Rally outside the app

So far this book has kept you at your desk, in the Mac app, with a Channel open in front of you. That is where Rally does its best work, and where you set everything up. But work has a habit of happening somewhere else. A question turns up in Slack. A customer replies by email. Someone mentions you while you are on a train, or a client wants to see one conversation and has no intention of installing anything.

This chapter is about those places, and Rally meets them from both sides.

You can reach Rally from elsewhere. Hand it work from Slack with a direct message, an @Rally mention, the /rally command or a shortcut, and the finished answer comes back in the same Slack thread. Forward an email into any Channel, because every Channel has its own email address. Read and reply from your iPhone. People you share a conversation with can join from an ordinary web browser.

Rally can also reach you. When someone mentions you or adds you to a Channel, Rally tells you, on your Mac, on your iPhone or in Slack. If you would rather not hear about everything the moment it happens, Rally can write you a digest instead: a short summary of what moved, on the days and at the times you pick.

The thing to hold on to is that these are all doors into the same rooms. A thread you start in Slack becomes a Channel in Rally. A reply you type on your iPhone lands in the same conversation your teammates see on their Macs. An email you forward shows up in the Channel it was addressed to. There is no separate Slack Rally or phone Rally keeping its own copy. There is one Rally, and you pick the door.

The doors are not the same size, though, and we think that is right. The Mac app is the workshop. The others are for following along and joining in, which is most of what you want to do from a phone in a queue. Creating Spaces and Sidekicks, connecting tools and changing most settings still happen on the Mac. Each page that follows says plainly what its door can and cannot do, so you do not spend an afternoon hunting for a button that lives somewhere else.

The chapter starts with Slack, because that is where most teams already talk. Then come email, notifications and the digest, and it ends with the iPhone app and the browser.