If you’re part of a Slack shop, you know what an essential platform it had already become, even well before the onset of the global pandemic. Now, with the vast majority of us still in the throes of predominantly remote and hybrid work environments, Slack and its contemporaries have proven themselves to be an irreplaceable gear in the machine powering distributed teams. Tens of millions of daily users and tens of thousands of organizations rely on Slack to be the piston of business communication.

Slack is often the perfect, quickest, easiest avenue for real-time messaging and semi-synchronous updates across an entire team or enterprise, and Slack has been making recent advancements in pursuit of expanding that punctual mode of communication to outside organizations too. But what happens when a remote work conversation requires the context that only face-to-face can deliver or carries the level of import and immediacy where it would be ideal to collaborate on content in real time?

Starting today, all Lifesize customers gain access to a refreshed app to escalate Slack conversations to a high definition Lifesize video call with a single click or tap of the “Call” or “Join” button, without having to leave the comfort of the Slack interface. If you don’t have a Lifesize account yet, not to worry, just sign up for a free one and this integration will be at your fingertips. With the Lifesize app for Slack, organizations can make their investment in the Lifesize cloud video conferencing and collaboration platform even more extensible, valuable and seamlessly incorporated into preferred daily workflows. (Note: If you’re not exclusively a Slack superfan, check out our integration with Microsoft Teams.)

Brand new is the ability to initiate a Lifesize video meeting directly through the Call button in Slack. Meeting hosts can also still type the current /lifesize command to immediately launch a meeting and participants can conjure the Join button by commanding /lifesize join [meeting name].

What’s more, because we understand the global nature of our customers and their work, the enhanced Lifesize app for Slack supports both individual workspaces and existing Enterprise Grids, along with multiple languages beyond English – French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish – a consideration that many of our video communication industry peers have yet to accommodate.

And don’t think we forgot about our beloved admins! To avoid shadow IT and fragmentation issues, the Lifesize app for Slack can be deployed to an entire organization and managed by the Lifesize account admin upon following just a few simple steps:

1) From the Lifesize Admin Console, navigate to Account Settings > General Settings and click “Add to Slack​.”

2) Sign in to the Slack team in which you want to install the app and authorize.

3) Customize your calling options for the Slack Call button by navigating to the Slack admin settings for Calls, check “Allow video calls” and select Lifesize.

Install the Lifesize app from the Slack App Directory to get started today or visit the Lifesize Community to learn more.