Author: kevin-farrell

Set Up Reminders and Appointments (For You AND Your Team) in Slack

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Michael Arrighi, Flickr

We all have multiple systems and devices for reminding us about appointments and tasks. The one flaw in most of them however, is the fact that you can only set reminders for yourself. That’s no longer the case though because you can easily add high-impact, useful reminders, bit for yourself and your teammates, to Slack!

As you can see below, all it takes to set up a reminder in Slack is typing out /remind. In order to maximize your reminder potential, just follow this simple equation with your prompts:

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Make Xero Do the Work for You with Automatic Repeating Invoices

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Logan Ingalls, Flickr

While accounting can be a repetitive, time-consuming function, you may be making more work for yourself than need be. With just a few minutes of your time, and the magic of Xero, you can teach your accounting software to do much of your recurring work for you all on its own. Here’s how to set up automatic repeating invoices in Xero!

After you’ve logged into your Xero dashboard, click on the Sales button under the Accounts tab at the top of your screen:

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No Excel? No Problem: How to Export Xero Reports in Google Docs

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Xero, YouTube

Here in our post-Google Docs world, a growing number of business owners are making the decision to forego Microsoft’s pricey Office suite in favor of the Big G’s comparable (and totally free) alternatives. And why not?

But if you’re going to make the leap, it’s important to make sure that your accounting system is set up to work without Excel. Here’s how to integrate Google Docs with Xero.

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This Xero Hack Turns Hours of Expense Reconciling Into a 2-Minute Task

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier, Flickr

Monotonous. Repetitive. Excruciatingly boring. Reconciling expenses in your accounting software is a critical, but painfully dull and time-consuming part of successfully running nearly any business. Thankfully, a little-known Xero trick can turn an hour’s worth of punching away at individual fields into just a few seconds of work.

First, go ahead and log into your Xero account. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see all of your various accounts laid out on the homepage.

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These Two Slack Shortcuts Will Turn You Into a Keyboard Samurai

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via N I C O L A, Flickr

So your company has made the switch to Slack, eh? But while the messaging service has helped streamline a number of internal communication issues, you’re not one to do anything half-assed. In order to truly master the new medium, you’re going to need to brush up on your keystroke game.

Slack may not be able to instantly create the muscle memory earned and learned by plugging away on those messages day in and day out, but the company does thankfully offer users two easy ways to learn the dozens of shortcuts built into the app.

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Use Slacker To Add A Touch of Anonymous Fun to Your Slack Groups

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Image Source: Anonymous9000 on Flickr

Slack has become something of an office sensation in recent years, with users praising both its ability to streamline business communications and its infinite opportunities to add a little levity to the 9-to-5 daily grind. This trick may not win you any corporate comm awards, but posting secret celebrity messages to your office’s #random channel may bring a smile to your coworkers’ faces.

Developer Nathan Hoad’s brilliant Slacker web app integrates seamlessly with Slack itself. After logging in at https://slacker.nathanhoad.net, simply select the team you’d like to authorize Slacker to post from:

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Here’s How to Standardize Your Company’s Slack Usernames (and Simplify the Service)

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Via Archives New Zealand, Flickr

Without structure and guidance, Slack can quickly devolve into an impenetrable GIF parade of posts by seemingly anonymous users. An easy way to avoid that fate is to set a universal username format. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

Slack’s simplicity makes this trick an easy one to pull off. To begin, click the drop-down bar in the top left. In the drop-down menu that appears, click the Team Settings button. It’s blocked out in blue in the photo below:

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Colorblind? Here’s How to Customize Slack to Make It Work for You.

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Rookuzz, Flickr

Slack, for most of us, is either a ridiculously effective messaging and organizational tool or an undeniably addictive platform for posting GIFs and procrastinating on the company dime. But for those afflicted by colorblindness, Slack is just another whirring and buzzing rectangle taking up space on the screen.

Thankfully, it’s easy to customize Slack’s palette to compensate for both the red-green deficiency that the majority of those with color blindness are affected by, and the far rarer blue deficiency.

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Use Slack’s Advanced Search to Find Lost Files, URLs, or the Terrible Jokes None of Your Coworkers…

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

via Matt Brown, Flickr

For the majority of Slack users, the messaging app is a quick-moving torrent of information. Critical memos, links and files can easily disappear among endless channels of competing messages from team members.

Thankfully, Slack has some seriously beefy search tools — granted you know how to access them. And while Slack has made some of these search tips more transparent as the service has grown in popularity, a slew of secret search tricks remain hidden. But that changes today!

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