Overview
This guide looks at Slack workspace options at USC and within USC Dornsife, including the procedure for requesting a separate, non-Dornsife-specific workspace still housed within USC Slack for your lab, project, or other qualifying group.
If you are looking for step-by-step Slack tutorials, you may want to review the following resources by ITS:
USC Slack
The USC Slack enterprise grid, or USC Slack for short, comprises many USC workspaces under its umbrella, of which only a few are Dornsife-specific. This means that while you may be a member of one USC workspace, you can still message/collaborate with members of any other USC workspace. You can view a list of workspaces within USC Slack at https://usc.enterprise.slack.com/.
Dornsife-specific workspaces
Dornsife workspace
- Location
- https://uscdornsife.slack.com
- Description
- Workspace for Dornsife collaborations open to all members of USC Dornsife
- How to use
- Getting started with the Dornsife workspace
- Who qualifies
- Dornsife faculty, staff, and students
- How to join
- Option 1: Submit a request to join
Option 2: Have a current member invite you (must be invited via the NetID@usc.edu email address)
Dornsife Administration workspace
- Location
- https://uscdornsifeadmin.slack.com
- Description
- Reserved for administration-specific collaboration at USC Dornsife
- How to use
- Getting started with the Dornsife Administration workspace
- Who qualifies
- Dornsife staff only
- How to join
- Submit a request to join
Dornsife Class workspace
- Location
- https://uscdornsifeclass.slack.com
- Description
- Workspace for Dornsife academic classes: at the beginning of each semester, ITS creates dedicated class channels and automatically adds Dornsife faculty and students to this workspace
- How to use
- Please refer to the ITS Slack resources for faculty and students
- Who qualifies
- Dornsife faculty and students only
- How to join
- Contact ITS (consult@usc.edu)
Dornsife channels
To collaborate with team members on Slack, use the Dornsife workspace to create private channels and invite your team members to those channels. Private channels cannot be seen by anyone who is not invited to join the channel. For instructions, please view our guide, "Getting started with the Dornsife workspace in USC Slack."
If you and your team members are all staff, you may prefer to use the Dornsife Administration workspace instead. The Dornsife Administration workspace allows you to create private channels as well as public channels.
Non-Dornsife workspaces
If you are trying to create a channel for collaboration but none of the Dornsife-specific workspaces will suit your particular needs, please refer to the section below, "Obtaining a workspace within USC Slack."
Non-USC Slack workspaces
If you are already using a non-USC Slack workspace, such as through the free version of Slack, for USC-related work, you are not mandated to switch to USC Slack at this point. However, keep in mind that USC Slack is an enterprise version and offers more features, such as allowing you to direct message anyone within USC Slack, and that the free version of Slack has different data retention policies that may not be compliant with USC information security policies.
If you would like to migrate your non-USC workspace into USC Slack, please refer to the section below, "Migrating an existing non-USC workspace into USC Slack."
Obtaining a workspace within USC Slack
Qualifying for a workspace beyond the Dornsife-specific workspaces
If you want to create a new workspace within USC Slack, or migrate an existing workspace into USC Slack, rather than collaborating by creating channels within the existing Dornsife-specific workspaces, you must demonstrate that your request complies with ITS guidelines for separate workspaces. Your proposed workspace should:
- Have 25 or more members
- Have a demonstrated need or needs, which channels alone would not meet
To request a separate workspace, please email us at ts@dornsife.usc.edu so we can submit your request to ITS. Please be specific about your documented needs for the workspace and why it wouldn't suffice to just create private channels in the Dornsife workspace.
Migrating an existing non-USC workspace into USC Slack
If ITS approves your workspace for migration into USC Slack, they will need to review your workspace's current configuration before scheduling a migration. Make sure that all workspace members are associated with their primary USC email address as listed in the USC directory.
Before the migration, let your workspace members know the migration date and estimated downtime (up to 20 minutes). All data will be migrated, including public and private channels, direct messages, and any app integrations.
App integrations in USC Slack
App integrations make it easy to sync Slack with other applications used at USC, such as Microsoft and Google applications. To set up an app integration in Slack, view our guide, "Using app integrations in USC Slack."
Contributor(s): Chris Huntley.