Useful communication tools

• Team/work updates: create a workflow to submit your updates or just post in your team channel. Use threads to comment and discuss the content.
• Questions and announcements: post to channels and direct message colleagues, use @ to alert a team/group/individual.
• Conversations: create dedicated channels for committees/teams/working groups to effectively share information with members and chat.
• Alerts and reactions: set reminders, manage and snooze notifications. Quickly acknowledge and respond to messages with a thumbs up or other relevant emoji

• Meetings: use for team, committee and departmental meetings. Assign co-hosts and mute participants upon entry. Use chat to capture questions and comments.
• Discussions: use Breakout Rooms to enable small group discussions. Set up a Jamboard or Google Doc to capture comments, discussion points and feedback.
• Screen sharing: present your screen to other participants to deliver slides and demo content.
• Record meetings: share recordings with attendees and non-attendees, remember recordings of meetings are subject to GDPR. 
• Secure your meeting: meetings have a password by default, but check the identity of anyone you don’t know. You can also set up meetings that only York users can join.
• Live auto-captioning: use live transcription for more widely accessible synchronous meetings. You can also access the full transcript at the end of the recording which can assist with formal minute taking.

Read the Zoom Wiki for more information.

• Formal communications: use for sharing detailed formal communications. Use for communications which include actionable content, that don't require urgent attention (2+ days). For actionable and urgent emails include the status in the subject line. 
• Detailed communications: use Google Gmail (email) for newsletters and longer communications which don’t require a response; think about reducing content by linking to further information, formatting and structure. 
• Email groups: use Google Groups in your email to ensure that you are including all staff and students that need to see the communication. You can set up your own Google Groups for projects and meetings.

• Departmental information: create a wiki space for your department and share policies, standard procedures and department guidelines.
• Committees: create a space for committees to share terms of reference and minutes. Share a record of actions and decisions.
• Signpost: collate links to useful websites, systems and other resources that your team/department need regular access to.

Zoom is the recommended tool for video conferencing. Use Meet for:

• Informal meetings: hold recurrent meetings without the need for a host or password.

• Calendar: let colleagues know when you are free or busy.
• Drive and Shared Drive: collaborate and stay organised by storing your team/department’s work in one place.
• Collaborative files: use Docs, Slides and Sheets to comment, assign actions, suggest and edit content as a team.
• Jamboard: record notes, thoughts and relevant links in real time and keep them for reference later. (Use Slides as a more widely accessible alternative)