In Soviet Russia, the discussion boards YOU
May 5, 2017 5:25 PM Subscribe
I just got the weirdest request at work. Department management wants a mandatory to all employees... discussion board. One that starts when your computer starts and that you must opt OUT of. One that shows views as well as replies. One that can track activity by user and by customized topic category and all the usual metrics. Because it is mandatory.
I know, OK? But how best to do it?
We are an R&D department for a large food manufacturer. We have both Macs and PCs, people distributed around the globe, and people who work in the lab/people who sit at a desk. There are about 120 of us, about half at corporate. I think the intention is to improve corporate/regional communication (and collegiality) by pulling everyone into public discussion with each other, and to facilitate pushing out top-down info to people too. The board has to be private, because we deal with sensitive info even other people at our company don't need to know.
We have SharePoint and Jabber, but we need one thing with the functionality of both. Off-the-shelf solutions welcome or tell me how to make something.
Thanks for any ideas you can offer, comrade!
We are an R&D department for a large food manufacturer. We have both Macs and PCs, people distributed around the globe, and people who work in the lab/people who sit at a desk. There are about 120 of us, about half at corporate. I think the intention is to improve corporate/regional communication (and collegiality) by pulling everyone into public discussion with each other, and to facilitate pushing out top-down info to people too. The board has to be private, because we deal with sensitive info even other people at our company don't need to know.
We have SharePoint and Jabber, but we need one thing with the functionality of both. Off-the-shelf solutions welcome or tell me how to make something.
Thanks for any ideas you can offer, comrade!
Best answer: Slack - the blanket answer to this genre of question.
posted by givennamesurname at 5:49 PM on May 5, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by givennamesurname at 5:49 PM on May 5, 2017 [8 favorites]
Microsoft has Teams and Yammer; it's likely that your company already has access to one (or both) if it's on Office 365.
posted by wei at 5:55 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by wei at 5:55 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd say Slack, unless "shows views" means management can tell who's seen a given message, which can't be done in Slack. You can track "presence" data, which gives a minute by minute picture of who is online.
posted by supercres at 6:05 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by supercres at 6:05 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ya we just implemented teams in the ms ecosystem. We tried slack as well as hipchat (which I preferred)
Hipchat shows read status. Teams does not.
posted by chasles at 6:07 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Hipchat shows read status. Teams does not.
posted by chasles at 6:07 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Jesus, Slack is exactly what they want. Thanks guys!
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 6:32 PM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 6:32 PM on May 5, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty pro-Slack, but HipChat is a good alternative that is basically the same thing.
posted by so fucking future at 7:50 PM on May 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by so fucking future at 7:50 PM on May 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
+1 for Slack. It's going to sound cliché, but it really has transformed how we work. (My employer's logo is on the page that talks about Slack's enterprise solution.)
posted by emelenjr at 7:54 AM on May 6, 2017
posted by emelenjr at 7:54 AM on May 6, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rockindata at 5:45 PM on May 5, 2017 [8 favorites]