All organizations need to work with teams outside their walls. Determine if guests or shared channels on Slack is right for your team.
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Guest accounts and shared channels
Guest accounts
These are great for working with someone who feels like a member of your organization but needs only limited access to Slack.
It’s important to note that guest accounts:
Are available for paid workspaces. Guests can belong to a single channel or multiple channels.
Can be invited to your workspace just like regular members via the invitations page.
Have icons by their profile photos: a triangle for single-channel guests and a square for multi-channel guests.
Shared channels
Two separate organizations can work together in Slack, each from within their own Slack workspace.
The benefits of shared channels include:
Working with external parties is as straightforward and fluid as working with your own colleagues.
Both teams have a common place to collaborate, loop in the right people on an as-needed basis, and build a collective repository of knowledge that anyone on either team can add to and reference.
Both teams can send messages, share files, and access the channel history.
Any member of the shared channel can also direct-message (DM) any other member in the channel, even if they’re from the other team.
Should I create a guest account or use a shared channel?
If you’re working with…
An individual – Then use a guest account
A team – Then use a shared channel
More and more organizations are moving toward shared channels for the additional control and flexibility they provide—especially when collaborating with two or more people at another company.
Awesome!
