Slack Enterprise Grid What is it, what is it for and what does it offer us differently from the free version?

Today, one of the most valuable and effective tools available to the business world in the digital environment, it’s Slack. Since, being a new instant messaging platform based on simplify and optimize communication between team membershas guaranteed a good solution for companies to obtain greater productivity in the development of your projects.

In this sense, slack it is characterized by implement the unification of the different data necessary to achieve the objectives setas for Provide a secure business environment by protecting such information. Additionally, it provides excellent customization for each member’s experience. a workspace in Slackgiven that supports various configurations.

Therefore, in order to adjust to the requirements of a certain company, offers several payment plans that remove the limitations that free accounts have, by default. One of them, refers to Enterprise Grid that emerges as a more advanced alternative compared to the others and that is why, in this post, we will know more closely what it consists of.

What is Slack Enterprise Grid and what is this fee for?

From the year 2017, Slack began promoting its new paid version to its largest customers, with the main goal of enable large-scale deployments. Which means that, Enterprise Grid it is a plan designed for large organizations, mainly. Whereby, reveals several advantages in terms of structure, design and utility.

In that sense, this solution for large organizations can be defined as a paid version of Slack that provides the necessary tools so that large companies take advantage of shared resources and knowledge, with the agility of a small business. Since it helps interconnect multiple workspaces from a single organizationeffectively.

Therefore, Slack Enterprise Grid is a utility that serves to work online in different channels within separate, well-defined workspaces belonging to a single institution. As a result, members will be able to stay better connected at all times while they carry out their work to achieve the goals set by the company in question, in each project to be developed.

As a consequence, these workspaces are usually created for each business unit or department with complete flexibility to be able to adapt to the needs of the organization. So, Enterprise Grid provides an unlimited number of interconnected workspaces and with it, increases the agility of all workers to work as a team and also take care of the fulfillment of their certain steps in the company through centralized tools.

What are the features of the Slack Enterprise Grid subscription?

By default, the Enterprise Grid plan is the one with the most effective tools on the platform in order to guarantee security and regulatory compliance within any large organization.

However, beyond understanding this very fundamental peculiarity, Slack users are unaware of most features of Enterprise Grid. Therefore, in order to learn more about this Slack solution and thus specify if it is what you need for your company at that time; it is worth detailing its features of greatest interest.

Reason why, below, we mention these characteristics one by one:

• Specifically, it is estimated as a utility that offers the possibility of search across all workspaces so you can be more productive. Therefore, you won’t have to carry out tedious search processes in all these groups when locating a specific file or message.
• It is an ideal option to be able to make use of multi-space channels and thereby facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration of members. Especially for the owners and administrators of the organization in general.
• At the level of communication, it is very helpful because allows sending direct or group messages to any participant. This, regardless of whether you are included in several workspaces, thanks to the fact that it implements centralization in one place to simplify the tracking of your chat history.
• By nature, Enterprise Grid is a useful option for share channels with external organizations unlimitedly. As a result, you can collaborate with other companies or partners productively, just as you do with internally shared channels.
• It has optimal built-in security features, such as: Encryption of data in transit and at rest, granular application management, SAML-based single sign-on (SSO), custom terms of service, domain name claiming, SCIM provisioning, and real-time Active Directory synchronization, etc. .
• Ensures excellent integration with best-of-breed products for enterprise mobility management (EMM), data loss prevention (DLP), security information and event management (SIEM), as well as E-Discovery and archiving.

Beyond this, Enterprise Grid also stands out from other paid plans for the extra features it adds. Since, apart from providing all the benefits that the Plus version guarantees, it also has certain additional functions drawn up for great organizations, especially.

These complementary functions are the following:

• Large file storage capacity, because it offers a total of 1 TB or 1000 GB for each member.
• Equipment completely exclusive to drive customer satisfaction and on specific accounts.
• Support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with an estimated initial response time of 4 hours. Likewise, offers custom packages that are tailored to the needs of each company.
• Support for third-party data loss prevention (DLP) providers, as well as eDiscovery and offline backup.
• Security management, integration, compliance and billing through the same view.

Organization vs. Workspace How are these Slack features different?

Another special feature of Slack’s Enterprise Grid, consists of the organization in front of the work spaces that it provides. Since, these two functionalities are linked to each other to provide an optimal experience to companies and, at the same time, there are certain discrepancies that need to be taken into account.. So, first of all, it fits highlight that, a Slack organization is made up of multiple workspaces depending on certain departments that correspond to said organization.

Therefore, while the organization has the power to manage certain utilities, the workspaces have other commissions established by the same platform, in general terms. However, one of the most important differences of all between them refers to the roles and permissions they hold. Valuing that, by nature, all members are connected at the organization level.

But in the scope of this owners and administrators are in charge of adjusting the preferences of the organization, as well as defining specific members and guests to enter the appropriate workspaces and/or channels. Secondly, in the field of working groupseach of them is managed by certain owners and administrators who make sure that they remain efficient.

Let’s see below:

Organization Specialties

• Settings and preferences. Be it custom terms of service, channel management, message modification or deletion policies.
• Member access and administration. Therefore, they can manage user groups, as well as accounts and even applications.
• Security settings. To enable two-factor authentication and make it mandatory, and even to require single sign-on.
• Billing. This, in terms of license agreements, company details, etc.

Workspace specialties

• The organization is made up of workspaces and has an unlimited number of them. In such a way, it is possible manage specific sites for each class of work to interconnect members and centrally provide them with the data and applications to do their jobs.
• There is the possibility of creating multi-space channels. which are ideal for link two or more workspaces within a single organization. Thus, interdisciplinary communication is more effective and coherent.
• Both direct messages as the search function in the same way between all workspaces used within the organization in question.

Learn step by step how to sign up for Enterprise Grid from Slack and upgrade your account

If you wish acquire better management for your organization through SlackWhether it’s unlimited workspaces, dedicated customer satisfaction teams, leveraging support for data loss prevention (DLP) providers, and/or HIPAA-compliant message and file collaboration ; It is appropriate to pay for an Enterprise Grid type plan on this platform.

Therefore, since many people do not know how they can contract this Slack plan for their large organization, in this section of the post, we will detail the main steps to follow to carry it out correctly:

• First of all, you have to contact the platform’s sales team that will help you learn about pricing and explore use cases in your industry. To do this, go to the following link https://app.slack.com/plans/T01D41GJE2C?geocode=es-ve and in the Enterprise Grid section, Click the “Contact Sales” button.

• Then in the next window, enter all the data indicated. Be it first names, last names, work email address, company, company size, country, etc.
• In the case of “Size of the company”, it is essential to select the option closest to the number of employees your organization has. Well, based on this information, Slack will be able to better guide you to choose the most suitable plan for her.
• In addition, through the drop-down menu of “How can our sales team help you?”you can choose the option that indicates “I want to find out which Slack plan is right for me”, if you haven’t hired one yet. Or, some other option in favor of verifying that if you need to use an Enterprise Grid.
• Once you fill in all the corresponding fields, you just have to Click the button that says “Send”.

• Thanks to this, the sales team of slack will be able to focus on the requirements of your company and in this way, will cooperate in defining the most pertinent alternative for your organization. Taking into account that, specifically, the price of a plan of Enterprise Grid It will depend on the needs of the institution, since this is determined according to the number of people who are part of it. But, by default, costs are higher than Slack Standard and Slack Plus plans.
• Now, once you get a response from the service, with its help, it will be much easier to know whether or not you require an Enterprise Grid plan. Also, if you want to hire him, the same sales team of Slack will inform you about the steps to follow to make the payment and with it, start enjoying this most advanced utility.

Tips for getting the most out of an Enterprise Grid account

Although it is true, to use correctly Slack’s Enterprise Grid plan and get it all up and running with complete success, it is important to know certain tricks or guides that will help you better structure your companymaking the most of the tricks provided by an account of this type.

Therefore, it is essential to implement the following tips that we offer below:

Organize and name channels

One of the most effective ways to keep all the conversations of your work team well organized, consists in defining some guidelines for naming channels and that, thanks to this, people can easily find what they are looking for in the business environment. Well, the communication slack and teamwork run in channels that allow discussing work issues and sharing tools.

In this sense, so that the members of your workspace obtain the context they require to better carry out their tasks, it is worth create Slack channels aligned with your organization’s structure This makes it much faster and more efficient.

To do this, you can start with very wide channels and then convert them into more specific channels, for instance. Additionally, it is also useful to encourage the use of public channels and to create standard channel prefixes so that any user can easily find the corresponding channel.

Thus, when creating channel prefixes, we recommend using a series of standard prefixes that are consistent and descriptive, such as:

• equipment-: It is useful for teams to establish and coordinate certain tasks and/or activities. For example: #design-team either #team-sales.
• aid-: It can be an opportune channel to find information about other teams or departments and to ask specific questions. For example: #help-benefits either #help-finance.
• event-: Allows you to plan, coordinate and do both large and small team events. For example: #event-marketing-board either #event-company-picnic.

Use an original structure and design

With Enterprise Gridyou may set aside structures and/or static design. Since this plan slack allows that these parameters of each organization can be adjusted to the requirements of these and even, change over time. Considering that, it is special that this is a reflection of the current structure of the company.

Therefore, the design, structure, and size of your Enterprise Grid organization they will be unique and exclusive, as far as possible. This can be achieved by migrating existing spaces into your organization, creating new workspaces, or designing your project team framework, for example; in order to create a more effective organization.

How to migrate existing spaces to your organization?

Specifically, organization owners have the ability to migrate existing workspaces, as well as view and approve such migrations. Whereas, when it comes time to move a certain workspace, the customer satisfaction team will be in charge of scheduling the migration and owners will be notified of this with a Slackbot notification.

So, to approve the migrations, the following must be done:

• From your computer, open slack and enter the workspace to click on your name which is in the upper left.
• Then you have to choose the option “Settings and administration” to be able to click on “Organization Settings”.
• Next, you need to click on “Organization” and press on “Migrations”.
• Later, it is time to see the scheduled migrations and select “Approve” or “Reject” (according to what you prefer). Besides, to check which migrations are in progress, you can click on “View status”.

How to create new workspaces?

In this case, both owners and administrators of organizations have the necessary permissions to create new workspaces. Which helps to connect all the people and applications that are required to be able to work effectively, across an unlimited number of workspaces. slack with your version Enterprise Grid.

To do this, you need to do the following:

• Sign in to the Slack website from your computer, enter your account and click on the name of your workspace (located in the upper left).
• Later, in the menu, click on “Settings and administration” for later select “Organization Settings”.
• now you have to click on “Organization” and proceed to choose the option “Work spaces”.
• Next, you just have to go to the top right to Click on “Create a workspace”.
• It’s time to choose a name and a domain for the new workspace. Also, you can add a description and so on, click “Next”.
• Followed by it, select how organization members can access your workspace and conclude this by clicking on “Create a workspace”Finally.

How to design your project team framework?

Thanks to Enterprise Grid allows you to ensure that the design, structure and size of your organization are completely original and exclusive, you can choose streamline your project team framework with good delineation. For which, it is useful to take into account large segments such as brands, geographies, divisions, etc..

In that sense, once you decide on the design in question, you simply have to use a combination of some methods noted above (move existing workspaces, create new workspaces, etc.) to create your Enterprise Grid. Valuing that, the organization of your company will be able to treasure from one workspace to more than 1,500, depending on your requirements.

For its part, a clear simplified example of an Enterprise Grid framework refers to:

• global workspace: For company or brand ads, benefits, facilities, human resources, legal, and IT.
• Marketing and sales workspace: For social networks, advertising, marketing, events and editorial team.
• Customer service workspace: For user training, as well as help, documentation, and content.
• social work space: For non-work channels and/or special interest groups, fitness enthusiasts, pets, soup kitchens, etc.
• Product and engineering workspace: For product research, development, layout and engineering.

Includes apps and tools

Another trick that is effective is to increase collaboration in the workflow of your company connecting your apps and/or tools to Slack. Since, with the help of it, you will spend less time jumping from one application to another to be able to do what you need.

So, luckily, once you connect your tools to slack, you will be able to solve urgent tasks faster, remove obstacles in terms of communicationstreamline decision-making processes, promote the different projects and make work more enjoyable every day, in short. Well, by bringing together the necessary applications in a single environment, Slack can become the ideal place for your team.

Therefore, from the Slack App Directoryyou have the option of install and incorporate apps that connect your workspace with external toolssuch as: google drive, GitHub, Zendesk, Asana, etc. With which, you will receive all the updates and information in the same place where you are working in order to stop jumping between different windows constantly.

In addition to that, you can also create your own integrations using the Slack API. Taking into account that, by nature, custom integrations are considered as tools tailored to your institution and thanks to this, you can share statistics from your internal database or provide orientation to new employees, for example. That is, they help you link your workspace with your internal proprietary systems easily.

Configure security preferences, according to your needs

While it is true, it is essential to keep your organization protected of Enterprise Grid, at all times. Since this is appropriate for protect the information handled thereAs for preserve the integrity of each member. Reason why, it is recommended to configure security preferences in organizations. In this sense, slack allows its users monitor the various interconnected workspaces of your companythrough the administration panel of each of these groups.

This specifically thanks to Enterprise Grid management controls that have been designed to safeguard great organizations. Therefore, the administration panel provides a central and exclusive point of access for owners and administrators, so that they can manage complex organizations as they grow and evolve.

Thus, some of the most essential basic settings that you must initially configure regarding security are:

Activate mandatory two-factor authentication

By default, the 2FA authentication he is able to add an extra layer of security to Slack accounts during login and this is ideal to avoid certain intrusions.

Therefore, to maintain security, administrators and owners can make this functionality mandatory for each member as follows:

• On your computer, sign in to your account. slack Y select your workspace name at the top.
• then click “Settings and administration” to proceed to choose “Workspace Settings”.
• Afterwards, press on “Authentication”. There, next to Two-factor authentication for the entire workspace, press the button “Expand”.
• Then you have to press “Turn on two-factor authentication for my workspace” and done that, you must enter your password.
• Once you do the above, if you wish, you can customize slackbot message to send to all members of the workspace.
• Finally, Click on “Activate two-factor authentication”. Automatically, the participants will receive an email and a message from slackbot who will be able to help you with the relevant configuration.
• If any member decides not to configure the 2FA authenticationfor a period of 24 hours you will be signed out of Slack and the system will prompt you to set up this function in order to log in again.

Limit the length of sessions

Owners and administrators of workspaces, as well as those of organizations, have the power to manage the duration of the sessions in order to restrict the time members are in the workspace and, in addition, ensure that these users log back in periodically. which helps to get much more security in this environment.

Now, to do this on Enterprise Grid, you need to do the following:

• Sign in to your account slack using the web version from the PC and press the name of your workspace.
• Next, in the menu that appears, click on “Settings and administration” and select “Organization Settings”.
• Then choose the option “Security” in the left column and click on “Security Settings”.
• After that, search “Session duration” and there, press the button that says “Activate”.
• Now it’s time to choose the period of time that has to elapse before requesting that members re-enter or re-authenticate on the platform.
• To conclude, you just have to click on “Activate” and ready.

Claim domains for your organization

In case your institution has several web domains, Slack Enterprise Grid helps you claim them to make it easier to get connected workspaces to your organization, as well as to prevent people from creating new workspaces without your authorizationoutside the organization. Being this, an action that only organization owners can carry out.

In that sense, to claim the domains of your organization with the owner role, you have to do the following step by step:

• Accede to slack Y Click the button that says “Contact Us”in the upper right corner of the page.
• Next, you must click on “Write a message”.
• After that, in the field indicated “How can we help you?”you have to specify which domains you want to whitelist for your Enterprise Grid organization.
• If you need remove some domain, you can also detail this and mention which one(s) they are.

Invite new members to join your organization

To get the most out of your Slack Enterprise Grid and gain much more productivity for your organization, it is also advised include new members to join your workgroup. Valuing that, this guarantees much more ease when interconnecting with other people in order to achieve certain objectives set. Fortunately, this Slack plan provides a few methods for inviting and adding new members that allow you to implement this successfully.

Some of the most effective of them refer to:

Invite more members to your workspace

If you want to optimize communication in the channels you make up your Slack workspaceit is appropriate to know how to invite more members to your workspace no matter if you are also new there. Because, as well as Workspace Owners and Admins, members also have this power.

Now, to be able to make these invitations, the indicated process is:

• Using the web version of Slack on your computer, sign in to your account and locate the name of your workspace to click on it.
• then click “Invite other members to [nombre del espacio de trabajo]” inside the menu.
• Next, you have to select the option “Members” and enter all the email addresses of the users you want to invite.
• If you need to invite a lot of people and want to speed up the process, you can click “Add many at once” at the bottom, to copy and paste the email addresses and so on, click on “Add guests”.
• Lastly, simply subtract click on “Send invitations” to click on “Clever”.

Add collaborators

with the plan Enterprise Gridowners and administrators have the option of add guest collaborators to workspaces. Taking into account that, to include this type of guests, users with said roles will be able to adjust the preferences according to their needs and/or those of the organization.

So, they have the possibility to modify the permissions to add collaborators guests and this can be done as follows:

• Start by accessing your Slack account through your computer and once you do, select the name of your workspace in the upper left.
• Now, in the menu that they show you, choose “Administration” and then tap on “Organization Settings”.
• After that, click on “Settings” from the left sidebar and select “Organization Policies”.
• Once the above is done, it’s time to click on the “Permissions” tab and click on the option “Add Policy” found in the Guest Invitations section.
• Then go back to choose “Add Policy” from the option to expand the settings corresponding to Guest Contributor Invitations.
• You can then start choose who will have the power to add guests to the organizationfrom now on.
• When you do all this, it only remains Click on “Add Policy” to proceed to Click on “Create Policy” and confirm the action in such a way.

Is it worth buying Enterprise Grid from Slack? When is it convenient to do it?

In general terms, it is convenient to purchase an Enterprise Grid plan from Slack when dealing with large companies or all those organizations that are in highly regulated sectors. Since, due to its differences with the other Slack rates, this one has been specially designed for them in order to optimize your work environment at all levels.

But, beyond knowing this, users wonder if it is really worth buying Enterprise Grid from Slack. So then we make a brief comparison of said plan with respect to Slack Standard and Slack Plus which are the other payment solutions of the platform.

In this way, you can be aware of which option suits you and thus specify if you require an Enterprise Grid account to meet the needs of your company:

ASPECTS TO CONSIDER	STANDARD SLACK	SLACK PLUS	ENTERPRISE GRID
cost per month	€7.50/person per month (with monthly billing). €6.25/person per month (with annual billing).	€14.10/person per month (billed monthly). €11.75/ person per month (with annual billing).	Personalized quote from the Slack sales team. However, in general, the price is higher than that of the Standard and Plus plans.
Total storage capacity	10 GB for each team member	20 GB of storage for each member	1000 GB of per member (or 1 TB)
Support from the platform	priority assistance	24/7 support with an initial response time of 4 hours. Availability of 99.99% guaranteed in our SLA	24/7 support with an initial response time of 4 hours. Availability of 99.99% guaranteed in our SLA. Exclusive teams for customer satisfaction and accounts.
Feature Highlights	Unlimited message archive. Unlimited apps. Work securely with other organizations with Slack Connect.	SAML-based single sign-on (SSO). Data exports for all messages. User Management.	Unlimited workspaces. Support for Data Loss Prevention (DLP) providers, eDiscovery, and offline backups. HIPAA compliant message and file collaboration.

So ultimately, if you need to have a large storage space for each memberas well as acquiring the best possible support from the service, making use of an unlimited number of workspaces and being able to use various much more advanced features of Slack, it is recommended that you choose to pay an Enterprise Grid rate. Since, naturally, this guarantees complete management for large companies and manages to optimize all areas of the same.