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Slack workflows

Explore Slack workflows and how to configure them.

Slack workflow is a specific type of event listener tailored for Slack. It is triggered with a set of events happening in your Slack workspace, such as new members joining a channel or new messages posted to a channel or reactions added to specific messages.

Info

To capture events happening in your tools or services, add a webhook workflow. When an event happens in your tool, your system can send this data to a URL generated by a workflow in Actioner.

To capture events happening in your HubSpot account, add HubSpot workflow. HubSpot workflow is a specific type of event listener tailored for HubSpot. It is triggered with a set of events happening in your HubSpot account, such as deal updates, new contacts being added to your CRM, or companies removed from your HubSpot account.

Popular use cases for Slack workflows

  • Welcome new members in your Slack community with a direct message.
  • Create tickets for posts sent in dedicated #requests channel.
  • Take automated actions on customer requests by adding an emoji, such as solve, assign or escalate them.
  • Notify your team whenever a new Slack channel is created.
  • Report problems by adding emoji reactions to your messages.
  • Add new tasks from Slack messages.
  • Create smart chat bots that answers commonly asked questions.

Let's take a closer look of the steps to build a Slack workflow.

Step 1. Add a new workflow​

Navigate to your app in My apps page and go to Workflows tab and click + Add workflow.

Next, enter a name, description and tags for your workflow and select Slack in type field.

Add a new Slack workflow

Select the event type​

Select an event from below list:

Select Slack workspace​

If your Actioner workspace is connected with one Slack workspace, your Slack workspace is automatically selected.

If your Actioner workspace is connected with multiple Slack workspaces, select the Slack workspace where the workflow will run.

If you can not see any Slack workspace, it means that your Actioner workspace is not connected with any Slack workspace. If you are a workspace admin, you can add a Slack connection. If you are not a workspace admin, contact with your workspace admin to add a Slack connection.

Select Slack channel and invite Actioner app​

Select the Slack channel that you want to listen events of. The listed channels are the public channels in the connected Slack workspace.

Selecting a Slack channel is not mandatory for most event types. If you want to listen the same event happening in multiple channels, leave this field empty and add your channel filters while setting up conditions.

Note

Slack channel field

  • is not visible for Channel created events.
  • is mandatory for New message posted and Emoji added event types and can be set as static or dynamic for these events. Static values are the list of public channels in the connected Slack workspace. If you provide a prefix, Actioner listens events from public channels that their name starts with that prefix.

If you selected Emoji added event type, you can enter the emoji that to start listening events when it is added.

Tip

Don't forget to invite Actioner Slack app to the Slack channel that you want to listen events from.

Step 2. Test with a Slack event or Add an example payload​

Send data from your Slack workspace

Depending on the Slack event type, you can trigger data from your Slack workspace by simply posting a new message, creating a new channel or inviting your colleagues to a channel.

After completing the test, click Test Slack button to see the incoming data in JSON format.

Send data to Actioner from a Slack event

Add an example payload​

Alternative to triggering a test event, you can Add an example payload in JSON format or continue with default test data. This will help you setup filters and action parameters in the next steps.

Add an example payload to Slack workflow

Step 3. Setup root conditions​

Root conditions are used to evaluate data to decide whether or not to execute the steps. If conditions are met, Actioner executes the steps added to a workflow and ends the processing. If conditions are not satisfied, nothing happens.

Setup root conditions for a Slack workflow

To add a new condition, click + Add condition button.

To remove a filter click X right near it.

Note

Your changes are applied after you save your changes.

→ Learn how to setup root conditions with dynamic data.

Step 4. Add your first step​

Steps are the actions that are automatically run as a result of an event that triggers a workflow.

In a workflow, you can setup steps to perform an action in Slack, such as to post a new messages or to perform an action in your tool, such as to update a deal.

You can add one action to each step of a workflow. By adding multiple steps, you can set a workflow to run multiple actions in a sequence.

Click + Add step button to create a new step in your workflow.

Tip

You can add as many steps as you want. Multiple actions can run through a workflow

  • if root conditions are satisfied AND
  • if multiple step conditions are satisfied AND
  • if actions added to steps (that has conditions satisfied) are run successfully.

The steps are run in top down order.

Step 5. Add step conditions​

You can add additional conditions to your steps. The step is executed as long as

  • Root conditions are satisfied AND
  • Step conditions are satisfied.

Once the root conditions of a workflow is satisfied, workflow starts processing the steps in top down order. To decide whether to run a step or not, data is also checked against the conditions of that step.

If step filters are satisfied, Actioner executes the selected action and proceeds to next step. If conditions are not satisfied, Actioner does not execute the selected step. But processing does not stop.

Caution

Processing stops when an action added to an earlier step could not be successfully run or when the last step of the workflow is evaluated.

→ Learn how to setup step conditions with dynamic data.

Step 7. Select the step action and enter action parameters.​

Select an action from your app that will be run once the step conditions are satisfied. When you select an action, the action's input fields open up. Provide parameters that the action will run with.

→ Learn how to configure your action parameters with dynamic data.

Step 8. Add new steps (optional).​

If you are looking to run multiple actions through a workflow, you can add more steps.

Tip

You can add as many steps as you want. Multiple actions can run through a workflow

  • if root conditions are satisfied AND
  • if multiple step conditions are satisfied AND
  • if actions added to steps (that has conditions satisfied) are run successfully.

The steps are run in top down order.