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Organizing Slack Channels for Effective Onboarding on Free Version

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Hello! I would like to know how others are creating channels so they are organized for new members. Here is my intention:

  • We will have a high volume of channels that the user is automatically added to.

  • I want to have these organized in a functional way to make onboarding feel less chaotic

  • We are on free version

  • Any ideas other than numbers or prefixes?

  • Avatar of Joel Primack
    Joel Primack
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    When numbering channels, I like to think of them as a grouping, not one channel for one number.

  • Avatar of Scott Baldwin
    Scott Baldwin
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    My advice on naming in my blog post: https://benry.net/how-to-build-a-community-on-slack/

  • Avatar of Abigail Miller
    Abigail Miller
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    Thanks folks!

  • Avatar of DeMario Bell
    DeMario Bell
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    Hi Abigail Miller! Great question—I'd love to know how often you audit your channels. From my experience managing a community, I learned that having too many channels, especially ones members are automatically added to during onboarding, can create friction for new members trying to get started. We reduced the default set from 15+ channels to just 5. While it was a challenging change, it helped us group related topics, making conversations more holistic and valuable. I think Scott Baldwin's resource aligns perfectly with this and is a fantastic reference!

  • Avatar of Abigail Miller
    Abigail Miller
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    Thank you. This is all very valuable feedback. We havent launched our community yet and I am concerned about folks feeling overwhelmed. This is a greater concern as we are not expecting that too many of the folks we are looking to onboard will have had previous exposure to Slack.

  • Avatar of Joel Primack
    Joel Primack
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    Create a “how to engage” doc (or Loom) to help folks and share it as part of the onboarding process for new members to remove that barrier for them.

  • Avatar of Abigail Miller
    Abigail Miller
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    Yes, absolutely. Thanks for the Loom reco. I am a former monosnap user and was just checking out what to use.