Slack is integrating a set of Office 365 apps into its chat experience that will allow users to connect the calendar with Slack, send email to channels, preview PowerPoint and Word files, and more.
The aim of these integrations is to eliminate or reduce the need to access Office 365 applications without opening them separately. Users will be able to open them right from Slack.
For instance, the Outlook Calendar app for Slack will notify users about the meeting and its time, so that the calendar invites don’t remain buried in the inbox. Further, there will be options to respond to the notification.
Users will able to jump into a call or meeting directly from Slack. They will get the latest dial-in link to Skype for Business, Webex or Zoom, so they wouldn’t need to search for the right link.
When the users will be in a meeting, the Slack status will be automatically set to ‘In a meeting’ on the basis of the Outlook calendar. When users are on a vacation or working from home, they can change the Slack status to ‘Out of office’ by changing the setting in Outlook.
Slack will also have a new add-in for Outlook inbox that will allow users to forward emails from Outlook directly to the Slack channels or as a direct message.
Further, Slack will allow users to preview the PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, and Excel worksheets in Slack without downloading them. They can also attach files from OneDrive to a channel or direct message, rather than spinning a new email for sharing OneDrive files.
Also read: Flagged Outlook emails can now be managed from Microsoft To-Do
“By using apps to connect Outlook and OneDrive with Slack, repetitive tasks such as checking your calendar or sharing email attachments with a group can be done right from your workspace. Each little improvement to these workflows adds up to a whole lot more time for you and your team to do your best work,” wrote Slack in a blog post.
