Leading collaboration company, Slack, has been celebrating Frontiers 2019, their annual event in San Francisco over the last couple of days. The conference, running over the 24th and 25th of April, covered a range of exciting new announcements from Slack about up-and-coming features, tools, and partnerships.
On the first day of Frontiers, Slack announced a brand-new “email bridge” to help customers who still want access to the email environment to communicate more seamlessly from a single-pane-of-glass. The new email bridge is designed to allow companies to migrate to collaborative tools at their own pace, or simply combine the collaboration and email landscapes.
The second day of Slack Frontier’s brought announcements of a new Zoom partnership, new mobile native security controls, and extended HIPAA functionality
What’s New for Slack?
The first and most exciting announcement from Slack Frontier’s second day is an upcoming partnership with Zoom – the leading video collaboration company. Zoom is deepening their existing relationship with Zoom and building on top of the Zoom integration for the app. Currently, more than 10,000 Slack teams already rely on Zoom’s app each month – that’s an upgrade of 200% from only a year ago.
Upcoming features of the deepening investment include the opportunity to manage your Zoom meetings from within your Slack user interface, and the option to make calls to Slack users over data, WiFi, and cell connections through Zoom Phone. There will also be access to smarter calendar integrations to save users some valuable time with their scheduling strategies.
Aside from the advanced Zoom integrations, Slack also announced a series of other exciting updates, including the arrival of an expanded solution for HIPAA functionality. The HIPAA solution will help to support organisations in the healthcare space who are sharing protected health information in both Slack messages and files.
Coming Soon to Slack
To finish off the incredible Slack Frontiers event, the team also announced a range of upcoming additions to the Slack user experience too. For instance, users will soon be able to enjoy a broader range of native mobile security controls. This will be particularly beneficial to businesses that want to take advantage of the growing trend for mobile and remote work.
As we all begin to accomplish more on our phones while on-the-go, Slack is giving administrators the option to better control their Slack environment and reduce data exfiltration from “unmanaged” devices. In the months ahead, Slack will be delivering a range of tools such as secondary authentication, which requires facial ID from users, or touch ID before an app can be accessed. Mobile session management for administrators is also coming soon.
Check out our Day One coverage of Slack Frontiers
