Slack Lists: What Are They and How Can They Benefit You?

Keeping everything organized and tracking projects can be tough, especially with so many emails, meetings, and different tools making things messy. But don't worry, Salesforce has now introduced Lists, a new Slack feature to help you manage tasks more effectively right where your team works together. In this blog, we're going to talk all about Slack Lists and the great things they can do for you. Let's take a look at how you can make Slack Lists fit your own work needs.

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What Are Slack Lists and Their Key Features?

Here are the key features of Slack Lists that make them useful for teamwork and project management:

1. Convert Slack Messages to List Items: Slack Lists is natively integrated into Slack! It is very easy to convert messages into items in a List, making it a convenient way to track messages (by converting them into work items).
2. Views and Filters: Each item in a Slack list has standard fields like status, assignee, and due date. Views allow teams to filter and group items by any field, making it easier to prioritize work and identify gaps or blockers. Thus, it provides a centralized space for teams to manage projects from start to finish. 
3. Slack List Field Types and Custom Fields: Lists can have custom fields with a variety of different data types (including Slack-centric ones like a “message link” and “user”). Fields are displayed alongside each item, such as assignee, due date, status, and priority. It is very easy to add or remove Fields from a List.
4. Collaboration: Lists enable teams to collaborate directly on tasks, with features like threads for organizing discussions around specific items and the ability to mention other people in a thread to notify them of tasks that require their attention.
5. Automation: You can create automations to handle incoming tasks like help desk requests, automatically organizing them into categories for better management by using Lists, Forms, and Workflow Builder. Automations can notify you when new items are added, statuses are updated, or tasks are assigned to you, ensuring you're always up to date without constantly checking manually. You also have the ability to create your own workflows that work across different apps.
6. APIs: Lists has a great API - so not only can you use Lists manually, but you can also push structured data into Slack Lists. For example you can export tasks and tickets from systems like ClickUp and ClearFeed into Slack Lists and view them inside your Slack.

“‘The combination of Lists, canvas and Workflow Builder allows us to get work done in completely new ways in Slack. Our team can now track and collaborate on tasks and organise information that can be shared across teams, all in one space.’

• Jörg Baldzer, Principal IT Engineer, FREENOW

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How Do Lists in Slack Work?

Here's a simple step-by-step on how Slack Lists function:

1. Adding Information: Start by putting details into the List. Like a spreadsheet, you can add columns for who's in charge of a task, when it's due, what's happening with it (status), and how important it is (priority).
2. Creating Your List: Each task or thing you're working on gets its own row, just like making a row for each thing on your to-do list.
3. Organizing Your Tasks: After you've got all your tasks listed, you can move them around, group them together, or use filters to see only what you need. It's like sorting your music by artist or genre, so you find what you want faster.
4. Custom Views: Set up different ways to look at your tasks. You can group them in ways that show what needs attention first, what's waiting on something else (a blocker), or just to get a good overview. It's like arranging books on your shelf by color or size, so it makes sense to you.

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Are Slack Lists Private?

When you make a list in Slack, only you can see it at first. If you want, you can share your list with others so they can see it or change it too. When you put a list in a chat or message, people there can edit it. Only the people who can access your list will receive notifications if you assign them a task on the list or mention them there. If the list isn't shared with them, or if it's not on a public channel, they won't get notified. Here's a screenshot showing that the default privacy of a Slack List is limited to the creator when the List is created, but can be extended to other people and channels in the organization as required.

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Getting Started with Slack Lists

To access Slack's new Lists feature, follow these steps:

1. How To Create a New Slack List?

1. Go to your Slack desktop app and click 'Lists'.

2. Click '+ New list'. You can start with a blank list or use a template like 'Project tracker'.

2. How To Add Fields to a Slack List?

1. Open any item by clicking it in your List.
2. To add a new field, click 'Add field', then enter its name and select the type of field.

3. Save your new field.

3. How To Add Items to a Slack List?

1. To add more tasks, click 'Add item'.

2. Fill out details for each task, such as title, assignee, and due date. Save the item.

3. You can also convert messages to List items by hovering over a message and selecting the 'Add to List' option.

4. How To See the Status of Your Slack List?

1. Click the filters icon on your List.
2. Sort, filter, group, and hide items as you wish. Choose between a table or board layout.

3. Save your settings as a view with 'Save View'.

5. How To Share a Slack List?

1. Share your List in a channel by clicking 'Share' on your List.
2. Under 'General', set access restrictions and click 'Save'.

3. Use 'Channels' or 'People' tabs to share with specific users or channels.

Tip: See sharing status by clicking 'Share' and navigating between 'Channels' and 'People' tabs.

6. How To Comment on Slack List?

1. Hover over an item and click 'Add comment' to discuss it or 'View comment' to see existing discussions.

2. Send your message to start or continue the thread.

Note: Access all message threads from the 'Threads' section in your Slack sidebar.

7. How To Control Notifications From Slack Lists?

1. Open an item and click the bell icon.
2. Choose when you want to be notified, such as when the status changes.

3. Notifications will appear in your 'Activity' area.

Now, you're ready to efficiently manage your project with Slack Lists right from within Slack.

7. How To Create Workflows Using Slack Lists?

Events from Lists can be used to trigger Slack workflows. These allow Lists to be integrated with many workflow steps from vendors such as Atlassian (Jira), Zendesk, Microsoft, and others. The picture below shows an example in which a change to a Slack List item's status can trigger a workflow.

Similarly, lists can be updated when specific events (like an emoji application) happen. The  screenshot shows List actions like adding an item or updating an item as part of a Slack workflow:

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Limitations of Slack Lists

Slack Lists can be useful for keeping track of tasks, but they lack some important features that can make things difficult, especially for teams with different roles and varying access levels.

1. Lack of Access Controls: Imagine a folder that everyone can open and change. Slack Lists work like this. Anybody who can see the list can change it and see everything on it. This isn't good for groups where some people should only see certain things and not everything. Or where some users can edit fields, but others can only see them.
2. No SLA Alerts: When teams promise to get tasks done by a certain time, they need to track this and get warned if they might miss the deadline. Slack Lists can't help with this, which can be a problem for customer service teams.
3. Moving Information Is a Hassle: If you're chatting in Slack and decide to turn a message into a list item, only the main message gets moved over—not the whole conversation or any files that were sent. This means you have to copy and paste everything else by hand.
4. Slack Messages Missing Links to List Items: If you create a list item from a message, you can't see any link between the two in Slack. You won't know which message started the list item, and you can't update the list item right from the message.
5. Lack of Visibility to External Integrations: Many times, you might want to turn a list item into a task in another program (like Jira or Asana) that your team uses. Unfortunately, Slack Lists can't directly show these connections, making it tough to stay organized.
6. Lack of Private Collaboration: Slack Lists don't understand the idea of having user groups with different rights. For example, agents at a service desk may want to leave private comments for other agents, but this is not possible with Slack lists.
7. No Built-In AI Features: Even though you can connect Slack Lists with AI tools outside of Slack, they don't come with their own smart features. Helpful features like automatic suggestions or answers when creating a list item can save time and help teams, but Slack Lists don't offer these on their own.
8. Missing Basic Features: Operations like being able to move an item from one List to another, or being able to archive an item in a List are missing right now. Clearly the product has a long way to go!

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Slack Lists API for Developers

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For developers looking to automate tasks programmatically, the Slack Lists API provides several methods for interacting with lists outside the UI.

• slacklists.items.create: Use this method to programmatically add items to a list.
• slacklists.items.update: This method allows you to update existing items within a list.
• slacklists.columns.list: Retrieve metadata about the columns in your lists.

Readers can find detailed API docs on Slack Lists here. Using such APIs, developers can also export data from their own system into Slack Lists. For example, ClearFeed can export a ticket dashboard into a Slack List allowing users to be able to look at a Kanban board of tickets in ClearFeed - right from within Slack. Which looks like the below:

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Slack Lists General Availability (2025)

Salesforce began introducing Slack lists on June 6th, 2025, and all Slack users were able to use them over the next few weeks. It is generally available now.

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FAQs

Q1. Can Slack Lists Be Used as a To-Do List?

Slack Lists serve as task trackers and can manage to-do lists for teams. For individuals, Slack's Save Later feature handles personal tasks more simply. Save a message, then resolve it from the Save Later tab when done. The widget sits on every message, so it takes one click to use.

Save Later has limits worth knowing. It only supports a personal list, has no structure beyond a bookmarked message, and can't be shared across a team. Slack Lists fill that gap. Teams can set up a List with fields like Assignee, Priority, and Status, then add items from multiple places: moving channel messages into the List or using Workflows to create items automatically. Everyone sees the same dashboard and can mark items complete, reassign them, or update statuses without leaving Slack.

If a team has outgrown personal bookmarks, Slack Lists provide the structure and shared visibility that Save Later doesn't offer.

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Q2. Can Slack Lists Be Used To Manage a Help Desk?

Slack Lists can track a queue of help requests, and Slack provides a Help Request Tracker Template with pre-defined fields for common helpdesk needs (see screenshot below). A Slack Workflow can add new items to the list, prompt users to fill out a form, track due dates, and assign requests to team members.

The limitations are real, though. There is no synchronization between the original message thread and the corresponding List item, so conversations and tickets can quickly fall out of sync. Agents cannot post replies back to the original message from within the List item. State transitions do not update automatically when someone replies, and the system has no way to distinguish between agents, employees, and customers. SLA monitoring and response time metrics are absent. There is no built-in automated response capability, and native integrations with IT, HR, CRM, or other ticketing tools are not available.

Teams that need a full helpdesk experience inside Slack should consider tools built specifically for that use case. Atlassian Assist, Linear Asks, and ClearFeed (a Slack-native support platform) are worth evaluating.

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Q3. What Are Key Differences Between a Slack Helpdesk and Slack Lists?

To understand the differences, let's take a look at a Slack-native helpdesk like ClearFeed. While ClearFeed shares some common constructs with Slack Lists (like Items with standard fields like assignee, status, and priority organized into Collections, custom fields, dashboards, and views) - it has many important differences:

1. Automatic Ticket Creation: ClearFeed turns normal Slack chats into a super-organized helpdesk. When people talk about problems in Slack, ClearFeed converts those messages into support tasks so teams can fix things quickly. It keeps customer service on point and makes sure all the rules for answering on time are followed.
2. Agents, Private Collaboration, and SLA Alerts: ClearFeed understands that “agents” (or “responders”) are an important concept for helpdesks. Agents can see what's going on with customer requests in a private space where they can post private comments, view sensitive fields, and perform other actions. Similarly, it also understands that messages from “requesters” (whether employees or customers) require timely responses and raises alerts for the same.
3. Access Control for Forms and Fields: Using ClearFeed, you can create fields that have different levels of visibility and edit privileges for different user groups (primarily Agents vs. Requesters). This allows support teams to have full control over the data required for each ticket and over private fields that agents can use for collaboration and reporting.
4. Works with Other Customer Service Tools: ClearFeed works with other ticketing and task management software, like Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, and Jira. This means you can work in Slack while converting incoming issues to upstream systems as needed. Messages and status updates are synchronized across these systems, so you can see Jira status updates (for example) on a linked ticket in Slack.
5. Smart Reports to Plan Better: ClearFeed gives teams detailed reports to help them understand how much work there is, how fast the team is helping customers, and when it's time to bring in more people. They can see things like how many questions come in, how long it takes to start helping and solving a problem, and if they are meeting their promised times.
6. Helping with Customer Questions Automatically: ClearFeed’s Virtual Agent can search through KBs, documentation, and even older Slack chats to come up with answers to customer questions by itself. In tests they've done, it could sort out more than 30% of customer questions without needing a person.

To wrap it up, Slack Lists is a cool new feature from Salesforce that helps teams organize their work more effectively, all within Slack. ClearFeed is purpose-built to convert Slack into a Helpdesk and provides a custom solution for service teams with advanced access controls, private collaboration, extensive integrations, reporting, and an amazing GPT-powered Answer bot. You can use ClearFeed no matter what kind of work you do - like sales, engineering, customer service, or IT. Plus, it's easy to start using ClearFeed. Get in touch with our team today to know more about us.