Slack Extension

3 minutes to read

With the Slack extension, you can generate notifications using data from your tables and send them to your Slack workspace channels. This feature allows you to keep your team informed about updates, alerts, or milestones directly from your application. Whether notifying teams about case updates, order statuses, or task completions, this integration streamlines communication by delivering real-time messages to the appropriate Slack channels.

Note: The Slack extension is currently being approved by Slack. You might encounter a message indicating that the app has not yet been approved. The extension remains fully functional and you can use it as intended while the approval is in progress.

Installing and Using the Slack Extension

In the left panel of the main Caspio screen, click Integrations.
On the Extensions tab, in the Slack section, click Add.
On the Slack authentication page that opens, allow Caspio to access your Slack workspace by clicking Allow.
After the completed installation, click Open.
On the Agents screen, click Create agent.
In the right panel that opens, enter the name of your agent.
Select the profile for this agent.
Under Trigger, select the data source that you want to send messages to Slack. Choose the type of event that will trigger the extension agent.
In the Outgoing data items section, enter your channel (without the ‘#’ character) and message content. You can insert parameters that the extension should use when processing the notification.
In the Incoming data items section, select the field of the table where you want to store the delivery status.
Click Create.

Outgoing Data Items

Channel: The Slack channel (e.g., general, marketing) where the message will be posted. Do not add the # character before channel names.
Message: The content of the message to be posted, which can include dynamic data (e.g., names, dates) and formatting.

Incoming Data Items

Delivery status: Store the Slack response in the table field. Possible values and statuses:
- “Message sent to Slack.” – Message delivered to the Slack channel.
- “Failed to send message to Slack. Channel ‘{channel}’ not found.” – Channel not found or app not integrated with private channel.
- “Failed to send message to Slack. The channel cannot be empty.” – This might happen if you are using a data source field to provide the channel name and the field value is missing.
- “Failed to send message to Slack. Message cannot be empty.” – This might happen if you are using a data source field to provide the message, and the field value is missing.
- “Failed to authenticate with Slack. Please reinstall the extension and grant the necessary permissions.” – App uninstalled from the Slack workspace.

Basic Message Formatting Options

For information on formatting message text, refer to Slack’s formatting guide. Here is an example of some formatted output:

Limitations

Character limit: Messages exceeding 4,000 characters will be automatically divided by Slack into multiple parts and sent in separate chunks.
Interactive elements such as buttons or dropdown menus are not supported.
Attachments are not supported.
Sender names and App names are limited to 50 characters.
Private Channels: If an app is not part of a private channel, it will be restricted from sending messages or performing any actions within that channel.
Throttling: If multiple messages are to be sent to Slack at once, they will be sent out 1 message per second.