Slack is our main form of communication on the team, our "hub". This is where we have discussions day to day, post updates, and talk outside of meeting times.

Everyone is encouraged to post and ask questions in the public channels over private messages, so everyone can learn together, but if you feel more comfortable asking questions in DMs, THAT’s OKAY! See UTAT-Team-Transparency

Onboarding

  1. If you haven’t already received it, ask a lead for the Slack invite link
  2. Watch the slack onboarding videos: What is Slack?
  3. Download and install the Slack desktop client. You may also optionally download the mobile app.
  4. Join the team channels that interest you.

Best Practices

The primary platform for team communication is Slack. People should avoid having important conversations in DMs, as the free Slack plan does not allow us to retrieve messages from DMs for security reasons. We should avoid loss of technical knowledge in DMs.

We are using the free version of Slack, so it retains only the last 10,000 messages. If you pay for premium, you'll get access to all the previous messages that you couldn't see. So be aware the Slack erases messages. In practice, it's about 2-3 months worth of content. So if something is important, write it in another platform. Don't rely on Slack having it.

Admin

Slack