Slack has recently unveiled the development of voice and video chat features, which would allow the collaboration tool to better compete with rivals such as Skype and Google Hangouts.
Slack's Vice President of Product April Underwood, who made the announcement during a customer conference in San Francisco, said that voice chat will be rolling out for testing on the desktop first, with the feature to be implemented soon to other platforms and devices.
The beta version for Calls on Slack is now available in the form of one-to-one calls and group calls that could involve any member in a user's team on the collaboration tool.
Users and teams who would want to participate in the beta voice calls feature would need to have the feature activated by either a Team Owner or Admin, who can do so through the Team Settings page. Calls will be presented as an option on the page, and activating the beta version of the feature can be done by simply checking the box beside "Enable Calls for this team."
Once the feature is activated, users will be able to initiate voice calls with other users in their Direct Messages list. To do so, users can simply click on the phone icon that would appear at the top of the screen upon opening a channel or a direct message.
Initiating a voice call in direct messages will make the call right away, with the user being contacted receiving a pop-up notification. Initiating a voice call in a channel, however, will first ask the user to confirm the call. Once that is done, the call will push through, and all users in the channel, up to a maximum of 15 team members, will be able to join.
Users can also invite a specific user to join a call by clicking on the plus icon in the call window's upper right corner. Several built-in controls are also available, including muting the microphone, adjusting audio settings and sending an emoji reaction.
Calls beta is currently available for Slack desktop apps on computers running Windows and Mac, and in the Chrome browser. The feature will soon be launched for the iOS, Android and Linux.
