Originally announced at Salesforce’s Dreamforce event in 2023, Slack Lists is the new work and project management feature rolling out to teams worldwide. The solution, which became generally available in June 2024, aims to streamline and enhance collaborative work.
After all, we all know how complicated it can be to manage projects and keep teams on track, particularly in today’s hybrid working environment. If your employees constantly have to switch between different project management and collaboration apps, it’s hard for them to stay productive.
Slack Lists brings “to-do” lists and similar project management tables directly into the Slack platform and combines them with AI-powered features.
Slack says this functionality will enhance the flow of work by centralizing the project management workflow in a single, collaborative environment.
What is Slack Lists? Boosting Workplace Productivity
Slack Lists is one of the most exciting features introduced by Slack and Salesforce in 2024. It allows companies to capture, organize, and track the most important tasks for their teams in a centralized environment.
According to Slack, the feature was designed to help companies achieve goals faster by bringing project management into the hub they already use for work. The technology leader believes Lists will be crucial to companies that are constantly struggling to maintain project momentum.
Based on a survey conducted by the firm, only around 34% of projects are consistently completed within budget and on time. That’s because most companies struggle to find a single project management tool that suits the needs of all their employees (from sales to marketing teams).
While current project management tools might be great for team managers, they’re usually not accessed fully by the people actually working on each task. That means employees frequently spend time discussing work outside of project management tools, creating data silos.
Plus, because teams frequently use different apps for different things, this creates a range of licensing headaches, and increases the risk of “duplicative work.”
Who is Slack Lists For? Project Management Democratization
The main purpose behind Slack Lists is to provide companies with a way to bring project and work management into the natural flow of work for every employee. Instead of using separate project management tools that silo information and teams, you can bring everything into one place.
With Slack Lists, teams can effectively capture, organize, and track the most important action items from conversations. They give discussions in Slack more structure, allowing leaders to turn ideas shared into projects with actionable next steps or capture requests from teams.
Plus, they eliminate context switching between apps, ensuring everyone can work together and stay aligned on cross-functional projects. Slack says Lists will support any time at any organization, including teams dedicated to:
- Customer service: CX teams will be able to resolve customers’ problems quickly with step-by-step guides. They can also quickly access support from experts to collaboratively resolve complex problems.
- IT: By managing help desk requests in one place, IT team members will streamline processes and improve response times. They can collect requests from workflow form submissions and assign task owners instantly.
- Sales: Sales teams using Slack and Salesforce in tandem will be able to close deals faster by aligning account teams. They can map out their full account strategy, prepare for customer conversations, and request approvals directly from Slack Lists.
- Marketing: Innovators in the marketing team can use Slack Lists to plan and execute comprehensive, personalized, and engaging marketing campaigns. They’ll be able to plan launches and events more effectively and work cohesively with stakeholders.
The Core Features of Slack Lists
Like most of the features embedded into Slack, Lists is designed to be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.
The Lists interface includes a “board-style” view that allows users to track assigned tasks, monitor their status, and implement their own information. They can even add comments and @mention specific team members.
With Slack Lists, companies can:
1. Manage and Track Projects in Slack
At its heart, Slack Lists gives companies a powerful tool for driving accountability and collaboration throughout project management. Whether you’re planning marketing campaigns or events, preparing for a product release, or onboarding an employee, you can track every step with Lists.
The overall experience makes tracking projects end-to-end simple. Users need only add “fields” (columns) to their boards for assignees, priorities, and status. Once they add items to their “Lists,” they can organize them using filters and different “Views” to group tasks.
Notably, Slack has designed Lists to complement how companies already work in Slack. For instance, you can embed Lists in a canvas brief with project timelines and deliverables. You can also save a message to a list or use Slack Workflow Builder to create automated flows based on Lists.
Plus, Slack is adding artificial intelligence capabilities into the Lists feature, allowing users to rapidly search for information and access project recaps with simple prompts.
2. Collaborate Effectively on Tasks
Slack Lists makes project management more collaborative. According to the company, the features in Slack are designed to work cohesively together to enhance team productivity. For instance, “Threads” in individual items on a List are excellent for keeping teams aligned.
Customer support, sales, and marketing teams can easily pull people into a conversation thread using @mentions. These threads then provide employees with all the contextual information they need to keep up with a project’s progress. You can even create and share video clips with feedback on specific tasks or upload files and share Slack canvasses to provide additional context.
Notably, users will have the freedom to rapidly share all of their Lists across Slack channels and invite single teammates or entire groups to collaborate with a single click. There’s even the option to share Lists with external partners using Slack Connect. There’s no need for any additional licenses, applications, or product training.
3. Automate To-Dos and Triage Requests Across Apps
One of the best things about Slack Lists is that it also empowers companies to unlock the full power of automation, boosting workplace efficiency and productivity. Slack has infused the Lists feature with its intuitive Workflow Builder solution to enable the creation of no-code automated workflows.
With Workflow Builder, companies can create automation in Slack Lists to collect and triage requests faster or manage alerts. You can even set up custom task notifications, allowing employees to access alerts when a List’s status changes or new items are added.
Plus, organizations can build their own custom workflows that align the Slack application with the other tools they’re already using. This feature is enabled by Slack’s plug and play “connectors”, which bridge the gaps between your existing tools.
How to Access Slack Lists
Although Slack and Salesforce initially shared their vision for Slack Lists last year, it has only recently become generally available. Currently, the feature is rolling out to all Slack customers on paid subscriptions. However, it’s uncertain whether this feature will become available to free Slack users. Once your Slack app is updated, you should be able to find Lists instantly.
Just hover over the “More” option in Slack and select “Lists.” Once you click on “New,” you can create a list from scratch or use an existing template. You can then customize your Slack Lists by adding fields (like assignees and priority), with the right panel. Plus, you can add as many items as you want to each List.
Notably, users will also be able to create a specific “view” for their list that allows them to filter tasks by priority and due date. Just click on the “Filters” icon and select “Edit view” to choose how you want to organize List items.
Once you’ve created your List, you can:
- Share it with other users: Click “Share” in the top right corner of your List, and you can decide if everyone in your team should have access to it and whether they should be able to view, edit, or access it in restricted view. In the Channels and People tabs, you can add the names of everyone you want to collaborate on your List, then click “Share.”
- Create message threads: When working in Slack Lists, hover over an action item then click “Add comment”, to start a conversation thread. You can also click “View Comment” to continue responding to an existing thread.
- Enable notifications: To keep tabs on what’s happening in your Slack Lists, click on the item you want to access notifications for and select “Open.” Then, click on the bell icon and select when you want to receive notifications from the drop-down menu list.
Enhancing Work Management in Slack
Ultimately, Slack Lists promises to be a valuable new feature in Slack’s toolkit. It helps to further differentiate the platform as a solution for productivity, collaboration, and project management in the modern world of work. According to Slack’s own studies, users are already seeing excellent results.
During the Pilot period for Lists, 77% of users said that the feature helped to improve their productivity and performance. If you’re already using Slack to collaborate and share knowledge, adding Lists into the mix could help you to take your team’s performance to the next level.
