Slack

Prerequisites

• A Slack App (opens in a new tab) to connect your bot to Slack. Create one from scratch.
• A Botpress Cloud account (opens in a new tab) and a Botpress Bot (opens in a new tab)

Setting up the Slack integration in Botpress

1. Go to the Integration Hub (opens in a new tab) in Botpress Cloud (if you don't have the integration installed yet).
2. Find and open the Slack integration then click on the "Install to Bot" button, now go back to your bot.

The Slack integration has the following settings:

• Enabled: Whether Botpress will communicate with Slack
• Webhook URL: The URL for receiving data in Botpress
• Bot Token: The token used to authenticate requests made to Slack
• Signing Secret: The secret used to verify the requests

Setting up Slack

Bot Token

1. In the left sidebar, click on Features > OAuth & Permissions
2. Scroll down to the Scope > Bot Token Scopes section, click Add an OAuth Scope. Select both chat:write and chat:write.customize options from the list.
3. Scroll up and click the Install to Workspace button in the OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace section
4. In the next screen, your app will request access to your Slack workspace. Click Allow.
5. In the OAuth & Permissions > OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace section, copy the Bot User OAuth Token.
6. Copy the token and paste it in the Bot Token input in Botpress.

Signing Secret

The signing secret is used to verify webhook requests

1. In the left sidebar of the app details page, click on Settings > Basic Information
2. Scroll down to App Credentials section. Next to Signing Secret, click Show to reveal the secret.
3. Copy the secret to the Signing Secret input in Botpress.

Save Configuration

Channel configuration is complete, you can now click Save. It is important you save your configuration before configuring the webhooks, otherwise Slack will be unable to validate the webhook url

Webhook Configuration

Events Webhook

Slack sends regular events such as messages to the event webhook

1. In the left sidebar, click on Features > Event Subscriptions
2. Turn on events by click the On/Off button
3. Copy paste the webhook url provided in the channel configuration UI to the Request URL field
4. Under Subscribe to bot event, add message.im and message.channels
5. Click the Save Changes button. Make sure your Slack channel configuration is saved before doing this step, otherwise webhook validation will fail
6. A yellow banner will be displayed at the top of the screen. Click the reinstall your app link
7. In the next screen, your app will request access to your Slack workspace. Click Allow.

Interactivity Webhook

Slack sends "interactive" events such as reactions to message to the interactivity webhook

1. In the left sidebar, click on Features > Interactivity & Shortcuts
2. Turn on interactivity by click the On/Off button
3. Copy paste the webhook url provided in the channel configuration UI to the Request URL field
4. Click the Save Changes button

Install App

Add App to Workspace

Your Slack app needs to be added to your workspace to allow Slack users to communicate with it

1. In the left sidebar, click on Features > App Home
2. Scroll down and in the Show Tabs > Messages Tab section, tick Allow users to send Slash commands and messages from the messages tab
3. In Slack, under the Apps section of the sidebar, click the + Add apps button. In the search bar, type the name of your Slack app. Click on your Slack app in the search results.

That's it, you may now start chatting with your bot on Slack!

Tips

• To get the Slack conversation ID, you can read the following variable: {{ event.tags.conversation["slack:id"] }}.

• To get the Slack conversation thread ID (if it is a thread), you can read the following variable: {{ event.tags.conversation["slack:thread"] }}.

• To get the Slack user ID, you can read the following variable: {{ event.tags.user["slack:id"] }}.

• To get the Slack message ID, you can read the following variable: {{ event.tags.message["slack:id"] }}.