Slack Analytics — So Much More Than Messages Sent

At Peoplelogic, we’re big believers that the data being generated in the tools people use to get their work done holds a story that can unleash operational excellence. Nearly every company now relies on the use of cloud-based tools—helping organizations build, collaborate, and communicate at scale from anywhere in the world. Slack has become a steadfast pillar in communication in the modern business landscape. The out-of-the-box analytics provided by Slack certainly provide insight around how your team is using the tool, but one critical analytical perspective is missing: what does that usage tell you about your people, processes, and productivity?

History of Slack:

Initially built as the communications backbone of founder and current CEO, Stewart Butterfield’s, video game production company, Tiny Speck, the platform now boasts over 12 million daily users. While the game Tiny Speck was developing, Glitch, turned into a resounding flop, the communications tool that connected Tiny Speck’s Canadian and US offices proved to be a critical asset. This led to the birth of “Slack.” The tool incorporates direct messaging, chat rooms, file sharing, and several other features such as video conferencing. All content, including shared files, messages sent by employees , and conversations are searchable within Slack. Afterall, Slack was named after the backronym, “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.”

Slack Analytics:

Slack provides several analytics right out of the box. The dashboard gives workspace admins insight into how their teams are using their workspace, focusing on:

Where people send the most messages and files (public and private channels vs. direct messages);
Showcase metrics around public channel usage (total members and messages sent);
And the aggregate number of users and messages sent across your entire workspace.

This data can be analyzed and give you a clear picture of who is using Slack, what types of conversations users are commonly using it for (for instance water cooler talk versus team-based discussions), and the channels with the most engagement in the workspace.

What’s Missing:

What the current Slack analytics suite cannot do, however, is tie the data across all the systems you are using to paint a vivid picture of how work is getting done within your organization. Anyone who uses Slack professionally knows that the tool is powerful and often replaces emails and meetings, and can be used as a failsafe backup methodology for knowledge transfer. While Slack does make everything searchable, often companies have a challenging time putting all the pieces back together to get an understanding that can refine decision-making capabilities.

In other words, while on the fly conversations about a client may be happening in Slack, there are also critical components of that same conversation happening in JIRA, CRMs, and across email. With so many tools incorporated into our day-to-day lives it’s hard to put all the puzzle pieces together in one centralized location. Even if you did have the time and energy to tie it all together, you’d need a data analyst who is willing to spend their time downloading all of the reports, aggregating all of the data, structuring that disparate data for analysis, and then spending the time uncovering what story the data holds and how to create actionable steps from it. ($$$$$)

By connecting Slack with your other cloud-enabled tools like JIRA, Gitlab, HubSpot, Salesforce, and the like (checkout our full integrations list) with Peoplelogic, you can start to understand not only how work is getting done, but tie all of that information together and map the transfer of knowledge, information, and activities that have an effect on your prospects, customers, and team. We automatically aggregate and analyze the data across all of your platforms to provide you with a mission control for your team and provide executives with a mission control for their entire organizations.

As our artificial intelligence and machine learning powered models start to understand what makes your team most successful, Peoplelogic starts to surface insights and recommendations that can improve the operational efficiency of your organization, mitigate risks, and help refine your team. You begin to get a level of clarity around the true costs of doing business (acquisition costs, support costs, meetings required, etc.), your most profitable customers, and how your team is interacting and engaging to ensure their success.

With Peoplelogic, you can make faster, more effective data-driven decisions—without the need for costly meetings. The answers hidden within your data, from all of your cloud-enabled platforms, is at your fingertips—even directly within Slack using our AI bot, Lexi. With Lexi, you get untethered access to the insights, recommendations, and data within your Peoplogic account—empowering managers with prescriptive guidance at your fingertips.

Want to incorporate your Slack analytics into meaningful and productive decision-making? Give Peoplelogic.ai a shot and start to better understand your people, processes, and productivity along your journey of achieving operational bliss.

Interested in learning more? Talk to our team today by clicking the chat!