Courtyards at Southpoint
Tech Tips
By Tommy Worsham
Slack is the primary social media platform residents of Courtyards at Southpoint use to keep up with each other and with activities in our neighborhood. Here are a couple of Tech Tips to help you participate in Slack effectively.
Tip 1: Establishing participation
You must be invited to join, and the easiest way to get an invitation is to send an email to CourtyardsSlack@gmail.com. Your email will receive an automatic response with instructions on how to join, along with brief documentation to get you started.
You are not required to establish a password, but during the signup process, Slack will email you a code that must be entered to confirm your email. If you don’t see this confirmation email in your inbox, please check your spam folder. Once you sign onto Slack from a device, you typically remain signed on and are not required to re-enter your credentials on that device.
Tip 2: Joining an interest group on Slack
Our Slack system is divided into “channels,” which each user can join or leave, depending on your interests. Many of these channels are devoted to interest groups. The channel names are organized with a common prefix and have the following naming convention:
# interest-[activity-name]
Slack members may “browse” the list of channels at any time to find ones they would like to join. The following screenshots show this sequence when using a computer. The process starts with finding the “Channels” label in the left sidebar and then clicking on the three vertical dots to the far right. Then click on “Manage” and then “Browse channels” as shown below:
Once you click on “Browse channels,” you will see a list of all available channels. The screenshot below shows an example of just a few of the channels available. If you are already a member of a channel, it will indicate that you have already joined. Since I have no artistic talent at all, I’m not a member of the # interest-art-club, the first one on the list. However, it tells me 25 members have joined the channel, and when I hover over the name of the channel, it offers to let me open it to see what’s there or just click on “Join” to immediately become a member:
When using Slack on mobile devices, the mechanism to browse channels will be different. The screenshot below is from the Slack app on an iPhone. If you click on “+ Add channel,” you will get a pop-up window with an option to “Browse Channels.” Other mobile devices could be different, so users should be prepared to experiment with their own device as required.
