For those who are not familiar with Slack, Slack is a cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools and services. Over the last year, collaboration tools such as Slack and Teams have gained popularity due to their persistent chat features. This means that at some point SCCM administrators are going to have to make it available in Software Center. In this article, I am going to walk you through the steps to create and deploy Slack 3.0.5 using SCCM.

Download Links

Download this file and save it in your software library.

Just in the event you wanted the individual installer.

 

Installation Steps to Configure Slack 3.0.5 using SCCM

Once we are in the Configuration Manger, we can create a new Application under Software Library > Application Management > Application. Right click Application > Create Application. The following window should appear. Select the Browse button.

Go to the folder path where you saved the the MSI file downloaded. Select the file and click on Open.

Click Next.

SCCM will process the file at this point by extracting and retrieving the application information.

The detailed Information will be presented. Click Next.

At this point we will enter the following

  • Publisher: Slack
  • Software Version: 3.0.5

Slack is an app that is installed on each user’s local profile. While there are many benefits, one disadvantage to this approach is that the installer has to run in the context of that user (i.e., running the installer under your account or a service account has no effect on the intended user’s account on the same machine).

Make sure the install behavior is selected to “Install for User”.

Keep in mind, Slack will not be automatically removed from user accounts when attempting uninstalls.

Click Next.

The detailed Summary will be presented. Click Next.

The application is being created at this point. The progress bar will continue and automatically move to the next screen.

The Application Wizard has completed creating the basic application. Click Close.

This concludes the basic creation of the application.

 

Additional Configuration

Now lets go into the newly application properties. Select the Application Tab. Select Edit. We will be assigning User Categories to make the application easier to find for the users.

Select the Create button and create new categories called:

  1. Slack
  2. Instant Messaging

Once created select both values. Select OK.

At this point we will enter the following:

  1. User Documentation: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us
  2. Privacy URL: https://slack.com/privacy-policy

The icon be downloaded via the link below and should be stored in your icon library:

Icon download link: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1419122/hashtag_slack_icon#size=256

Select Browse.

Select the icon file and select Open.

The icon should be visible and you can go ahead and select OK to save the application.

 

Deployment

The application can be deployed to user collections and not device collections.

 

Validating the Installer

  1. Install on the client device from Software Center.
  2. Sign out of your Windows user account.
  3. Sign back in to your Windows user account.
  4. The Slack icon will now show up on the Desktop and Start Menu. (Note that Slack will not start up automatically, unlike the standard installer.)

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