Here at presencescheduler.com we are experts on how users can stay active on slack, and we wanted to explain various strategies which can help you keep an active status on slack - even if your not at your computer or not interacting with slack.

First lets go over what it means to have an active status. Slack has 3 main presence status's which you can have - Away, Do Not Disturb, and Active. Having an 'active' status means that you are online and "active" and have recently used slack - this is indicated by a green dot. Having an 'away' status indicates that you are not currently working, or are altogether not on slack - this is indicated by an empty circle. Additionally, the 'do not disturb' status indicates you are online, but busy and is indicated by a green dot with a snooze sign on it.

When you are logged into slack on your computer, you can choose which status you want. However, once you log out, or do not interact with slack for more then 30 minutes, your status will be forced to "away" and (under normal circumstances) you cannot make it go active.

This means that if you have an active status it's a very strong indication that you have been logged into slack and working because it is so difficult to fake or make it look like you are online. This is why you want to keep an active - because people assume - and rightly so - that you are really actively using slack.

Now there are a few ways to keep an active status.

1. You can use slack normally - but this will only let you stay online why you are actually working
2. You can set up a Keyboard macro recorder on a separate computer which can interact for the application for you and keep you online. The only downside is that you cannot setup a schedule for this, and you will only be able to do it with one team.
3. You can use the slack API to help keep yourself online. Slack has a method called users.setPresence, and you can find out how to user it here: https://api.slack.com/methods/users.setPresence. This method appears like it will keep you online, however this method - as explained above - only turns your status to auto, and so you will actually need to leave the slack app open on your computer for it to keep you online. When you have your app closed on your computer, this method will not work to force you to active, as slack says on their website that there is no API method which can keep you active on slack.
4. You can use the paid version of slackpresence.com to force your status to active. Our Presence Scheduler app is registered as a Slack app, it also uses a number of Slack API methods which can force your status to active - no matter what. This is the quickest and easiest solution to keep an active status on slack - which not only lets you create a schedule for your slack activity, but also lets you monitor and record your slack presence history as well.