Slack Connector

Index public channels, private channels, and threads in Slack where the Atolio bot is present.

The Slack connector indexes messages across public channels, private channels, and threads. It will only index messages where the Atolio bot has been invited.

Choose a Change Notification Mechanism

For Atolio to get notified of changes happening on Slack in real-time, there are 2 options: “HTTP mode”, and “socket mode”. A detailed comparison of these options is available here.

If having a webhook is not ideal for your organization, you can opt in for socket mode.

Create Slack App

In order to target your specific Atolio deployment, the Slack connector for Atolio requires a custom Slack app created from a manifest.

First, create the Slack app according the following instructions:

  1. In the Slack app dashboard (https://api.slack.com/apps), click on “Create New App”.
  2. Select “From an app manifest” when prompted.
  3. Select the workspace where the app should be installed.
  4. Select the “YAML” option, and provide the app manifest based on your preferred change notification mechanism:
  • Manifest w/ “HTTP mode”: https://relay.search.example.com/connectors/slack/default/install/manifest.yml?socketMode=false
  • Manifest w/ “socket mode”: https://relay.search.example.com/connectors/slack/default/install/manifest.yml?socketMode=true
  1. Click on “Create”. Once the app is created, open the “Basic Information” page of your new app - it can be accessed from the Slack app dashboard (https://api.slack.com/apps).
  2. Locate the “App Credentials” heading and store the client ID, client secret, and signing secret in a safe place. These will be used to configure Slack shortly.
  3. (For “socket mode” only) Generate an “app-level token” w/ connections:write scope (screenshot below). Store the value in a safe place.
  4. (Optional) To provide an app icon, locate the “Display Information” heading and upload the app icon provided here.

Note: it may be required to distribute the app. This can be done by clicking Manage Distribution in the Slack app dashboard.

Slack App-level Token

Provide Configuration

Once the Slack app has been created, provide these configuration values to your Deployment Engineer:

  • DefaultTeamID is the Slack team ID for your workspace (e.g. T012ABCDEG3)
  • ClientId, ClientSecret, and SigningSecret are the secrets obtained in the previous step. If you’ve opted in to use “socket mode”, the list should include an AppLevelToken as well.
  • Token is a secret which will be populated by the next step. You may leave this blank.
  • ConversationTypes are the types of conversations being indexed. If empty, this defaults to public_channel,private_channel,mpim

Once configured, you will finalize the installation of the Slack connector by visiting the following URL (make sure to use your own DNS name for the host part of the URL and include the correct instance name): https://relay.search.example.com/connectors/slack/default/install/setup. Also make sure the Atolio Web application is authenticated (using your SSO provider) before navigating to this URL to avoid an authentication error. The URL https://relay.search.example.com/install/connectors/slack/default/install/oauth/callback must be listed as a Redirect URLin the Slack app manifest. For example, with Okta this was done as part of Okta - Create OAuth Client.

In order for Slack conversations to be indexed, the Atolio Slack Bot needs to be added to the conversation (i.e. public or private channel). By default, this needs to be done manually, but the bot can also be configured to auto-join public channels through configuration. If a bot is added to a channel which is later filtered out by configuration, auto-leave can be configured similarly.

The Slack Team ID can for instance be copied from the URL after logging into your company’s Slack Web app. For instance navigate to https://app.slack.com/ and note down the team ID in the URL that you get redirected to (e.g. T012ABCDEG3 in https://app.slack.com/client/T012ABCDEG3/.../...).