Evaluate Workspace Consolidation Options

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Explain key considerations and common reasons for performing a workspace consolidation.
Identify the use cases and settings to repurpose a workspace.

As organizations grow and change, so do their collaboration needs. This unit guides you through consolidating Slack workspaces, whether that means moving channels or importing data. Discover common use cases and key considerations for repurposing or deleting workspaces to determine the most effective way to optimize your Slack environment.

Explore Consolidation Methods

Workspace consolidation involves merging, repurposing, or deleting Slack workspaces to align with organizational changes. This process addresses factors like growth, restructuring, or excessive administrative overhead.

Enterprise+ enables true consolidation. Org owners and admins can seamlessly move channels—including history, files, and members—between workspaces within the same organization. This prevents data loss during restructuring.

For Free, Pro, and Business+ customers, consolidation means manually exporting data from one workspace and importing it into another. This method is more limited and doesn’t support direct channel moves.

Regardless of the plan, organizations can repurpose existing workspaces by updating their name, URL, and icon. They can also delete unneeded workspaces after exporting data. Effective consolidation ultimately enhances collaboration, security, and efficiency.

Only Enterprise+ organizations can move channels between workspaces directly. Free, Pro, and Business+ plans require a manual import and export process to migrate data and consolidate workspaces.

Identify Consolidation Scenarios

You might need to perform a workspace consolidation in the following scenarios.

Pockets of growth: Consolidate redundant workspaces that serve the same purpose as your organization grows.
Security and alignment: Consolidate workspaces to standardize security settings and reduce complexity.
Organizational changes: Adjust workspaces to reflect organizational changes, such as mergers or restructuring of business units.
Administrative overhead: Consolidating workspaces can reduce maintenance overhead if it aligns with your organization’s needs.

Follow the Consolidation Process

Establish the destination workspace. If you’re creating a new workspace, you need to configure your policies and settings.
Add members to the destination workspace.
Deactivate any guest accounts from the origin workspace, if applicable.
Follow the steps in this resource guide to move channels from the origin workspace to the destination workspace.
Add guest accounts to the destination workspace, if applicable.
Reconfigure apps and integrations in the destination workspace.

Repurpose Workspaces

Repurpose a workspace when its structure remains valuable, but its purpose, branding, or leadership shifts due to organizational changes or project completion. This decision requires similar considerations to creating a new workspace, particularly regarding ongoing administrative support. Key benefits of repurposing workspaces include the following.

Efficiency: Save time by not having to configure all the settings, permissions, and integrations from scratch.
Continuity: Keep historical conversations, files, and app connections, which can be useful for audits or ongoing reference.
Reduced disruption: Avoid having to reinvite or retrain members already in the workspace, minimizing confusion and downtime.
Administrative simplicity: Avoid the risk and effort of data migration, and simply update details and access as needed.

Consider These Settings When Repurposing

When repurposing a workspace, there are three settings to consider for updates. One or multiple settings might need to be updated to align with the workspace’s new purpose and identity.

Workspace owners can change any of the following settings.

Setting	What It Does	Example
Workspace Name	This setting updates the workspace name to reflect its new purpose or brand.	To reflect a new range of baked goods, a company previously known as Nicole’s Cupcakes has rebranded its company name to Nicole’s Sweet Treats. The workspace name is updated to reflect this change.
Workspace URL	This setting updates the URL associated with the target workspace. When updating a workspace URL, there might be additional downstream impacts to consider. For instance, you might need to evaluate the apps you have integrated with Slack, custom apps, or update user login materials to reflect the new URL.	The company’s admin updates the workspace URL to align with the new workspace name, nicolessweettreats.slack.com.
Workspace Icon	This setting updates the image that appears in the sidebar to help users identify the workspace with its new brand or purpose.	Nicole’s Sweet Treats has a new logo to go along with its new name. The admin updates the workspace icon with the new logo.

Update only the relevant workspace settings. For example, you can change the workspace name without altering its URL.

If possible, complete a full audit of existing policies and settings of the workspace to ensure they align with your organization and support the communication needs of the users in that workspace.

Delete Workspaces

If your organization has decided a workspace is no longer needed, the workspace primary owner can delete it. Before deleting a workspace, consider carefully‌: ‌This action is permanent!

Before deleting a workspace, it is highly recommended to export its data to preserve messages and files, as deletion is permanent.

On Enterprise+, some data like custom emoji and user profiles remain intact because they’re stored at the org level. Be sure to review your Slack plan’s export options, as they vary.

Workspace consolidation involves merging or repurposing workspaces to meet evolving organizational needs, often driven by growth or restructuring. This process enhances collaboration, security, and efficiency by either updating existing workspaces or deleting unneeded ones after exporting data.

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