share a Link to share an invitation link outside of Slack. You can also tap Choose from Contacts to search for and select the contacts you’d like to send an invitation link to.
- Tap Done.
- Open the channel you’d like to share.
- Tap details in the top right.
- Scroll down to Advanced, then tap Share with another organization.
- Tap Share a Link to share an invitation link outside of Slack. You can also tap Choose from Contacts to search for and select the contacts you’d like to send an invitation link to.
- Tap Done.
Note: If you've sent an invitation link but change your mind before it's been accepted, ask an owner or admin to write in to us. We'll revoke the invitation for you.
What's next?
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Anyone who receives your invitation to share a channel can choose to accept or decline it. For more details on how the invited organization can do this, visit Accept an invitation to share a channel.
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When someone accepts your invitation to share a channel, it must be approved by someone from your organization with permission to manage shared channels (and possibly also someone from the invited organization, depending on their workspace settings).
Note: In the future, we plan to increase the maximum number of organizations that can share a channel. If your team would benefit from working with more than 19 other organizations, reach out to us — we’d love to learn more!
- All members (but not guests)
- Standard, Plus, and Enterprise Grid plans