A shared channel where someone is greeting people from their partner company

External Communication and Collaboration

A better way to connect with people outside your company

Slack Connect transforms the way you work alongside your partners, vendors or customers by moving conversations out of siloed email threads and into the same place.

Get more done in Slack Connect

Whether you're working with vendors or sealing deals with a client, Slack Connect is here to help.

  • 4x

    faster deal cycles for a sales team

  • 64%

    decrease in backlog tickets for a customer support team

  • 2x

    faster close in company acquisition for a business development team

Claims and figures based on specific teams using Slack Connect at their companies. Results may vary at your organisation.

A sample connect conversation in Slack
a1-bigcorp
Zoe Maxwell13:09Thanks A1 Marketing team! We'd like to move forward with the proposal. What are our next steps?
🎉1
Lisa Dawson13:15Amazing! Let me share the contract to be signed here.
Big Corp is in this channel
Message #a1-bigcorp

Connect faster with your partners

Get started with Slack Connect

A sample connect conversation in Slack
a1-bigcorp
Zoe Maxwell13:09Thanks A1 Marketing team! We'd like to move forward with the proposal. What are our next steps?
🎉1
Lisa Dawson13:15Amazing! Let me share the contract to be signed here.
Big Corp is in this channel
Message #a1-bigcorp

Connect securely with outside organisations

  • Keep your work secure with Slack’s enterprise-grade security features and compliance standards
  • Gain secure access to communicate and collaborate confidently with partner organisations
  • Reduce your team’s exposure to the email phishing and spam attacks that come with email

Learn more about Slack’s enterprise-grade security

Image of users communicating securely through Slack
Image of users communicating securely through Slack

Connect tools and automate workflows

  • Easily book meetings, share documents and simplify various other routine tasks with apps
  • Streamline processes and speed up collaboration by building and connecting new workflows across organisations

Apps to use in Slack Connect

Icons for apps like Salesforce and Google Drive connecting to Slack

How to get started

It only takes a few clicks to start working closely with vendors, customers and more

1. Create the channel

Click the + button next to Channels in your sidebar. Name the channel, and click Create.

2. Send the invite

Invite your partner right from Slack. If you're on the Business+ or Enterprise Grid subscription, you can also copy and share the link provided.

3. Wait for your partner

After they click on the link, they’ll be taken back to Slack to accept and set up the channel on their end.

4. Get admin approval

Depending on your settings, the invitation may be sent to an admin on each team for approval.

  • Peloton
  • Target
  • Uber
  • Major League Baseball (MLB)
  • Time
  • Autodesk
  • Airbnb

Frequently asked questions

All of Slack’s subscriptions include the ability to send a one-to-one message to someone outside your organisation via Slack Connect. However, to share channels across orgs, you’ll need to be on one of Slack’s paid subscriptions.

If you are on the Enterprise Grid subscription, external partners on a free subscription can join Slack Connect channels without having to upgrade or start a free trial. If you are on a different paid subscription, that’s not a problem! Once you’ve invited your partners to collaborate with Slack Connect, if they’re eligible, they’ll get a 90-day free trial of Slack’s Pro subscription.

You can invite someone outside your company to share a channel in Slack. Or, skip the channels for now and send an invitation to start exchanging direct messages – just like you would with other DMs!

It really only takes a few clicks to start working closely with vendors, customers and more. Our sales team would be happy to help you get started.

Great question! Channels in Slack transform the way that you work with your colleagues. Similarly, Slack Connect makes it possible to work in channels with people from outside your company, as well. With Slack Connect, you don’t need to give people access to your whole Slack workspace – just the channels that you need to collaborate in.

With Slack Connect, admins can maintain control over their organisation’s data and monitor external access. And unlike collaborating via email – which leaves users open to the risk of spam and phishing – working in channels only allows teams to receive messages and files from verified members. Learn more about the enterprise-grade security built into Slack Connect here.

Slack Connect makes working with people from other companies as fast and simple as working with your teammates on Slack. That makes it ideal for collaborating with external partners, vendors and customers. The fast, efficient communication in Slack channels and direct messages can help teams across companies to:

• Build stronger customer relationships
• Decrease response times
• Speed up sales cycles
• Seize new opportunities
• Connect workflows across organisations

Plus, it’s all backed by Slack’s enterprise-grade security. Get more ideas from our article on communicating better with external partners