Slack’s search feature receives a major upgrade

Slack has just announced major updates to its search tool which claims to make finding critical information more intuitive, and faster. The cloud-based platform streamlines work communications and boasts over 8 million daily users in pursuit of productivity.

EM360 recently discussed employee productivity with Robbie O'Connor, head of EMEA business at Asana. O'Connor asserted that effective teams require three aspects, one of which is communications i.e connecting with teammates or receiving notifications through apps like Slack.

Launched back in 2014, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams and the app is often a crucial aspect of communications. Despite this, it is evident that the internal search feature was lagging behind.

The latest version of Slack search incorporates predictive features like smart filters and suggested searches to provide tailored results. For the fastest-growing business application in history, the update was a long time coming.

Conversations, files, and people should now be easier to locate in theory. This will allow employees to quickly access information, whether it's a memorable meme from a particular person or a specific file posted to a channel.

Aesthetically, search will also look and feel somewhat different in Slack. The update includes an expanded search view that makes sifting through results easier, and search is now 70% faster thanks to improvements on the backend.

Search results are also personalised based on the people you communicate with the most often, the files you access a lot, and the channels you frequently participate in. The more a team interacts on the platform, the smarter the technology gets.

There is also an option to refine a search by categories like messages or files, file types, and people, channels and direct messages. Slack insists that there are more improvements in the pipeline, but for now this long-awaited upgrade is sure to make a significant improvement.

Take a look at a prototype of the search feature below: