Please do not include PDF and usable in one sentence. Setting up some simple Postgres with sonic for fuzzy search would be _usable_, but PDF is like migrating from Slack to Teams.
In this case we didn't need a long term solution for searchable data on Slack.
We did the migration in stages, basically this:
- Provide access to Teams
- Create all of the new teams / channels there
- Make Slack read-only but still keep the lights on
- Allow folks to search and reference historic data as needed with Slack
- Ensure everyone was moved over to Teams and felt ok enough using it
- Remove access to Slack
- Perform Slack export / PDF creation of important channels
- Attach Slack PDFs to important Teams channels
- Cancel Slack subscription
In the end, most people never even needed to use the PDFs because they got everything they needed out of Slack before access was removed, but they are there for peace of mind and a last resort.
We also took this as an opportunity to stop using chat as a source of truth for long lived information. Anything that should be stored long term made its way somewhere else (Jira, Confluence, etc.).
As a product, I like Slack a lot more than teams. Chatting is easier, the apps are better, reminders and scheduled messages, workflows, etc. Threaded conversations are much easier as well, and aren't artificially restricted to certain types of channels.
At a high level though, Salesforce is often seen as a predatory company. Prices are high and they will squeeze their users for every nickel (as demonstrated here). They will also monetize your data in ways that you probably don't want.
Teams chat is pretty bad, I agree. But it does have these benefits:
- Free if you're already in the Microsoft ecosystem, which most companies are.
- Microsoft is probably a better steward of your data.
- Teams video / audio calls are much much better than Slack huddles.
- That's pretty much it tbh
