Google, Slack partner to provide better Google Cloud integration

Slack has announced a strategic partnership with Google Cloud this morning, which will bring a number of new features to its collaboration platform for teams, including deeper integrations with Google services, the Techcrunch reported. There are also new bots for notifications, as well as support for Google’s recently launched Team Drives, document previews, permissioning among the additions in the app.

“Google and Slack share the same vision for the future of work that smart software could bring teams together and make all of their work and conversations seamlessly available in one place. The result is that teams can move faster and more efficiently,” writes Nan Boden, Head, Global Technology Partners, Google Cloud, in a blog post.

According to the Techcrunch, Google Drive was one of the first Slack integrations and remains one of the most popular, noting that a Google Drive file is imported in the app approximately 60,000 times every weekday. Now, the application will work with Google developers on building further integrations for their overlapping customer base. Google Drive Bot is one of the latest integration. It will post comments and requests for access into Slack. Recipients can then approve or reject requests, or settle comments, or they can launch Google Docs to work with the files directly. It will also allow users to preview Google Docs files in the app itself, and, when shared, it will check the permissions on the file. The app will also work with Google Team Drives. Files shared in Slack will be uploaded automatically to the Team Drive, and Team Drive updates are also shared back to Slack. The admins will be able to provision Slack for their company through an integration with the G Suite dashboard. This will work with both new and existing teams. The new integrations will be rolled out over the first half of 2017.