Slack

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

Slack Account Types for cels-anl.slack.com

• Full Member: Requires an Argonne account.  All logins are via Argonne Single Sign-On (SSO).  As a full member, you can join any public channel, be invited to any private channel, be able to join other workspaces via Slack Connect, and invite guests to this workspace.  All Full Members are automatically in the #announcements channel (mandatory), and are automatically added to #cels_general and #random, though can leave those if desired.
• Multi-Channel Guest: Can be invited by any Member, and after admin approval will receive an invitation to join the channels on the invite.  These users are not free, but are limited strictly to the channels they are invited to.  Please see Slack’s documentation.
• Single-Channel Guest: Can be invited by any Member, and after admin approval will receive and invitation to join the channel in question.  These users carry no cost. Please see Slack’s documentation.
• Slack Connect: Users who are members of other workspaces can be invited via Slack Connect.  For Direct Message purposes, anyone can be invited.  For shared channels, the other Slack workspace must be a paid Slack workspace as well.  These users carry no cost. (Note: Slack Connect invites will not be approved for any of the divisional “general” channels, such as #cels_general, #alcf_general, etc.)

We strongly encourage using the primary Slack Workspace.  This helps reduce account duplication.  However, 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 use 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 non-Argonne collaborators need to participate in a limited number of channels, or belong to another Slack Workspace and can be invited via Slack Connect.
• 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 SSO.  See the notes below on Groups.

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, or you don’t need to paid features of a Slack workspace.

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 with other workspaces are available. See Slack Connect for more information.

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.  As always, you can also email [email protected] to reach us.

Channels to join

When you join, you’ll be immediately put into #cels_general (for general CELS information and discussion), #random (which is for random chitchat), and #announcements (which is a limited channel only administrators can post to).  You can leave any channel (except #announcements) 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.

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.