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Overview
IS&T is working with Slack on developing a process to migrate existing workspaces owned by MIT employees to the MIT Slack Enterprise Grid. You will retain ownership and administration of your workspace and all of your data will be preserved. IS&T will assume your contractual obligation with Slack and you will have no costs going forward. Benefits of moving to the grid include:
- Redirecting you to the Conference on 'Vaccines for All' Slack Channel.
- Slack is a communication platform that offers real-time messaging, key-word searches, content uploads, and archiving. Despite being some of the most “plugged-in” people, social media managers do not, nor could they, see everything that is being posted from the MIT community.
Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool. It offers chat rooms (channels) organized by topic as well as private groups and direct messaging. All content inside Slack is searchable, including conversations, links, files, and people. IS&T is working with Slack on developing a process to migrate existing workspaces owned by MIT employees to the MIT Slack Enterprise Grid. You will retain ownership and administration of your workspace and all of your data will be preserved. IS&T will assume your contractual obligation with Slack and you will have no costs going forward.
- SSO integration with MIT Touchstone
- 1 TB of storage space per user (that’s across all workspaces)
- Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Webex, Zoom integration
- Unlimited, interconnected Slack workspaces to enable new collaboration opportunities
- A centralized user directory, so you can message any Slack user at MIT
- A directory of all open MIT workspaces
- Shared Channels across MIT workspaces, for announcements and more
- Ability to collaborate with non-MIT partners as Guests and/or Shared Channels
- 24/7 support with 4-hour first response time
- Costs covered under the MIT Enterprise License
- IS&T Service Desk Support
For more information, see Slack's What is Slack Enterprise Grid?
Migration Considerations
Members of the MIT Enterprise Grid must use their MIT email address to login with Touchstone Authentication system. Currently some sites use an external email address like Gmail or Yahoo. This needs to be addressed for owners before those workspaces can be migrated to the MIT Enterprise Grid so your login will work with MIT's single sign-on Touchstone Authentication System.
For more information, see Slack's documentation Migrating Workspaces to the Enterprise Grid.
Migration FAQs
- How can I request a workspace migration? Please contact the IS&T Service Desk to request a migration for your workspace. Be sure to include the following: workspace URL, workspace name, whether or not it's a free or paid workspace, workspace owner's email address.
- Please note: At this time it isn't possible to migrate a workspace from Sloan's enterprise grid to the at-large MIT Slack enterprise grid.
- Will all my data be retained after migration? All messages and files will be migrated to the MIT Enterprise Grid and access to them will not change. No data will be deleted except as it routinely would be per administrative data retention and deletion policies.
- How will the migration affect my account preferences?
- Notifications: Your notification preferences will be reset. Update your workspace and channel notification preferences after migration is complete.
- Profile: During the migration process, members' profile details - display name, photo, 'what I do,' and phone number - are merged based on a matching email address. If you had previously logged into the MIT Slack Enterprise Grid, mit.slack.com, the user profile fields you set there will take precedence over migrated the migrated workspace(s). If more than one workspace was moved, profile details from the first workspace will be applied by default. You can update your profile after migrating.
- How will logins work for workspaces migrated to the MIT Enterprise Slack grid? MIT Kerberos ID (email) accounts will be using SSO (Single Sign-on Touchstone Authenticaion) for login to the Slack workspace. Guests will login using their username/password
- How long does a migration take? Migrations are conducted on average twice each month in batches. They occur after hours to avoid impacting ongoing work. Your workspace will be inaccessible for 20-30 minutes when the migration occurs and you will be logged out of your workspace on all devices.
- My workspace has multiple owners. Will they continue to all be owners after my workspace is migrated? Yes, workspaces with multiple owners will retain the same ownership configuration after migration.
- Will my workspace maintain its current data retention/deletion policies after migration? Yes, administrative settings and customizations will not change when your workspace is migrated to the MIT Enterprise Grid. However, some personalization by users like direct message retention times may revert to administrative set defaults.
- Will my workspace bots and integrations be migrated with my workspace to the MIT Enterprise grid? Yes.
- I've granted guest access to my workspace for non-MIT users. Will they continue to have access? Will I be able to add more guests in the future as needed? Yes, your guests will continue to have the access you granted them to your workspace and you will be able to grant access to additional guests once your workspace is part of the MIT Enterprise Grid.
- Will I be able to continue to use existing shared channels with non-MIT workspaces and create new ones? Yes.
- If students graduate and their MIT Kerberos Account is deactivated, can they still access MIT Enterprise Grid workspaces? Yes, a workspace administrator can update their email address and convert them to a Guest in the workspace.
- Will IS&T access the content of my workspace? No. IS&T will not be accessing the contents of Slack workspaces. IS&T will follow the Institute’s policy on Privacy.
Have Questions or Still Need Help?
To mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) is providing a range of IT resources to the community, both to ensure continuity of the Institute’s mission and to best support community members as they engage in their MIT activities remotely. IS&T is also taking action in line with the latest Institute guidance to ensure the continuity of IS&T’s operating activities in support of the MIT community. As the COVID-19 situation evolves, we will adapt our plans and service delivery accordingly.
Note: On-site walk-in and repair service will be unavailable during this public health emergency.
Support
IS&T provides IT support 24/7:
- Faculty and course instructors who need help facilitating remote classes can send mail to teachremote@mit.edu or call 617-324-3578 (617-32-HELP-U).
- MIT community members who have questions or need assistance can contact the IS&T Service Desk at 617-253-1101 or servicedesk@mit.edu.
Resources
MIT Now: Adapting to Covid, Keeping Connected
MIT Medical COVID-19 updates
MIT's Teach Remote site: Resources, tools, and support for teaching remotely at MIT
Resources for Working Remotely During Campus Emergencies
Updates
August 27
Adobe Creative Cloud now available for all MIT students, faculty, and staff
August 25
Notability note-taking app for Apple devices is now available to the MIT community
August 13
Explain Everything digital whiteboard now available to the MIT community
August 4
Panopto secure video platform now available to the MIT community
April 23
BeyondTrust remote support software now available for all IT support providers at MIT
April 6
End-to-end encryption option now available for Webex meetings
April 3
Beta release of MIT’s new cloud-based remote access VPN now available
Mit Sloan Slack
March 29
Securing Zoom meetings and classes to prevent disruption
March 24
Webex transcriptions enabled for recordings
March 20
Dropbox storage quota increase for MIT
March 17
MIT-wide Slack Enterprise Grid now available to the MIT Community
Dropbox storage quota increase for MIT faculty and TAs (updated)
Dropbox quota terms have been updated: “MIT has increased Dropbox default storage quotas to 10TB for MIT faculty, lecturers, and Spring 2020 teaching assistants at no charge. This default quota increase was based on requests by the teaching and learning community in order to provide additional storage for MIT course materials (e.g. large audio and video files, etc.).”
March 16
Important Update: IS&T ramping down in-person IT support
March 13
Zoom video conferencing platform now available to the MIT community
Zoom Meetings for Education Webinar
Dropbox storage quota increase for MIT faculty and TAs
What Is Slack
March 12
Beware of phishing scams related to the coronavirus
Slackline Mit Gestell
March 11
MIT-wide Slack coming soon