Getting approval notices in Slack

How to get a notice in Slack when an approval request is waiting, what the notice shows, and how to test or disconnect it.

The approval link for a request is emailed to the person who asked for the work, once their sign-in email address is verified, and every request is in Needs you in the dashboard. If your team lives in Slack, you can also have Kanonik post a notice there whenever a request is waiting.

What the notice shows

The notice says who has a request waiting and what kind it is, with an Open Needs you button that takes you to the dashboard. It never carries the approval link itself. Decisions are made in Needs you, or from the emailed link, by the person signed in as themselves.

Before you start

You need to be a Tenant Admin in Kanonik and able to create an app in your Slack workspace. Setup uses a Slack app you create and install yourself.

Setting it up

1. In Slack's app settings, create a new app for your workspace (any name, for example "Kanonik Approvals").
2. Give its bot two scopes: chat:write to post the notice, and users:read.email to find a person by their email address.
3. Install the app to your workspace and copy the bot token. It starts with xoxb-.
4. In Kanonik, choose Settings in the left-hand menu, then Slack.
5. Enter your Slack workspace ID (it starts with T) and paste the bot token.
6. Under Send approvals to, pick where notices go: a channel (by its channel ID), one person (by their Slack member ID), or an email address that Kanonik looks up in Slack.
7. Choose Test delivery and check that the test message arrived. If it did not, check that the bot was invited to the channel and that the token is still valid.
8. Choose Save configuration.

For a private channel, invite the bot to the channel first, for example with /invite @Kanonik Approvals.

If a notice does not arrive

A failed delivery is recorded on your workspace's record, where your AI can read it back to spot a misconfigured channel. Slack delivery is separate from the email and from Needs you, so a Slack problem never blocks a decision.

Changing or disconnecting

Connecting again replaces the existing configuration. To stop notices, choose Disconnect Slack and confirm. The stored Slack token is deleted and Slack stops getting notices. Email and Needs you carry on as before. To connect again later, paste a bot token again.

More help

Browse every article in the Help center, where you can also ask the Kanonik assistant directly. For anything else, email [email protected] and a person who works on the product answers.