The Ultimate Guide | How to rule your tool stack in Slack

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Chapter 1

Embracing org-wide Slack-first approach

You want to bring all your tools and resources together in Slack.

Have a holistic view of your customers.

Let your team work more productively.

Eliminate distractions and end continuous context switching.

Ultimately what you desire is to make a difference in how you work, make better choices, improve processes, and take more control over your work.

By embracing the Slack-first approach, all these can become a reality. 💁

Let's picture how you can manage processes without leaving Slack, how to drive sales and support, how to respond to incidents, and the rest of your workflows, how to turn Slack into your Digital HQ, your single source of truth and a single point of access to your entire organization.

We can imagine that you’ve already thought about using Slack integrations from the Slack app directory.

But here’s the deal about Slack integrations:

You may need more than 1 Slack app to utilize one of your tools ( say HubSpot ) in Slack to its full function.

Supposing your org has 60 software apps in your tool stack. To use all 60 of them in Slack, you’ll at least double this figure.

There’s also a high probability that you might not be able to find exactly what you need.

Depending on your needs, you may need to build a Slack bot from scratch, through APIs, and spend a lot of time and effort to host and maintain code.

Introducing Actioner: Your ultimate integration solution for Slack

Are you ready to take your team's performance to the next level? Look no further, because Actioner is here to revolutionize the way you integrate your entire stack, workflows, and processes with Slack.

Actioner serves as the ultimate platform, acting as a single source of truth and a gateway to all your Slack integrations. With Actioner, you can seamlessly connect your favorite tools and software, creating a unified hub where work gets done efficiently and effortlessly.

But Actioner doesn't stop there – it empowers your team with the freedom and flexibility they need to thrive in today's fast-paced business world. With our no-code approach, you can easily build custom apps tailored specifically for Slack, without the need for complex coding. Imagine the possibilities of creating personalized solutions that perfectly align with your team's unique requirements.

Beyond custom app development, Actioner's open API integration capability allows you to effortlessly connect any tool or software to Slack. Whether it's your project management tool, customer support platform, or data analytics software – everything can seamlessly come together through Actioner.

But the power of Actioner doesn't end at your doorstep. By joining the Actioner community, you gain access to a vast network of like-minded individuals, enabling you to share your solutions and learn from others. The Actioner app directory offers a wealth of pre-built apps that you can easily install, expanding your toolkit and enhancing your team's productivity.

And the best part? Once you have Actioner as an app in Slack, all the tools and apps you've integrated are just a click away. Say goodbye to switching between different platforms and juggling multiple logins – with Actioner, everything is conveniently accessible within your Slack workspace.

So, are you ready to unlock the true potential of Slack? Embrace Actioner and experience the seamless collaboration, streamlined workflows, and enhanced productivity that your IT team deserves.

Together, let's pave the way to a more connected and efficient future!

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Chapter 2

RevOps automation in Slack

If you'd like to;

Take all sales actions in Slack.

Manage the entire deal pipeline and qualify leads more timely.

Identify and analyze the growth opportunities in your operations.

And connect sales professionals with the SMEs quickly.

👉 RevOps automation in Slack is just what you need.

If you’re a RevOps professional, you are responsible for driving revenue growth and building customer relationships via tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive. You strive to streamline the sales process and improve conversion rates while tracking sales performance metrics and setting up successful sales strategies.

RevOps requires working closely with cross-functional teams such as marketing, product, and customer support to ensure successful sales outcomes and customer satisfaction.

To perform your job at its best, ideally, you should have all your tools and resources at your fingertips. However, managing them consumes your time and your energy.

Using Actioner, you can take all sales actions in Slack, such as creating and updating deals, leads, and other CRM data. You can also broadcast important updates to the right people as soon as they happen, automatically or manually, and bring visibility to your work by keeping stakeholders informed on deal progress and other important changes.

RevOps automation in Slack with Actioner

Dedicate Slack channels to key accounts to keep all comms and updates in one place for easier access and clear history.

Loop in subject matter experts, streamline handoffs with a single click and collaborate with the broader team in deal rooms.

Whether you need to research companies and leads faster, enrich lead data, or request a sales engineer for a POC or demo, do them all in Slack.

RevOps apps available in Actioner app directory

Slack-first sales automation with HubSpot

📍 This app is available in Actioner app directory and built by the Actioner team using Actioner. It’s ready to install and be used in Slack right away. After you install it, you can customize it for Zoho, Pipedrive, or any other CRM. Feel free to contact us through hello@actioner.com or our community.

RevOps automation use cases

We’ve wrapped up some Slack-first sales best practices in detail that you might want to check out.

📍 These use cases come with the app Slack-first sales automation with HubSpot itself, but they can be customized. If you need help building another type of workflow or require a different type of automation, please contact us.

New deal in pipeline

When there’s a new deal in your CRM, you’ll be informed in Slack with the context and can update the deal or its owner through quick action buttons.

Lead notifications

Notifications for new contacts allow your SDR team to keep track of leads throughout their lifecycle. You can convert leads, add notes or tasks, or update their status faster without leaving Slack. They can improve the lead work rate by decreasing response time.

Deal rooms

Deal rooms allow you and your team to collaborate with different subject matter experts, providing you with a 360-degree view of your clients. You can access and enrich client data (whether it’s located in a CRM, product analytics, or a CS tool) anytime in deal rooms, which are dedicated Slack channels for specific deals.

New company assigned

When a company is assigned to your Account executive or Customer success manager, they get a DM from Actioner in Slack. They can show associated leads and add tasks and notes through smart action buttons in the DM.

New contact of a company

When a new contact is created and associated with the company you own in HubSpot, you’ll receive a DM in Slack from Actioner. You can quickly log a meeting or run other relevant actions without leaving Slack.

SDR wins

When a lead is turned into an opportunity in HubSpot, you and your team will be notified to celebrate the brand-new opportunity. The smart actions in the notification also allow you to add handoff notes for the associated Account executive or share the news with the AE team instantly in Slack.

Score property changed

You can set criteria for ready-to-convert leads, such as “When the lead score is higher than X, the lead is ready to be converted.” In this case, Actioner notifies you to follow up on the lead through actions such as sending emails, adding tasks, and more right in Slack.

Missing lead source

Through warnings for missing lead sources, you can let your SDR team avoid missing out on how and why your audience finds you.

Unassigned leads

Your SDR team will be notified in the #leads channel when a contact is updated but does not have an owner, allowing you to assign an SDR without leaving Slack.

SDR to AE handoff

When there’s a new opportunity, your AE team will receive a notification in a dedicated Slack channel to ensure ease of the handoff between SDR and AE.

New deal for AE

Account executives receive a direct message from Actioner in Slack when a new deal is assigned to them in HubSpot, allowing them to update the deal, view notes, and more without leaving Slack.

Key deals

You can define key deals as deals meeting certain criteria. Actioner, then, allows you to collaborate on key deals in a separate Slack channel (deal room) when a new deal is created and fits the criteria you’ve set previously.

Deal pushed to next quarter

You’ll get a Slack alert when the estimated close date of a deal is moved to the next quarter in HubSpot.

Missing deal properties

Actioner notifies you in Slack when key fields are missing for a deal in HubSpot.

Update next steps

Whenever a deal amount changes or a deal is closed in HubSpot, you get reminded in Slack to update the next steps.

Deal stage changed

You’ll keep up with a deal's progress in HubSpot easily through Slack. Actioner notifies Account executives when a deal moves to the next stage.

AE to CSM handoff

When a deal is closed, your AEs and CSMs will be informed that the customer is ready to handoff through the #handoffs channel. They can view previous notes and add handoff notes or tasks easily using the smart action button in the notification.

Log sales meetings

Actioner sends Slack notifications to help your team when a meeting ends so that you can add notes, update a deal or create a task on time.

Celebrate won deals

For won deals in HubSpot, you’ll get notified with a celebration gif to mark won deals in a dedicated Slack channel. You can add notes to the deal or create a winning story quickly through the notification.

Lost opportunities

Whenever a deal in HubSpot is lost, your team will be notified in your Slack channel for lost opportunities and details. You can add or update the loss reason or a re-engagement task through the notification.

Closed reason missing

When a deal is closed without any explanation in HubSpot, your sales manager and Account executive will be notified in Slack with the follow-up actions to add a note or update the closing reason.

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Chapter 3

Conversational ticketing

If you're looking to;

Streamline your customer service process.

Resolve issues more timely.

Gain a deeper understanding of your customers.

And connect agents with the right experts quickly.

👉 Conversational ticketing is the solution you've been looking for.

In your role as a support professional, you are responsible for providing high-quality customer service and resolving issues via tools such as Zendesk and Freshdesk. You strive to streamline support processes and improve response times while tracking customer inquiries and feedback and setting up a positive customer experience.

Having Slack-first support is revolutionary for customer support. It offers conversational ticketing for your modern support team and allows you to resolve customer issues quickly.

Using Actioner, you can easily convert Slack messages into tickets with an emoji and track ticket progress and related conversations in Slack.

Conversational ticketing in Slack with Actioner

By automating typical actions, you can save tons of time and avoid manual work.

Not a fan of robotic automation? You can set your human-in-the-loop workflows.

Actioner helps you to swarm on cases with your team inside Slack by connecting agents with the right experts in dedicated Slack-swarming channels. You can involve experts from finance, legal, operations, sales, or other departments with just a single click. Keep all communications and updates in the swarm channel for easier access and clear history.

It gives you instant access to operational metrics using customizable actions to analyze service desk metrics in seconds and share them with stakeholders in Slack. You can track request volume, measure customer satisfaction, track first response and resolution times, and much more.

Conversational ticketing apps available in Actioner app directory

Conversational ticketing with Zendesk

📍 Conversational ticketing app in Actioner app directory is built by Actioner team using Actioner. You can install and use it in Slack right away. But you can also customize this app, tailor it for Freshdesk, or another ticketing tool. You can always contact us through hello@actioner.com or our community.

Conversational ticketing use cases

Here are some conversational ticketing best practices that you might find useful.

📍 These use cases come with the app Conversational ticketing with Zendesk itself. If you have another type of workflow or require some distinct automation, please contact us.

New ticket alerts

You’ll get notified in Slack when new tickets are created in Zendesk. The notification also provides context and allows you to take action quickly, such as assigning, replying, or updating the ticket.

Manage and track ticket lifecycle

From the moment a request is opened to the ticket getting archived, you can manage the entire Zendesk ticket lifecycle and track updates in Slack by prioritizing and resolving tickets. Utilize channels, threads, and emojis to streamline your resolution flow.

Create ticket with emoji

Adding ticket emoji to Slack messages, you can open requests in Zendesk automatically, reply to the ticket through the message thread and update the ticket status to “solved” using the smart action button.

Auto-create tickets

You can dedicate a Slack channel for the help desk. Whenever a message is posted in that channel, including specific keywords, a ticket is created automatically in Zendesk.

Quick updates with emojis

Once you dedicate a channel for help desk, you can assign, close, and escalate Zendesk tickets quickly by adding emojis (👀, ✅, ✋) to messages.

Use threads to drive conversation

When you dedicate Slack channels for customer support with Actioner, you can comment on tickets by replying to message threads. Requesters and agents track ticket comments right in Slack.

Escalate to development

Whenever a ticket requires the Development team's assistance, quickly open a Jira issue.

Archive tickets

When you close Zendesk tickets, archive them in Slack quickly so you can get back to work on other requests.

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Chapter 4

Slack-first incident and on-call management

In case you desire to;

Respond to incidents quickly.

Manage the entire incident process in Slack.

And level up collaboration among your incident response team.

👉 Slack-first incident and on-call management is exactly what you need.

As an incident response team manager, you are responsible for managing and responding to incidents related to products or services offered by your organization. IM tools such as PagerDuty or OpsGenie are your work's building stone. You strive to minimize the impact of these incidents and ensure customer satisfaction while tracking performance metrics such as incident resolution times and customer feedback.

To prevent future incidents, you determine and analyze root causes and collaborate closely with cross-functional teams such as product management, engineering, and customer support. You are responsible for ensuring the quality and reliability of your org's products or services and that your customers have a positive experience.

Slack-first incident management can be defined as the experience in which you can easily create and update incidents in your systems without leaving Slack.

Here Actioner comes into the picture, it brings all incident actions into Slack allowing your team to reach incident resolutions faster and keep everyone informed instantly along the way.

It provides response teams with a context-aware view of incidents. Using Actioner-powered incident war rooms in Slack, you can level up collaboration. With smart notifications and reminders, you always stay on top of updates, take the next best actions through follow-up action buttons, and resolve incidents faster. All comms and updates are kept in this channel for a better case-swarming experience, with easy access and clear history.

Incident management automation in Slack with Actioner

You can track everything related to their incidents in Slack, gaining insights into areas of success and opportunities for improvement. This helps teams identify vulnerabilities in their systems and processes and learn how they perform during incidents.

Slack-first incident and on-call management apps available in Actioner app directory

Slack-first incident and on-call management with PagerDuty

📍 This app is available in Actioner app directory and is built by Actioner team using Actioner. It can be installed and used in Slack directly. But you can also customize and tailor it for OpsGenie, or other IM tools as well. Feel free to contact us through hello@actioner.com or our community.

Slack-first incident and on-call management use cases

You might find these best practices helpful for incident and on-call management in Slack.

📍 These use cases come with the app Slack-first incident and on-call management with PagerDuty itself. If you have another type of workflow or require some distinct automation, please contact us.

Incident war rooms

Bring everyone to the same Slack channel with key information about the current incident in PagerDuty.

On-call handoff

You can view your on-call list and send handoff requests to your preferred Slack channel. Your teammates can quickly take the on-call when your manager can suggest someone take it using smart action buttons in Slack.

Incident lifecycle management

You can manage and track end-to-end incident lifecycle through Slack by connecting all your IM apps. Enable real-time communication and collaboration for your incident response team during an incident in dedicated Slack channels with Actioner.

Create incidents with emojis

Adding fire emoji to a message in dedicated problem reporting channels in Slack; you can create an incident in PagerDuty automatically.

Post-incident checklist

Once an incident is resolved, remind your team to create follow-up tasks in Jira upon incident resolution, crate postmortems or notify your incident response teams to create Statuspage incidents.

Statuspage update

You can inform your customers about the incident status, updates, and resolutions with Statuspage in the war room without leaving Slack.

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Chapter 5

DevOps automation for engineering teams using Slack

If you want to;

Take necessary actions in Slack during the CI & CD process,

Deliver software faster.

And level up collaboration among your engineering team.

👉 DevOps automation in Slack is exactly what you need.

As being a part of the DevOps team; you are responsible for the development and deployment of software via tools such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

You strive to streamline the software development lifecycle and improve the quality and reliability of software releases while tracking KPIs and setting up successful DevOps processes.

You work to identify and analyze system issues and automate software delivery to enhance operational efficiency and reduce downtime. You collaborate closely with cross-functional teams such as development, testing, and operations to ensure successful software releases and optimal system performance.

Here is the thing; stale pull requests, constant tool switching, and repetitive manual actions hurt the DevOps team's work by causing delays, reducing productivity, introducing confusion and errors, and creating security risks.

Through DevOps automation in Slack, your team will collaborate more effectively, automate repetitive tasks, and reduce the need for manual intervention. You’ll speed up software delivery, provide better visibility into your pull requests, and simplify your workflows. DevOps automation in Slack will let your team work more efficiently.

DevOps automation in Slack with Actioner

Actioner connects the DevOps stack with Slack seamlessly, automating critical processes on continuous integration and delivery. With out-of-the-box solutions, Actioner streamlines the PR review process, keeps you informed about every update related to a pull request, and reports your team about changes in the code base in Slack.

Without leaving Slack, your engineers can run CI CD pipelines manually. Ultimately, you can easily manage the entire software development process within Slack, providing real-time and actionable notifications and democratizing data across an organization.

DevOps automation apps

📍 These apps are available in Actioner app directory and are built by Actioner team using Actioner. They can be installed and used in Slack immediately. But you can also customize them and tailor them for other tools as well. Feel free to contact us through hello@actioner.com or our community.

DevOps automation use cases

The following are some DevOps automation best practices you might find useful in Slack.

📍 These use cases come with the apps above, but you might have another type of use case for DevOps automation in Slack; you can also build actions and workflows on your own using Actioner. Please contact us if you need help building another type of workflow or automation.

Running GitHub Actions workflows in Slack

Are you looking to run GitHub actions workflows in Slack? Just complete a few simple steps to turn GitHub Actions workflows into ready-to-run Slack actions. After, you can manually run your workflow in seconds by calling Actioner in Slack.

GitHub Actions workflow notifications in Slack

Want your team to know workflow progress? After you run a workflow, they will be notified in your preferred Slack channel whether the build status is successful, failed, or in progress to identify errors, failed codes, and slowdowns.

Running Bitbucket Pipelines in Slack

Are you looking to run Bitbucket pipelines in Slack? To trigger Bitbucket pipelines in Slack, you just need to complete a few steps in Actioner to convert Bitbucket pipelines into an action to run in Slack. Then, you’ll be able to run that action any time you want in Slack.

Bitbucket Pipelines notifications in Slack

Would you like to share pipeline status with your team? In your preferred Slack channel, your team will be notified when a pipeline runs and whether the build is successful, failed, or in progress, allowing you to identify errors, failed codes, and slowdowns.

GitHub PR notifications in Slack

To track pull request updates in GitHub, your team will get informed in ephemeral Slack channels dedicated to collaboration on the pull request.

Bitbucket PR notifications in Slack

You can collaborate on temporary Slack channels dedicated to open Bitbucket pull requests. Only assignees and reviewer/s are invited automatically, keeping work organized and away from distractions.

GitLab MR notifications in Slack

You’ll have ephemeral Slack channels for each open merge request in GitLab. Any updates, test results, comments, etc., will be tracked. The only people invited are assignees and reviewers, ensuring your team stays focused and distraction-free.

Broadcast GitHub commits to main

Everyone in your team gets informed when deploys occur and which changes were rolled up into a release through a broadcast channel in Slack.

Broadcast Bitbucket commits to main

Once a pull request is merged into the main branch, you’ll receive an automated message in a Broadcast channel with a link for viewing differences in the codebase.

Broadcast GitLab commits to main

A message is automatically posted in the channel whenever a merge request is committed to the default (main) branch, allowing you to see differences between your branches.

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Chapter 6

Issue and Project management in Slack

For those who want to:

Stop switching between Jira and Slack,

End constant copy-pasting issue links into conversations,

Manage projects and track issues in a timely manner,

Reduce delays and confusion, and improve productivity.

➡️ All you need is Actioner’s Jira Software app for Slack.

As a project manager, you keep track of multiple projects, assign tasks, and monitor progress using tools like Jira Software.

You are responsible for defining the stages of your project and ensuring that every task is completed on schedule.

By integrating Jira Software with Slack, you can take your project management to the next level.

With Actioner, you can receive real-time notifications in Slack Jira issue updates, such as new comments, status changes, or assignee updates.

Jira issue and project management in Slack with Actioner

You can also create new Jira issues directly from Slack, assign them to team members, and set due dates without leaving the Slack interface.

Actioner also allows you to customize your Jira notifications in Slack. You can choose which types of notifications you want to receive, who you want to receive them from, and how often you want to receive them.

This way, you can stay informed about the issues that matter most to you and your team without being overwhelmed by unnecessary notifications.

With Jira Software and Slack, you can improve collaboration and productivity, reduce delays and confusion, and manage your projects and issues more efficiently.

So why wait? Try Actioner’s Jira app for Slack today and take your project management to the next level!

Issue and Project management in Slack use cases

Here are some best practices for Issue and Project management in Slack.

*These use cases come with the apps above, but you might have another type of use case for Issue and project management in Slack; Actioner also allows you to build your own actions and workflows for Slack. Please contact us if you need help building a workflow or automating a process.

New Jira issue notifications

Want to get notified of new Jira issues in Slack? When you set up Actioner’s Jira app for Slack, you’ll choose a Slack channel to get Jira notifications. Actioner will notify you from there when a Jira issue is created in Slack or the Jira platform.

Manage and track Jira issues in Slack

From creating issues to set their status to DONE, you can track the entire issue lifecycle in Slack. Managing Jira projects in Slack has been revolutionized with this app. Smart notifications with quick action buttons, fully-utilized message threads, and dedicated Slack channels will help you manage projects without leaving Slack.

Create Jira issues with Slack emojis

When you set up Actioner’s Jira app for Slack, you’ll choose a Slack channel to report Jira issues. In that channel, when you add ticket emoji to a message, you’ll be prompted to a form in Slack with some prefilled fields.

If you add the emoji, you’ll be set as the Reporter, and the message will be the Summary. You can then choose Project, Issue type, and other fields in the form. And your issue will be created!

Dedicate Slack channels for critical Jira issues

When you label a Jira issue as "critical" or set the highest priority, Actioner will create a Slack channel. This channel will be dedicated to that specific Jira issue. It will be named after the issue key.

Actioner will also invite issue stakeholders to the channel. From then on, you’ll receive updates on the critical issue and collaborate without any other distractions.

List and search Jira issues in Slack

We bet you’re tired of searching issues in Jira get its link and paste it into Slack conversations. Using Actioner’s Jira app for Slack, you can list and search for issues in no time right in Slack.

To do that, there are 3 actions you can run in Slack:

My open issues: You can list your open issues together with the key information such as the summary, status, issue type, and assignee.

Search issues by filters: You can select the project, issue type, status, creation date, assignee, board, sprint, or enter a keyword to search a Jira issue in Slack.

Search issues using JQL: You can just enter the Jira Query, and get the list of matching issues in Slack

Expand Jira issue status by mentioning

This is a pretty cool use case. Actioner allows you to check the status of Jira issues in Slack just by mentioning its key.

You can just send a message such as What is the status of PROJ-1234? to the channel ( to report Jira issues) you’ve selected during the setup. After that, you’ll immediately get a response for its Slack message link. This way, you can get the latest updates on the issue and view its entire lifecycle and updates.

Conclusion

So, that’s how you can rule your tech stack in Slack.

Let's hear from you now.

Have you tried ways to turn Slack into a DQ?

In that case, how did it go?

Do you have some out-of-the-box use cases?

If yes, what are they?

Let us know by sharing in our community!

THE ULTIMATE GUIDEHow to rule your tool stack in Slack