1.3 Slack

If we want to use Slack on a daily basis to keep communication channels open within teams and across our different offices. We have an workspace that houses all of our channels. When you are first added to Slack, you will be added to the General, Random, Communications, Report and Publications, and Code channels. We also have a channel for every project, which you will be added to as needed. You can view Slack either through a broswer window or by downloading the desktop app.

1.3.1 Slack Basics

Slack is organized into channels and direct messages. Channels are a way to organize conversations and other than a couple general channels, are often project specific. Whatever you share in a channel is viewable by all members of that channel. You can also send direct messages to an individual or a group of up to 9 people.

One great thing about Slack is that it’s searchable. You can search either by person or keywords to find old messages. Additionally, if someone sends you something you will need to reference multiple times, you can star messages and view them by clicking the star in the upper right-hand corner.

People have differing notification preferences, which you can set under Preferences → Notifications. If someone sends you a direct message or tags you, a number will show up on your slack app. If they add something to a channel you are on but don’t tag you, a red dot will show up. To ensure someone gets a numbered notification, either tag them (i.e. @Erin) or tag the channel (i.e. @channel). Tagging the channel will send a notification to every member of that channel.

1.3.2 Creating a Channel

When a new project starts, create a slack channel for it and add the relevant team members to it. To create a channel, simply click on the plus symbol next to channels and fill out the channel information (Name, Purpose, and Send invites to).

1.3.3 Helpful Terminology

Base: think of it like a database. A base is made up of tabs of spreadsheets that can be customized and linked to one another.

Workspace: multiple bases can be organized within a workspace. For example, we have an workspace and individual project bases.

1.3.4 Getting to Know the Workspace

Within the workspace, we have the following bases:

• Projects and Pipeline
• Project Template
• Project-specific bases

The <UNK> Projects and Pipeline base contains overview information about current and potential projects. It is organized into the following tabs: Team Directory, Projects (current and archived), Deliverables (as outlined in the scope of work), and In the Pipeline (potential projects and their current stage).

The Project Template provides the basic structure for a new project-specific base. It should be copied when starting a project base from scratch.

Each project has its own base. Teams can customize the number and content of the spreadsheets in their baseas they see fit, but at a minimum, must include the spreadsheets and columns specified in the Project Template base (see ‘required information’ below). If you are working on a smaller project that does not require its own base, add it to the Special Projects base.

1.3.5 Customizing your Project Base

It is up to you and your team to determine how to make Airtable work for you. Outlined below are different ways to customize your base. Feel free to look at other bases for inspiration!

1.3.5.1 Required Information

To maintain transparency within the team and keep track of who is working on what to foster collaboration, all projects should keep their Airtable base up to date.

The Project Template provides the basic structure for a project specific base. To copy, click on the arrow in the bottom right hand corner and select “duplicate base.” Then rename the base and customize it to the needs of your team.

The following tabs are required in your project base:

• Deliverables: all deliverables stated in the scope of work

  • Pro tip: add a number to the beginning of each deliverable so that when you group by deliverable in the activities tab, they show up in order instead of alphabetically

• Activities: steps to achieve the deliverables. These are a level above individual tasks. For example if the deliverable is a report, an activity could be a literature review, and tasks would be specific components of the literature review.

• Within the Activities tab, we employ a RACI chart to track responsibilities, which is broken into:

  • Responsible/Assigned to: who is responsible for doing the actual work for the task

  • Accountable: who is held accountable for the success of the task and is the decision maker

  • Consulted/Reviewer: who needs to be consulted for additional input or review

  • Informed: who needs to be kept in the loop on project progress

• Team: list of team members with their project roles. This will be linked to the activities tab so you can see who is responsible and accountable for different activities.

1.3.5.2 Additional Tab Ideas

• Tasks: more detailed steps of how to reach an activity; could be day-to-day tasks

  • Note: you can link a tasks tab with the activities tab to see how they feed into one another

• Datasets: way to keep track of all the datasets going into an analysis, if they have been collected, and what their priority is

  • Example

• Analyses: tracking different versions of a model run to keep track of progress and outputs of different simulations run

  • Example

• Murder board: tracking gaps in analysis

• On the back burner: bonus analysis that can be added on if there is extra time

• Stakeholders: tracking groups of stakeholders, what you want their feedback on, and when in the project you want their input

• Conferences and events: helps track potential conferences or events to present your work at

• Papers: if a project is planning to write multiple papers, dedicate a specific tab to tracking the papers and their progress

• Questions for PIs/team: place to keep track of unanswered questions

1.3.5.3 Column Options

There are 25 column type options within Airtable. The ones we most commonly use are: link to another record (links information from different tabs within the same base; you can’t link information across bases), single line text, long text, attachment, checkbox, multiple select, single select, and date.

Pro tip: enable rich text formatting for the long text option to add checklists, bold and italic text, bullets, etc. Once enabled, double-click on the box you want to edit and select the ¶ symbol to see all of the formatting options.

1.3.5.4 Ways to View your Base

Different views

There are 5 different ways to view your base: grid, calendar, gallery, kanaban, and form, which can be explored here.

Pro tip: click on “Row Height” in the menu row to change the height of rows and therefore wrap text.

Filtering

This works like the normal filtering function in spreadsheets. You can sort A to Z, by date, exclude records with certain names, etc.

Grouping

Grouping allows you to bucket your spreadsheet by field type. You can group by deliverable, complete v. not complete, research track, etc.

Example:

Expanding a record

Within each tab, you can expand records in the first column to view all its information at once by clicking the two opposing arrows before the text. This option combines information from all of the columns into an easy to read card format.