For years, Slack has been changing the way millions of people work together within their organizations. By shifting internal communication out of inboxes and into channels, teams can work more transparently with each other and get more done. But we know the work doesn’t stop at a company’s walls. That’s why today, we’re taking the next step and bringing all the benefits of Slack to everyone you work with, both inside and outside your organization. Introducing Slack Connect: a more secure and productive way for organizations to communicate together.

“Slack pioneered channel-based communication, which was quickly embraced by our customers as the most effective way to work. The introduction of Slack Connect marks a major leap forward in our mission to transform business communication and make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive.” Stewart Butterfield CEO, Slack

More than four years in the making and developed with customers, Slack Connect is a secure communications environment that lets you move all the conversations with your external partners, clients, vendors and others into Slack, replacing email and taking business collaboration to the next level. “My favorite part of Slack Connect has been the co-creation with customers,” says Tamar Yehoshua, Slack’s chief product officer. “We’ve used Slack Connect to build Slack Connect with our customers, gathering feedback about the product and the ways they’re using it with their external teams.”

Starting today, up to 20 organizations can come together in a single Slack channel, enabling customers to bring even more of their external ecosystem into Slack—such as their entire supply chain, corporate subsidiaries or industry peers. With Slack Connect, all kinds of teams can:

Securely connect to external organizations

Get work done faster with partners and vendors

Strengthen business relationships

Securely connect to external organizations

Keeping a company’s data protected is critical when working with external organizations. Admins and security professionals can rest assured that all of Slack’s enterprise-grade security features and compliance standards extend to Slack Connect: data loss prevention, retention and e-discovery. Slack also provides Enterprise Key Management* via Amazon Web Services, giving organizations increased control over their data and who can see it.

“Our largest customers, like TD Ameritrade and Iress, put enormous effort into security and compliance,” Butterfield says, “and external communication often moves out of band. It goes to text messages and WhatsApp—and the organization has no visibility or ability to retain important records.”

With Slack Connect, admins can maintain control over their organization’s data and monitor external access. And unlike email—which leaves users open to the risk of spam and phishing—when they work in channels, teams receive messages and files only from verified members.

“Email is an open front door to security threats to an organization—$12 billion in losses are caused by business email scams, and 90% of data breaches are from phishing. If you want a more secure collaboration solution for your organization, the first thing you can do is take your employees out of email and into Slack.” Larkin Ryder Chief security officer, Slack

As Slack has become trusted across regulated industries, we’ve invested to meet and exceed some of the most stringent security standards available. You can be confident that Slack offers solutions to help organizations address all of their compliance requirements.

Get work done faster with partners and vendors

When you bring projects with external teams out of siloed email inboxes and into Slack, communication happens in real time with all the right people. Organizations can come together to work and make decisions more quickly with customers, vendors and partners.

“Having the ability to message an external vendor via Slack provides next-level support. The runaround you usually have to go through via email does not exist when you use channels.” Marisa Guarino Senior IT systems engineer, Snowflake

Customers have been using Slack Connect to:

Manage their supply chain, share critical updates, and optimize operations

Work with partners to iterate on plans and sign off on deliverables

Quickly triage issues and provide first-class support for their largest customers

New apps will speed up workflows like these even further and streamline the cumbersome tasks required to make them happen. Take meetings, for example. Scheduling them externally is time-consuming because of a lack of visibility across tools and organizations. With Slack Connect and our upcoming Outlook and Google Calendar integrations, Slack will scan everyone’s calendars—across different calendaring apps and organizations—and suggest available meeting slots.

Strengthen business relationships

No matter where everyone is located, Slack Connect allows teams around the world to stay close with their partners, while building trust along the way.

“We see ourselves as an extension of our customers’ team. Working with our customers in Slack channels helps reduce any friction.” Jen Ong Vaughan Leader, business division, Assembled

And as projects and relationships grow, all parties can add new teammates and access past conversations, files and context to keep everyone on the same page.

Get started with Slack Connect

Slack Connect is available for all paid plans. If you’re already a customer but new to Slack Connect, feel free to reach out or learn more on how to get started. If you want to see how others are using Slack to work with their external partners, check out a few of our recent customer stories.

*Slack Enterprise Key Management, an add-on feature to Enterprise Grid, will be available for Slack Connect later this summer.

This information is for informational purposes only, and not as a binding commitment. Please do not rely on this information in making your purchasing decisions because ultimately, the development, release, and timing of any products, features or functionality remains at the sole discretion of Slack, and is subject to change.