Slack has announced several new features to make it more competitive across different organizations.

During the company’s annual Slack Frontiers conference, they revealed new features like Slack Connect direct messages (which let you send direct messages between two separate Slack organizations), Docusign support, and more.

Here’s a rundown on the new features:

Introducing Slack Connect direct messages

Customers have been asking to be able to connect between organisations with direct messages since we first made it possible for companies to come together in channels.

Today we are unveiling Slack Connect direct messages, enabling secure direct messaging across organisations for the first time. Share your private invite link with a trusted partner, customer or vendor that you work with, and they’ll be able to send you direct messages from their own Slack organisation.

Let’s say you’re at the early stage of a project with a vendor and haven’t set up a channel yet, but you need to start coordinating with one or two team members from that vendor. Now you’ll be able to quickly communicate with Slack Connect DMs. This is a revolutionary step in how people can work quickly and securely with trusted external collaborators. To learn more about Slack Connect DMs, visit our website to get started.

Slack Connect DMs release time frame: Early 2021

Securely connect to external organisations

We build everything with enterprise-grade security in mind, and that’s why we’ve made it easier to spot your trusted partners in Slack Connect. Verified organisations will soon be denoted with a new tick mark feature. So, whenever a member of a verified organisation sends or receives invitations to channels, you know you’re connecting to the right company.

Verified organisations release time frame: Early 2021

In addition to verified organisations, our launch of managed connections will allow admins to pre-approve channel requests with trusted organisations. You’ll be able to securely create the different channels that you’ll need to work with verified customers or vendors without admin involvement every time.

Managed connections release time frame: Early 2021

Speed up work with partners using your favourite tools in Slack

We’re continuing our dedicated partnerships with other organisations so you can streamline work with best-of-breed tools right in Slack. The new DocuSign app enables users to send envelopes, use templates and receive notifications from DocuSign, all from within Slack.

Now partners can securely trade documents for review and signature, including directly from where they’re working in Slack Connect.

DocuSign app release date: Available now

Connect systems and bring key information directly to your team

By bringing events – key notifications, information, actionable alerts – into Slack channels, your teams can collaborate and respond quickly to incidents. And with best-of-breed software integrations available, our platform can accelerate digital transformation at any organisation.

We’re also giving users more flexibility to build custom solutions – no technical experience required.

Integrate apps that you already use with Workflow Builder

You can now further customise and multiply the impact of Workflow Builder, a visual tool that allows any Slack user to automate routine processes. Workflow Builder steps from apps, available today, enable any Slack user to build workflows that integrate tools outside Slack such as Zapier, Datadog and Polly – no code involved.

For example, a support agent can mark an inbound ticket with a pre-determined emoji, triggering a workflow that automatically sends the details to real-time digital operations platform PagerDuty, creating a new incident for engineers to dive into.

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