CELS Systems is coordinating Slack Workspaces across CELS, as well as running a CELS-wide Slack Workspace anyone is welcome to join.  Check out Slack’s documentation on how to use the service, as well as our Tips and Tricks page.

To help you decide if a separate Slack Workspace is right for you, or if you’re better served by the CELS-wide Workspace, see the below criteria.

Why you would create/maintain your own instance:

• If the majority of users are external to CELS (or ANL)
• If integration with CELS Systems-provided services not required.
  
• If users participating in this Slack would not be a good target for any CELS-centric communication.
• If you have a project code to use to pay for the spin-off instance.

Why you would join this Workspace instead of creating your own:

• If you want integration with CELS Systems-provided services
• If the users in your project/purpose are primarily CELS (or Argonne)
• If you don’t want your project to pay for a spin-off.

In that case, just make your way over to https://cels-anl.slack.com and sign up using your @anl.gov address.  See the notes below on Groups.

Groups/Projects and channels:

We  have the ability to create groups.  These allow default channels when someone is added to a group, and seem well-suited to divisions and/or subgroups within the division.  These are user-creatable and editable – see Slack’s documentation on how to use this feature.

Shared channels are now available. If you end up creating a standalone Slack Workspace, we can create shared channels between it and the main CELS Slack workspace, allowing greater collaboration.

Getting Help from CELS Systems

With this comes a new way to reach the Systems team.  You can wander into the #cels-systems-helpdesk channel and ask questions there, along with the other usual methods of reaching us.

Channels to join

When you join, you’ll be immediately put into #random which is for random chitchat, and #announcements which is a limited channel only administrators can post to.  You can leave the random channel if you’re not interested.  You can browse the list of available channels, and there are also private channels you can create or be invited to.

There’s a #cels_general channel for general CELS-related discussion.  Or you can just use the service for private messages.  Whatever works for you.

Security

Please remember, this service is not for any sensitive data.  If you’re unclear on what’s sensitive or not, ask your cybersecurity rep, your systems administration team, or consult your cyber training.