Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board vs. Slack

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Social Squared is a SharePoint Discussion Board App that can be deployed across SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Social Squared improves productivity and efficiency by providing structured discussion forums for employee and student discussions. For Microsoft SharePoint Social Squared is a SharePoint discussion board application where users can post questions within relevant forums and receive answers to their questions from subject matter experts. The…
$2,200
per year per installation
Slack
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Slack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that aims to simplify communication for businesses. Features include open discussions, private groups, and direct messaging, as well as deep contextual search and message archiving, and file sharing. Slack integrates with a number of other tools, such as MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in December 2020. The product is free to use, and also has paid plans with more features and greater controls. The…
$8.75
per month per user
Pricing
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
Editions & Modules
Social Squared Discussion Board
From $2200
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
POA
per year per installation
Free
$0
Pro
$7.25*
per month per user
Business+
$12.50*
per month per user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released.*Per active user, per month, when paying once a year. Pro is $8.75 USD per active user when paying month to month. Business+ is $15.00 USD per active user when paying month to month.
More Pricing Information
Features
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Slack
8.2
479 Ratings
6% above category average
Task Management00 Ratings8.2310 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.961 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings7.9259 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.4284 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings9.4460 Ratings
Search00 Ratings8.7463 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.0187 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Slack
8.8
488 Ratings
10% above category average
Chat00 Ratings9.8488 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings9.1484 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings9.5473 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings8.1302 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings7.7300 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings8.9110 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.7182 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings8.9120 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Slack
8.7
461 Ratings
10% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.3229 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings8.8412 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings9.0403 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.4318 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.4305 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.5264 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings9.0211 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings9.1339 Ratings
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Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(488 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(23 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(103 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(66 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion BoardSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
Lightning Tools
Their customer service it top notch and always responsive. I struggled in the beginning a little bit because I'm not tech savvy and we had to add it to our SharePoint site but they helped me along the way and even had share screen meetings with me to assist!!
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Salesforce
If you population likes technology, then I would recommend Slack. It is more difficult to implement if not everyone is on Slack or knows how to use it. Slack was used well by some employees who loved it. Slack allowed them to plan annual events and get feedback and ideas from those involved in the event
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Pros
Lightning Tools
  • Organizing Data
  • Opens up discussion, whether publicly or anonymously
  • Easy to setup
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Salesforce
  • Huddles Run smoothly without any interferences.
  • Smooth individual calls quick and easy without any interruptions.
  • seamless notifications across multiple devices
  • The ability to easily tag a team member to urgently attend to a specific escalation.
  • Slack being user friendly and able to integrate easily with other platforms and apps.
  • How to easily open up different channels for different escalations and needs.
  • a safe direct messaging option.
Read full review
Cons
Lightning Tools
  • I would love to be able to assign various people as administrators of different topics (this may be an option now but a couple years ago it wasn't)
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Would love a better integration with GitHub. For example, notifications when your PR is updated, when review is requested, @-mention in comments, etc.
  • Improved "Later" tab, for example the ability to create to-do lists or making the "Later" tab into a more powerful to-do list (annotate items with notes)
  • More powerful integrations, e.g. Google Calendar could render a calendar view within Slack, rather than sending the daily schedule
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
To be more transparent, I give 10 because Slack serves our collaboration needs. It provide us a good platform for team communication relaying important update within the company, it has even mobile app where you can install in your phone to monitor any updates within that team that needs your immediate attention and intervention.
Read full review
Usability
Lightning Tools
Our employees really like the fact that they can find things easily with the search feature and add questions and comments as they see fit.
Read full review
Salesforce
Slack is one of the easiest platforms to use! It is very aesthetically pleasing and you can arrange the chats and other features the way you personally like it. They kept it pretty simple for people who aren’t looking to do anything more than streamlining communication, but they definitely have options for folks to build out the Workspace more.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Yes, the app works 24/7. I don't even recall having any period that we could not use since the implementation. Even the maintenance periods are barely noticeable and our work is not impacted by it when it happens.
Read full review
Performance
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Slack is a soft app, we don't have many issues with it. I recall one or two people complaining about something during our usage period, but I didn't have a bad experience. When the app is slow, usually the problem is with my computer or my internet. The app works just fine.
Read full review
Support Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Whenever I've had to troubleshoot an issue with Slack (which, to be honest, has not happened very often), their online documentation has been easy to locate, easy to understand, and effective in resolving my issue. Slack's ever-growing popularity also means that there's a large community of practice out there that can be depended upon.
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Implementation Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
I was not part of the implementation team, but I recall being 100% happy and excited to learn and use a new tool. I'm still am to be honest.
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Alternatives Considered
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Having had a lot of experience with Google Chat and Teams, Slack is far and away the better option. In comparison to Teams, Slack is much cleaner with a far more user friendly AI, Teams is far too clunky and feels tiresome to use, whereas it is super easy to pick up Slack and be able to configure it do exactly what you need. Whilst I don't find a massive difference between the usability and UI of Google Chat to Slack. Slack's range of features far outweighs Google Chat. The ease of external connections, workflows, file sharing, external connections for notifications (Make, Zapier etc), plus the huge range of apps you can connect to enhance your workspace is incredible. Google Chat does benefit from directly integrating into your Google Suite so you can get access to automatic status updates based on calendar activity, which would be nice for Slack to have
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Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
  • We signed up for a 3 year contract and hope to do another 3yr contract when this one is up. :)
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Use of Slack has enabled us to stay aligned with sales and ensure accurate forecasting.
  • The product has reduced delays in decisions making and helps us to improve on transparency in our departments.
  • Slack has eliminated the use if emails as it allows direct messaging. This has ensured real-time communication.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board Screenshots

Screenshot of MODERN, RESPONSIVE SHAREPOINT DISCUSSION BOARD
Discussion Forums can be created for a variety of different reasons. This example is a Forum Group for the Microsoft 365 technologies such as Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. Forums are then created within the Forum Groups for more specific discussions. Under the SharePoint Forum Group, there is a Forum for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online. Anyone looking to ask a question regarding SharePoint 2019 for example would be able to post their question under SharePoint On-Premises rather than SharePoint Online. This also allows subject matter experts to focus more on the questions that they can respond to and provide value.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT DISCUSS BOARD – TOPICS VIEW
When navigating into a forum, the topics and discussions that are taking place are shown. Any new topics that not yet read will be highlighted. It also displays whether topics have been answered, their average ratings, how many views and posts are within the topic, and also provides the ability to subscribe to the forum to be notified of new posts within it.Screenshot of READING DISCUSSIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Social Squared offers a threaded discussion view with the ability to provide feedback to other users.

Posts can be rated, voted upon, or liked by users in order to give feedback to the user creating or responding to a post. Additionally, replies can be marked as answered or marked as featured, which gives readers of forums assurance that the response they are reading is validated to be the correct answer.

Users also receive feedback through the earning of badges. The more users post or mark posts as answered, the more points are rewarded. This makes it easy to spot subject matter experts.Screenshot of SUGGESTED TAGS
Social Squared provides a rich text editor for creating and replying to topics. The Rich Text toolbar provides functionality such as inserting images, YouTube videos, Stream Videos, Formatted Code Inserts, as well as font formatting.

While typing, suggestions on how to tag a post appear. Selecting an existing tag will provide consistency in the tags used making it easier for other users to discover the post.Screenshot of SOCIAL SQUARED TAG CLOUD VIEW
The Social Squared Tag Cloud view makes it easy to navigate to posts within a specific category even if they span multiple forums. The more a tag appears in different posts, the more prominent it will be in the tag cloud. Users can navigate to posts with the tag in one click.Screenshot of DISCUSSION BOARD WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS TAB
Social Squared is a Discussion Board App for Microsoft Teams Tab’s and Microsoft Teams Personal Apps. Social Squared provides information workers the ability to post questions within relevant forums, and receive answers from their team. The Discussion Board layout for posts makes it easier to find answers to questions that may have already been asked before. Through features such as “Mark as Answered”, “Forum Moderation”, “Post Rating”, “Post Likes”, “Post Voting”, users will be assured that the answers they are reading are validated.