Facebook Workplace Takes on Slack and Microsoft Teams With New Features

Aiming to enhance engagements from work environments, Facebook has brought tons of new features to its enterprise-collaboration platform Workplace. The Workplace Chat app, which was silently debuted earlier this month, has also come out of beta and reached Windows and macOS alongside its existing presence on Android and iOS. The new developments are aimed to make Workplace a tougher competitor against Slack and Microsoft Teams.

With the Workplace desktop app, Facebook is enabling workforces with screen sharing and file sharing features. Organisations can also leverage features like message reactions, @mentions, and animated GIF images, all of which are widely used in Slack, a popular workplace collaboration and communications app. Further, Facebook is bringing group video chat to the Workplace desktop app. This is something that has been a part of Microsoft Team since its launch in November 2016 and a feature on Slack since December 2016.

Facebook has additionally tweaked the interface of the Workplace apps on mobile devices. The original Work Chat apps have been revamped and transformed into Workplace Chat. This is to give a unified experience across desktop and mobile devices and make it easier for users to find them in the app stores.

In addition to the name change, the mobile versions of Workplace have refreshed their look and feel with icon updates, circular profile pictures, larger link previews and increased color contrast typography. There is also better experience with updated group bookmarks layout and an online indicator.

"These design updates are based on feedback from customers and make it easier to connect and navigate on Workplace," Julien Codorniou, VP of Workplace, wrote in a blog post.

Launched in October last year, Facebook's Workplace has so far attracted more than 30,000 organisations worldwide that have created over a million groups to bring their teams together under one platform. Companies like Walmart, Heineken, Spotify, Lyft and Reliance Group are among the early adopters of Workplace at their workplaces.