Why we deleted Slack (and what we created instead)
March 5th, 2019 by Caragh Medlicott
Introducing DropTask Chat
The working world grows busier and busier – as it does, our technology rises to meet it. Tech aims to make things as efficient as possible by resolving our problems and streamlining our work processes. The outcome of this continuous development is that we are inundated with options.
There are endless amounts of software and apps claiming to make the working day that bit easier. The majority of companies spend their time switching between these multiple tools in order to complete their daily duties – sending out emails, replying to instant messages, attempting task management – the list goes on.
Here at OpenGenius, we’re kind of nerds when it comes to productivity. Being the creators of DropTask, we’ve been able to develop our software year after year to make it a central hub for getting things done. The whole of OpenGenius has a safe place for tasks and collaboration, projects are accessible at a glance and everyone has ownership of their work.
The use of DropTask has helped us immensely. We don’t rely on email and no tasks go astray – however, until very recently, we were still using Slack.
We know that tasks and projects spring from conversations with colleagues. Slack – which is an instant messaging tool for the workplace – is a great bit of software. It connects teams and reduces response time, however, we were still experiencing issues.
The more plates you have spinning, the harder it is to keep balance. Switching between Slack and DropTask, and trying to keep track of work across both, was costing us time. Tasks would get swallowed up by long conversation threads, and the task accountability that’s so clear in DropTask wasn’t at all visible in Slack.
It was time to do something about it.
All the ingredients were there: a problem which needed fixing, the bright ideas needed to fix it and a hard working development team ready to turn those ideas into reality.
…and so, DropTask Chat was born.
We identified our key pain points and made a solution for each – we took the best elements from Slack and streamlined the rest so that you can do everything you need to do, but all in one place: DropTask.
Want to chat to a colleague directly? Check. Talk with colleagues within a group chat? Check. Turn conversation into action – meaning, being able to send tasks, within direct chat and stamp out deliverables? Check, check, check!
A key part of work conversation is delegation. Managers speak to team members to tell them what to do – Slack sped up this process, but it also made oversight impossible.
Without an overview of work sent and received, managers end up wasting time on micromanagement: “Who is working on this? How far are you with that? Why has no one done this?”. Being able to see a team’s workload and instantly access the tasks shared with each colleague makes managers’ lives easier, and protects employees from the perils of unequal work distribution.
The DropTask Chat sidebar is visible no matter where you are in DropTask – that means work chat is centralized and in the same place as your projects, tasks, and colleagues. With the ‘recieved’ and ‘sent’ tabs you can easily see all the tasks you have delegated to others, and which ones have been assigned to you. You can read more details about DropTask Chat in our NEW DropTask blog available here.
We want to be clear, Slack isn’t bad – it did solve one single problem, but DropTask solves all our problems. Now that everything is in one place, communication has never been so productive.
DropTask is in a whole new league of task management.
We’ve deleted Slack and our work has never been better. If you want to work better, too, sign up your team for FREE today!
