Slack

Connect your workspace

1. Open Integrations in the dashboard and choose Connect Slack.
2. Pick your workspace on Slack and approve the permissions. You land back on the Integrations page with the workspace listed.
3. Choose a default project for the workspace. Until one is set, the bot replies that it isn’t set up for the channel yet.

The workspace belongs to the account that connected it, and only that account can change its settings or disconnect it. You can connect more than one workspace.

Ask the bot

• In a channel: invite the bot with /invite @TeklDesk, then mention it with your question. It replies in the thread, so the channel stays readable.
• In a direct message: message the bot. A direct message is one continuous conversation.

Every answer ends with a Sources list linking the pages it drew on, the same as on your website. If nothing in your content matches, the bot says so with your project’s fallback message rather than guessing.

Choose which project answers where

Under your workspace on the Integrations page, each public channel has a project selector. A channel with its own project uses it; any channel left on Use the default, and every direct message, uses the workspace’s default project. That lets one workspace serve, say, a #sales channel from your pricing project and a #support channel from your help-centre project.

You can only point a workspace at projects you can edit. If a channel doesn’t appear in the list, invite the bot to it first. Private channels are not listed yet.

Buttons under answers

Under each answer the bot can show buttons, following the same switches as your website widget. Turn them on or off on the project’s Widget tab.

• Follow-up suggestions: up to three likely next questions. Clicking one asks it in the same thread.
• Thumbs up / down: rates the answer. Ratings feed the Satisfaction score and the downvoted answers list in Analytics, the same as ratings from the website. Only the person who clicked sees the confirmation.
• Create a ticket: shown when the bot couldn’t answer. See below.

Create a ticket from Slack

When the bot can’t answer, Create a ticket opens a support ticket in the project’s ticket queue, with the conversation attached. It uses the email address on the person’s Slack profile; if Slack doesn’t share it, a small form asks for one. Replies to the ticket go out by email and come back into the same ticket, exactly like a ticket raised on your website. A conversation has one open ticket at a time.

Get alerts in a Slack channel

Besides email and Telegram, a project can post its alerts to a Slack channel. On the project’s Notifications page choose a public channel under Slack channel, then switch on the events you want in the Slack column: new leads, new conversations, unanswered questions and support tickets. The weekly digest is email and Telegram only. Each project has its own channel, so one workspace can send different projects to different places.

If you connected Slack before this was available, reconnect it once from the Integrations page so the bot can post to channels and read profile emails.

What to know

• Slack questions count toward your monthly message allowance, exactly like website chats. When it runs out the bot says it is temporarily unavailable.
• Questions are limited to 300 characters, as on the website. A longer one gets a short reply asking for a shorter question.
• The bot only reads messages that mention it and direct messages to it. It does not read other channel traffic, including replies in a thread it answered. To ask a follow-up in a thread, mention the bot again.
• Slack conversations appear in the project’s Conversations list with a Slack badge, and unanswered questions are reported like any other.
• Product cards are a website feature and don’t appear in Slack, and the bot can’t hand a Slack conversation to a person live. A ticket is how you take over.
• If the account downgrades to the Free plan, the bot stops answering in Slack straight away. Your settings are kept.

Disconnect

Choose Disconnect on the workspace, or remove the app in Slack. Either way the bot stops answering and the stored access token is erased. Your channel-to-project choices are kept, so reconnecting the same workspace restores them.