See ya Slack

All good things must come to an end as they say and that seems especially true to free online services that work pretty well.

The Tech Department at my school has been using Slack to communicate internally, but to really keep commonly used files, IP addresses and other important information. We liked it because the search was so fast, it was so good and since it could keep 10,000 messages we really had kind of a working repository of important information that we could access on any device with an Internet connection. Ahhh-the good old days.

Changes

Slack has decided to change their free plan from 10,000 messages and 5GB of storage to unlimited messages and storage. What?! Why is that sooo bad? You may ask yourself.

Well the catch here is that it will only keep that data for 90 days and then it is deleted hidden. So our important PDF’s that we want quick access to will be gone (or as good as gone since we cannot search for them anymore) as well as all other notes, files and doohickeys that we deemed important at the moment.

It’s OK

I am not mad at Slack. They are a company and this will undoubtedly drive some users from the free version to the paid version which is really the point here. I knew it couldn’t last and when I saw the news break in mid July I wasn’t angry or disappointed but just a feeling something like this was inevitable.

Since we are a Google school we are switching over to Google Spaces. It seems to provide a similar service but it is not as fast or easy to get to. Everything just seems to take an extra click or two where Slack was much more streamlined.

It’s fine – we need to move our information out of Slack and into Google Spaces. We considered some other options, but this will do. While it may be a bit laborious getting specific files and information out of Slack we should be fine.

Slack was more of a convenience to help streamline our work. It was not an essential part of storing vital information, but a quick way to access it and to help keep us on the same page. Losing it stinks (a little) but we will survive – we’re strong that way.

Source: IT Babble Blog and Podcast