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| Slack provides the ability to send messages to people outside the company |
Slack began promoting its long-promised Connect DM feature that allows you to send direct messages to anyone, not just the people in the company or team.
Connect DM was released back in October and this feature allows Slack users to send private messages to employees outside the company.
Connect DM was developed for companies that work with partners or clients. However, you can also use it to send messages to friends in other companies.
This new Connect DM feature builds on the collaboration between Slack and Connect that was introduced last year.
The main goal of Connect DM is to enable companies to collaborate through shared channels. Direct messaging between organizations is the next largest part of Connect.
The Connect DM sends a custom link to initiate a chat and may require approval from a Slack admin, depending on how your organization configures Slack.
Subscribed Slack users can access Connect DM, and the company has announced plans to promote this feature across all teams, including Free Users, in the near future.
Corporate instant messaging is also working on a new way of linking multiple organizations together to create a private corporate network.
The feature will roll out later this year and include unified guides, channel discovery, and app sharing.
As Slack has become a public messaging platform and introduces new inter-business direct messaging capabilities, the company has taken steps to reduce the risks of running the platform without proper protection and thought.
The company said the feature could be used in response to people's concerns to send offensive or harassing messages with relative ease: The company is now turning off the option to send messages along with invitations.
This way, if someone knows your email address, they will not be able to send unwanted spam to your inbox.
Slack said: After the introduction of Connect DM, we received valuable feedback from users on how to use email invitations to use the offensive or spam feature.
She added: We are taking immediate measures to prevent this type of abuse. When a user invites someone to join the Connect DM, they will not be able to customize the message anymore.