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IRIS

Instructional & Research Information Systems

FAQ: Migrating Slacks

If you are considering migrating your Slack into the EECS Department Slack, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Exports

As a current Slack Workspace Owner or Admin, you will be able to do an export of the entire history: all users, public files, and public channels (not private channels or DMs). You can do this at any time to see how big the resulting zip file is. If it’s bigger than 2 GB, then it will need to be hosted somewhere that Slack’s import tool can access via a download link.

Slack exports can be for the entire history, or more recent (or specified) periods. If your Slack is very active, we can help coordinate an initial import of your Slack’s entire history, and then an import of the past 7 days or 24 hours, as active users begin using the EECS Department Slack.

Tools such as Backupery for Slack could be considered for exporting private channels or DMs.

We cannot change channel names during the import process. Channels may be renamed before export, or new public channels may be created on the EECS Slack before import.

Imports

Importing Users

When importing users from your export file, the Slack import tool will look for existing users in the EECS Slack that have the same email addresses — those are easy to merge. For the remaining users, on a per-user basis, one may:

  • merge the imported user with an existing EECS Slack user
  • add new imported user, and invite them to EECS Slack
  • add new imported user as a deactivated user
  • don’t add the user, but do add their messages
  • don’t add the user or their messages

Slack “bots” are generally not imported, though you may choose to import their messages. Channel “guests” (such as those without an @eecs.berkeley.edu account) will be imported as deactivated users, and can be activated as EECS Slack guests for specified channel(s) later.

Importing Channels

When importing channels from your export file, the Slack import tool will look for similarly-named public channels. On a per-channel basis, one may:

  • merge the imported channel with an existing public channel (different channel name here is allowed)
  • add the imported channel as a new public channel
  • add the imported channel as a new private channel
  • don’t import the channel

Note that we cannot arbitrarily rename imported channels during the import process. Channels may be renamed before export, or new public channels may be created on the EECS Slack before import.

We also cannot import into existing private channels. This complicates situations where multiple imports are planned, of course. Depending on the content, it may be reasonable to leave destination channels public until all imports are completed, and then convert them to private channels.

Recommendations

  • Look over existing channels in the EECS Department Slack, and decide which of your Slack’s channels should be merged with them.
  • Decide which of your remaining channels should be renamed (e.g. changing “seminar” to a group-prefixed name like “smithlab-seminar”).
  • Decide which of your channels should become private (invitation-only).
  • Run an export of your Slack to see how big the resulting zip file will be, and how long it takes.
  • Run an Export Member List for your current Slack workspace, so you can review the members and help advise on whether their accounts and messages will need importing to the EECS Slack.