Slack is a central collaboration hub for faculty and staff. Faculty and staff can easily collaborate on projects, committees, administration and other topics. Staff can make operational communication even more effective by avoiding lengthy and complicated email chains. Ultimately, this real-time solution makes working together even simpler. Learn More

Check out this Slack demo to see how the app can be used to support teams, departments and organizations like USC. You may also reference our quick reference guides which highlight key features of the app.

Review this matrix to compare the features of Slack with other platforms.

A workspace is a separate instance of Slack that sits under the USC Enterprise Grid. A workspace has its own administrators and permission settings, and its own members, channels, and apps to enable a large group of people to collaborate long term.

A channel is a context-based conversation where groups of people can communicate, and interact with information related to a common topic (e.g., project). These can be public or private, and can be within a single workspace or shared across multiple workspaces (i.e. organization channels like #its-announcements).

Slack is available to active faculty and staff as well as active affiliates. Slack will also be available to students in the near future.

If you are the owner of a Slack workspace that you would like to migrate into the USC Slack Enterprise, please submit a request to consult@usc.edu.  The plan is to migrate all existing workspaces under the larger enterprise grid to enable greater collaboration amongst our faculty and staff.

All active faculty and staff have access to the Trojan Talk workspace. To join the Trojan Talk workspace, go to https://usc.enterprise.slack.com and click on the View Details button under Trojan Talk. Then click on the green Join and Launch Slack button. Once you are in TrojanTalk you will see a variety of channels you can join in the left column.  The Welcome channel provides tips on how to get started with Slack.

Faculty and staff should contact their school or unit IT support department to request a new workspace or a channel within an existing school or unit workspace. Contact information for school and unit IT departments is found at https://itservices.usc.edu/contact/school-list/.

For other Slack requests, please email consult@usc.edu.

To optimize Slack’s features, download the app onto your desktop and/or mobile devices. Download the Slack app at https://slack.com/download.

Use of Slack is governed by USC’s polices including those found at:

• USC Policies – https://policy.usc.edu/
• USC Information Security Policies and Standards – https://trojansecure.usc.edu/information-security-policies/
• USC Information Security Acceptable Use Policy – https://trojansecure.usc.edu/files/2020/04/P01-acceptable-use-v1.5.pdf
• USC Policies Student Issues – https://policy.usc.edu/student/

• Quick reference guides for using Slack are found here.
• Video training is available on Trojan Learn, https://trojanlearn.usc.edu
• You can find answers to most Slack questions in Slack’s help site at https://slack.com/help

You may update your profile (i.e. name, job description or title, phone number, time zone, etc.) as well as photo in Slack.

All faculty and staff authenticate through Shibboleth to access Slack.

Yes. Slack is approved to use in accordance with USC’s Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and student privacy policies. Please note, there are specific requirements related to disclosing identifiable student information to others. Contact usc-ciso@usc.edu or compliance@usc.edu, if you have questions.