Slack integrates Notion clone into the app itself: Canvas

sluggishThe instant messaging app for businesses and workgroups has been updated. feature similar to Notion and Google Docs and that the company was baptized as Canvas. This new feature allows you to, among other things, create canvases and add text, links, to-do lists, images, and more to later share them with other users.

Now, with the new update, the “New Post” button that appears in the top area will display a new “Canvas” option where the user will be able to create a document and add various elements. Many of these can now even be used in conversations, such as a shortcut that allows you to create polls, send GIFs, or send images and videos.

Slack Canvas documents are also designed to be collaborative. That is, multiple users can edit content at the same time. There’s also the ability to add comments that appear on one side of the canvas, as if it were a thread in a Slack chat, with the goal of making sure those inside the document see the message as soon as possible.

Canvas, on the other hand, can be included in the upper zone of each channel, so they can be an interesting and much better alternative to pinned messages. When the user clicks the Canvas icon, the document opens in a new window located to the right of the chat. Thus, you can continue to view messages or type in a chat while reading the content.

Slack Canvas is not the ultimate alternative to Notion or Google Docs.

While Canvas docs can be an alternative to Google Docs or Notion – in fact, Slack allows integration with docs – from the company they claim that the purpose of the feature is not to compete with Google’s platform etc. It’s just a way to more intuitively share content with the rest of the team. In fact, Slack canvases only work within the application. That is, you cannot generate links so that other users outside of Slack can see the content, as is the case, for example, with Notion.

“The new Slack canvas now complements Slack’s real-time collaboration experience by offering a persistent and customizable place for files, media, powerful integrations, and more. This will improve the organization, coordination and productivity of teams at the digital headquarters.”

Ali Rail, Senior Vice President of Products at Slack.

The Canvas feature is also very similar to Loop, an independent application that Microsoft announced a few weeks ago that also Allows you to create collaborative documents. Loop, mind you, has more features than the new Slack feature. The main benefit is that Loop can sync with Microsoft services like Word, Outlook, etc. and import documents for example so other people can edit them.

Canvas, which was first announced in September 2022, will begin rolling out to all Slack users starting today.