Slack

In IT, Slack is our apex communication tool, above email and even A/V calls. Slack should be used primarily for professional but relatively informal communication. Slack should specifically NOT be used for:

Obtaining approvals
Documenting decisions
Storing official company records or documents
Sharing personal or sensitive information regarding any individuals

Internal Slack messages between team members are always considered professional communication. Please do not use or add emoji’s to slack that are of a political, religious or of a sexual nature. You can refer to the Religion and politics at work section of the handbook. When in doubt, do not use or add the emoji. If you have any concerns about an emoji that was used, please reach out to the author or if you are not comfortable doing so please reach out to your HR Business Partner.

Avoid direct messages

Note: We don’t use the term private message, because these direct messages are not inherently private like a phone call or private letter. The messages are potentially accessible by Workspace admins or via Backups. Slack refers to these types of messages as direct messages themselves.

When using Slack for work-related purposes, please avoid direct messages. Direct messages discourage collaboration. You might actually be contacting the wrong person, and they cannot easily redirect you to the right person. If the person is unavailable at the moment, it is less efficient because other people cannot jump in and help. Use a public channel and mention the person or group you want to reach. This ensures it is easy for other people to chime in, involve other people if needed, and learn from whatever is discussed. If someone sends you a work-related direct message, it is okay to let them know you’d like to take the conversation to a public channel, linking to this section of the handbook.

The process might look something like this:

In the direct message: “Thanks for reaching out, that’s a great question/idea I think the rest of the team could benefit from. I’m going to move this to #public-channel based on our desire to avoid direct messages.”
In the appropriate public channel: “@Person asked question in a DM, pulling that out here if anyone else has input.”
Answer the question in a thread on that channel message, allowing others to benefit.
If you find yourself getting a lot of direct messages that should go in a public channel, consider changing your Slack status to an attention grabbing emoji and set it to something like:
- “Please consider posting in a public channel before direct messaging”
- “Why direct message me when you can post in a public channel?”

If you must send a work-related direct message, don’t start a conversation with “Hi” or “Hey” as that interrupts their work without communicating anything. If you have a quick question, just ask the question directly, and the person will respond asynchronously. If you truly need to have a synchronous communication, start by asking for that explicitly, while mentioning the subject. e.g., “I’m having trouble understanding this issue, can we talk about it quickly?”.

Do not use group direct messages

Use private channels instead of group direct messages. Group direct messages are very hard to maintain, track, and respond to. They also have a key limitation - you can’t add people to the conversation. This is a hindrance to collaboration and transparency. Channels may have a short-term purpose and it is acceptable to leave the channel and/or archive it if you are no longer an active participant or the channel is no longer in use. For projects that require ongoing conversations with multiple teams, private channels are a great option. Follow these naming conventions when creating your channel(s):

Use #proj- to indicate the channel is related to a project
Summarize the project purpose in the name (Ex. #proj-slackmigration)
If you need to loop in other departments or groups, consider creating additional private channels so conversations stay focused. For channel naming, add the department or group to the end of the main channel name. (Ex. #proj-slackmigration-hr)

Use Public Channels

If you use Slack and plan to message 3 or more people, we recommend a channel for issue/project/problem/partnership.
If something is important but not urgent - like complimenting or encouraging the entire team - use email or post in the channel without @-mentioning the team.
It’s not rude to leave a channel. When you’ve had your questions answered or are no longer interested, feel free to leave the channel so it won’t distract you anymore.
The usage of ChatBots for integrations can sometimes depend upon the name of the channel. You should consult the channel about such integrations before changing the name of commonly used/popular channels to avoid inadvertently breaking integrations.

Be respectful of your own time

You should try to avoid information overload in order to be productive and efficient with your time. While it can be tempting to read every message in every Slack channel you subscribe to, it’s very challenging, not expected, and not necessary. One method for avoiding Slack overload is to focus your Slack reading on Starred channels and Threads.

Starred channels are like favorites and allow you to follow messages from those channels easily.
Threads consist of any conversation in which you are mentioned and allow you to easily track conversations in which you have direct involvement.

Use your notification settings liberally. Depending on how you use Slack this could range from limiting notifications to critical messages outside of your working hours to turning off Slack notifications entirely. Find the right balance for you and stick to it.

Be respectful of others’ time

Start by understanding what we mean by respecting time. We should err toward putting material into channels over DMs and public channels over private channels even though we understand that this will generate more messages that can be read by more people. Respecting time is not about reducing the overall volume of channel messages that team members receive. It’s about making sure that messages are targeted, expectations for asynchronous responses are clear, and we are communicating with consideration. The following tips provide ways to work respectfully with others given this context:

If you’re only referring to someone, but don’t actually need their attention and want to spare them from getting notified, spell out their name normally without @ mentioning them.
Slack messages should be considered asynchronous communication, and you should not expect an instantaneous response; you have no idea what the other person is doing.
Because we work globally, you may receive Slack mentions at any time of day. Please consider enabling Slack’s Do not disturb functionality so you don’t get interrupted, for example, in your offtime. You can also use Slack’s Notification schedule tool, this can be found in Slack’s Preferences tab. To access this, open slack, hover your cursor at the top of your screen, click slack, then preferences, under the notifications tab you will see notification schedule. This tool allows you to pick what days / times you get notifications.
Do not feel obligated to respond to Slack messages when you are not working. 6. Feel free to send a colleague a link to these guidelines if the communication in Slack should be done asynchronously.
Please minimize using @here or @channel unless this is about something urgent or important. In chat, try to keep the use of keywords that mention the whole channel to a minimum. They should only be used for pings that are both urgent and important, not just important. By overusing channel mentions, you make it harder to respond to personal mentions promptly since people get pinged too frequently. Additionally, if you are planning to @mention a specific team (Slack User Group), consider the size of the group you are mentioning and the impact of pinging all of these people for the particular situation. If something is important and/or urgent:
- Use @here to notify all currently active members in the room. Please only use @here if the message is important.
- Use @channel to notify ALL members in the room, irrespective of away status. Please only use @channel if the message is important and urgent.
If you are aware that your teammate is on vacation, avoid mentioning them in a high volume channel. It will be difficult to find the information or question when they return. If you need to ensure they refer back to the thread, ensure to send them a link to the relevant Slack message through a direct message.

Managing noise and creating focus in Slack

Slack can be a disorderly place in its default state. Consider implementing the below to add structure and focus, but remember that there will likely be more useful information shared on Slack than you are able to ingest and process on a daily basis, regardless of your approach.

While an intentional effort to organize is important, remember that it’s impossible to know everything. As a team, we may spot information that is missed by others, and we should surface that information when pertinent as we strive to see others succeed. For managing Slack channels, consider blocking a set period of time to review certain channels that makes the most sense for you (i.e. multiple times a day, daily, weekly).

Consider using Slack’s Starred channel function to spotlight three categories of channels, its Mute function to quiet channels which are pulling your focus away too often, and most importantly, its Mark all messages as read function (easily toggled by pressing Shift and Esc simultaneously while on a desktop) to achieve an instantly clear slate.

An example of three spotlight channels approach is below. Slack allows you to organize your sidebar of starred channels with custom sections to visibly raise or lower their priority level, giving you control over what you see first.

Channels important to my job (e.g. a team member in IT may star #it-changesand #infrastructure)
Channels important to Roivant (e.g. #general)
Channels important to my interests (e.g. #puppies-and-kitties, #plant-people, #food)

Manage your Slack notifications

Below are helpful links to best practices and tips on managing your notifications and reducing noise in Slack. We encourage you to regularly check your notification settings to ensure you get more notifications of what is important/relevant to you, and less of what isn’t.

Set aside time to work through notifications

Building dedicated time into your day can help minimize the distractions that Slack can create. Consider using a 15 or 30 minute block in your morning or afternoon to enjoy a cup of coffee and catch up on messages you might have missed. When the time you set comes to an end, close out of the Slack app and move on to your next project. Having a set end time can help you feel more in control, and serves as a reminder that it’s impossible to know everything.

General Guidelines

Everyone can contribute, and while opinions are important to provide perspective, we value proposals and iteration. If the subject is of value to the wider community, consider commenting on an existing issue or opening a new merge request instead.
Use the :white_check_mark: emoji or similar to indicate an inquiry has been answered. Anyone can add the emoji. If you’re not sure, then feel free to leave it up to the person who asked. An emoji indicator is particularly helpful in channels where lots of questions are posted, such as #questions, and #git-help. In general, you can think of emoji reactions as equivalent to body-language responses we use in real-life conversations, such as nodding your head as encouragement when a verbal (or in Slack, written) response might be too much.
In public channels, threads are valuable for keeping conversations together. If you want to respond to a question or comment in a channel, please start a thread instead of responding below them in the channel. This helps to keep the discussion in one place where it is easy to follow, and reduces noise as each message in a thread does not result in an unread message for everyone in the channel.
Unless you’re in an active chat, don’t break up a topic into multiple messages as each one will result in a notification which can be disruptive. Use threads if you want to provide extra info to the question/comment you posted.
If you are having a hard time keeping up with messages, you can update your preferences to have Slack email you all notifications. To change the setting, go to Preferences > Notifications > When I'm not active on desktop... and “send me email notifications.”
If you agree in a message to start a video call (typically by asking “Call?”) the person that didn’t leave the last comment starts the call. So either respond to the “Call?” request with a video link or say “Yes” and let the other person start it. Don’t say “Yes” and start a call 5 seconds later since it is likely you’ll both be creating a video call link at the same time.
As an admin of the Slack workspace, if given the option to “Disable future attachments from this website” when removing an attachment from a message this will block the link/domain from adding attachments in the entire Slack workspace. Be careful and deliberate when choosing this option as it will impact every user in the workspace.
When referencing a Slack thread in a Jira story or service ticket, don’t only link to the thread. Instead:
- Review the contents for confidentiality of colleagues, or any other sensitive information before posting.
- Copy and paste the relevant parts of the thread into the issue using blockquote formatting.
- Add a link to the Slack thread after the link

Key Slack channels

The alphabetically sorted starter list below spotlights a few of Roivant’s (and Roivant IT’s) many Slack channels in an effort to provide guidance to team members regarding the best places to ask specific questions and/or engage in discussion on a variety of topics. See Slack’s Help Center for instructions on browsing all available channels. Many of the below channels are org-private, simply ask in #roivant-if-ref if you’d like to join one.

Channel	Purpose
it-changes	A semi-automated feed of significant changes
it-dev	Anything relating to software development, automation, etc.
it-engineering	Support, Infra and Security engineers
it-rumpus	Permanently off-topic meme delivery
roivant-it-ref	All IT and REF staff

Why are we upgraded to the Enterprise Select tier?

We upgraded tiers to improve efficiency and security with the ability to use Okta to log in to Slack, and improve retention and security options. This will help us scale by improving provisioning and deprovisioning of our corporate systems. This upgrade will also allow us to improve the auditing requirements where identity management is in scope. The Enterprise tier also includes announcement only channels, 99.99% guaranteed up time, 24x7 support with guaranteed response in four hours or less, and the ability of Corporate Export.

When would Roivant use Corporate Export?

The times this feature would be used would be to comply with certain obligations. Corporate Export must be enabled by Slack in accordance with Slack’s policy, which can be found here.

Examples of instances where Roivant may need to use this feature may include, but are not limited to, those situations listed in Slack’s documentation. We will never do this without very good reason.

Are my direct messages and private channel conversations completely private?

Slack is the business-provided internal communications tool to use for collaboration and connecting with team members. Please keep Roivant IT values in mind when communicating directly with other team members. If you have a confidential personal issue that you do not feel comfortable discussing via a business-provided internal communications tool, it is recommended to use a personal form of communication such as a text message or phone call.