Slack announces new features for Zoom meetings

Slack and Zoom have renewed their collaboration. Slack also announces several new possibilities that will come to its communication platform. Zoom is a video conferencing and online meeting platform. The two platforms were integrated in 2015.

Since the collaboration started in 2015, Slack users can have video conversations with their teammates via Zoom’s cloud-based video conferencing service. Now, Neowin writes, new possibilities are added. The Zoom app for the collaboration platform needs a new update, which makes it possible to view details about a meeting before a user joins a video call from the chat app.

It will also be possible to change the default setting for the phone icon in the workspace to that of Zoom. This makes it possible to open calls in Zoom when the phone is clicked in Slack.

In addition, the company unveiled new calendar integrations, making it possible to send messages and mentions via the platform to a new employee’s email address, even if they are not yet a member of the platform. In the future, a new function will have to be introduced to the service, called Zoom Phone. This makes it possible to call Slack users via a mobile, data or wifi connection and call them via the phone number on their account.

Office 365

Earlier this month it was announced that Slack also received a thorough integration with Office 365. This gives the chat app a new Outlook calendar and mail app, and an updated OneDrive app. It is also possible for users to view Office files directly within the app.

With these integrations, the platform can take a stand against Microsoft Teams. While it may seem surprising that Microsoft would like to help a competitor like Slack, in reality the platform has been able to do everything without help. The company built everything with public APIs, without extra help.