Moving your team from Slack to Pumble

Are you considering moving your team from Slack to Pumble? If so, you may have questions about the difference between the two platforms and the potential challenges you will face during the transition process.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know to successfully migrate your team from Slack to Pumble, and we will walk you through the migration process step by step. 

Why migrate to Pumble?

The free version of Slack is limited to just 3 most recent months of messages, but Pumble doesn’t have that limit. 

Even better, you can move all of your Slack messages — including those older than 3 months — over to Pumble. 

On Slack, you have to pay per user. If you want to preserve the chat history for a growing number of community users, this can get pretty expensive quickly. 

When you’re using Slack, access to messages older than 3 months, in addition to many  other key features, are only available if you pay $8.25 per user per month, which adds up quickly if you just want a chatroom for your colleagues. Pumble’s free version offers almost all of the features Slack puts behind a paywall.

Pumble supports excellent video and voice communication. Want to organize a quick team meeting? Just go to a channel and click on the video or headphone icon, and that’s it.

Furthermore, in June of 2024, Slack’s users started receiving official emails stating that the messages and files from free workspaces will be deleted after one year. The policy change is to be enforced from August 24, 2024.

How to move from Slack to Pumble?

Your team will need to make a plan to avoid workspace attrition during the migration. Put together a strategy to announce the transition with frequent reminders about the timeline for the switch and clear instructions about how members can join Pumble.

#1 Set up your Pumble workspace

First, make sure you have a Pumble workspace. If you don’t have one, you can create it and start importing your Slack data. Creating a workspace on Pumble is a piece of cake. Go to the registration page and insert your email address and workspace name. And that’s it.

Next, you should give your team a heads-up and collect feedback. Several weeks before the switch, start letting your members know that you were looking for an alternative to Slack. Walk them through the challenges you were facing with Slack, the benefits of Pumble, and the timeline for moving.

And once your team is informed  about the migration, it’s now your turn to make a move.

#2 Export your Slack archive

First, you will need to export your Slack archive. To do this, you need to be an Admin for the Slack workspace you want to export. In Slack, click the name of your Slack  in the top-left corner, hover over Settings & Administration, then click Workspace Settings. This will open the Settings & Permissions page in your browser, where you will see an Import/Export Data button on the right.

Click that button, then go to the Export tab. Select the date range you want to export, and click Start Export. The export process could take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, depending on how big your Slack archive is. 

You will get a Slackbot DM and email when it’s done. When it’s ready, the archive will be a ZIP file in your Downloads folder.

The important part is that you don’t edit the file before importing it to Pumble, as it will disrupt the import process. 

Also, if you’re on a Free or Standard Slack plan, you can only export Public channels’ message history. Private channels message history export is available only if you’re on a Business or Enterprise Slack plan. 

#3 Import data from Slack

Importing data from Slack to Pumble is pretty simple. In Pumble, click on your workspace name in the top left corner, and then go to Workspace settings. Click the General settings and on your left sidebar, you’ll see the Import and Export tab. Click on it, and you’re there.

Choose the ZIP file and select the file you’ve downloaded previously from Slack. 

Confirm the file and click the Start import. Depending on the amount of information in your import, it might take some time to complete.

You’ll receive an email when your workspace is fully ready. The files shared on Slack will not be imported to Pumble, but the links shared in messages on Slack will be preserved and imported. If a member already exists, their Slack messages will be merged into their existing Pumble account. If a member does not already exist, they will receive a new account invitation that they need to activate.

#4 Start using Pumble

When you enter your Pumble workspace, you’ll see that every public channel has been imported together with all your members. You can search through your message history in channels, and easily find everything you need. And you can send direct messages to your team members.

Besides that, you can go to your workspace settings and permissions and check if everything is right, or if you need some changes in your workspace permissions.

Set everything you want, and start your Pumble journey!

Conclusion

Congratulations on successfully navigating the transition from Slack to Pumble! Your commitment to following our guide on exporting from Slack and importing to Pumble has brought you one step closer to a more efficient team collaboration experience.