Migration · Slack
Migrating from Slack to Enclessa is a manual exercise, because Enclessa has no importer: you audit what the workspace actually contains, rebuild the structure as teams, categories and channels, run both products in parallel for a fortnight while people learn where things go, and then cut over on an announced date. Slack’s own export produces your history for archiving; it does not load into Enclessa, and no tool converts it.
Open betaThe platform is being built in the open, so parts of it are not there yet, behaviour changes between releases, and no availability figure is committed while it is in beta. What is still being built.
Enclessa has no automated importer. No tool moves messages, files, members or permissions out of another product and into Enclessa, and none is promised. Migration is a manual exercise: you rebuild the structure, run both systems side by side for a fortnight, and cut over on a date everybody knows. Every guide here is written for that reality rather than around it.
Sort by last message. In most workspaces a small minority have been used this quarter, and the rest are archive. Rebuilding only the live ones is the single biggest saving in the whole migration, and the moment to decide is now rather than after you have recreated four hundred rooms.
For each private channel, establish whether it is private because it is sensitive or private because somebody clicked the wrong toggle in 2022. The sensitive ones are the ones that need a deliberate decision about room mode in Enclessa, and that decision cannot be changed afterwards.
List every app and integration and what it actually posts. Enclessa has no app directory, so each one is either replaced by an incoming webhook, replaced by a slash command calling your own endpoint, replaced by the API, or dropped. Finding out which after the cutover is how a migration acquires a bad reputation.
Single-channel and multi-channel guests do not have a full equivalent here. Enclessa has a guest role at channel level, but the external-guest invitation product is not built, so external people need a plan before the move rather than after it.
Whatever must be retained has to come out of Slack before you stop paying, because export access ends with the subscription. This is an archive question, separate from the migration, and it has its own deadline.
| Slack | Enclessa | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace | Organisation, or one team inside it | A single workspace usually becomes one organisation with one team; a workspace already split by department maps better onto several teams. |
| Channel sections | Categories | Slack sections are per person. Enclessa categories are structural: they carry ordering, an emoji and permissions of their own, so use them for the shape everybody shares. |
| Public channel | A managed channel in the team | Managed means the server can read it, which is what makes search, retention and export work. |
| Private channel | A private managed channel, or a group direct message | Choose deliberately: a managed room is searchable and exportable; a group direct message is end-to-end encrypted with no administrator override. The mode cannot be changed later. |
| Direct and group direct messages | Direct and group direct messages | Always end-to-end encrypted here, which is a stronger position than Slack’s and comes with no server-side search. |
| Workspace roles and channel management | Organisation, team and channel roles over a permission bitmask | Enclessa resolves permissions per role and per member with allow and deny overwrites on a category or a channel, so most Slack setups map to something simpler than they were. |
| Slack Connect | Nothing | There is no federation with another organisation’s workspace. Shared work with an external company needs accounts here or a channel neither of you owns. |
List the channels used in the last ninety days, the private channels and why each is private, every app and what it posts, every guest, and anything that has to be retained. This list is the migration plan; everything after it is execution.
Set up the organisation and its teams, then create the live channels and group them into categories. Resist recreating the archive: a channel nobody has posted in for a year is a link to an export, not a room.
A managed room is server-readable and therefore searchable, retainable and exportable. An end-to-end encrypted room is none of those and cannot be read by any administrator. The mode is fixed when the room is created, so decide before you create it rather than after.
Point monitoring, CI and anything else that posts at an incoming webhook — the payload shape is Slack’s, so most tools need only a new URL and a header. Replace anything interactive with a custom slash command calling your own endpoint, and accept that anything needing buttons or modals has no equivalent.
Keep Slack open and readable while people learn where things go. Answer questions in Enclessa even when they were asked in Slack, because a parallel run only ends if the new place is where the answers are.
Announce a date in both places, then stop posting in Slack. A workspace that stays writable does not empty, and the migration turns into a permanent split that costs more than either product alone.
Take the export you need for retention while you still have a paid workspace, and store it wherever your retention policy says. Export access goes when the subscription does, and the deadline is not negotiable.
Slack’s export tooling lives in the workspace administration settings, under import and export. What it can produce depends on your Slack plan and, for private conversations and direct messages, on Slack’s own approval process. Check what your specific workspace can actually produce before you plan around it, because the answer differs between plans and has changed over time.
The zero-risk way to test this migration is the Free plan: up to ten people, permanently, with no payment card and nothing to cancel. Run one team on it for a fortnight before you commit anybody else.
See the Free planCreate a workspace in a couple of minutes. It is yours at your-team.enclessa.app, hosted in the European Union, with encrypted direct messages from the first one you send.
Open beta. Free plan, no payment card to start.