# Workbot triggers for Slack

Workbot for Slack allows you to send commands to Workbot on Slack. Workbot will handle these commands and interact with your connected apps to do things, such as display details of a customer account, close opportunities, display a list of invoices or tickets, or create/update existing tickets.

Each Workbot command is processed using a Workato recipe. The recipe trigger picks up the Workbot command as a trigger event, and the recipe determines the actions to carry out. With Workbot, you can create custom workflows that execute via your Slack commands, and optionally retrieve relevant data for you back to Slack.

The Workbot for Slack connector has 5 triggers:

• New command
• New event (real-time)
• New message action trigger
• New URL mention
• New dynamic menu event

# New command trigger (building custom commands)

This trigger requires you to configure a custom Workbot command. When this recipe is started, Workbot will monitor for that command. Whenever the command is called, Workbot proceeds to carry out the recipe actions.

# New command trigger input fields

The following table lists the configurable input fields in the trigger, and what each field does.

# Workbot command format

The Workbot command is created by piecing 3 elements together, the app, action and action data:

app action action-data

In the following case, the application is "Salesforce", command action is "Show", and business data is "Account". The command that Workbot will respond to is therefore:

Salesforce show account

# Workbot command input parameters format

The command input fields field lets you decide what data is needed from the user to carry out the recipe actions successfully.

Each input parameter has to be provided in the following format:

param_name optional:true prompt:false type:string hint:hint_to_help_users sample:example_data

In this case, to successfully retrieve Salesforce account data, we need the full account name from the Slack user.

name optional: false prompt: false type: string hint: Exact account name sample: IBM

The configured command input fields will be displayed as follow up questions for the user after the Workbot command.

A command input field displayed on Slack

# New command trigger output datapills

The New command trigger also provides a set of datapill variables as that holds data about the command, such as the user making the command, the channel the command was made it, etc. The following table details these datapill variables.

New bot command output datatree

The following table lists the output datapills from the trigger, and what data each field contains.

The following table holds additional information about the Context object and the data it correspondingly holds.

Triggers may contain Message ID in their output. Message ID has a value only when New command was triggered by a button action. If command was triggered as result of a manually typed command, this field will be empty.

# Example: Salesforce show account command

In the following gif, we're chatting directly with Workbot via a DM. When we type in the app name "Salesforce", Workbot generates a list of available commands and displays them as buttons. The command can also be manually typed into the DM as Salesforce show account.

Salesforce show account command

When the Salesforce show account command is called, either via the button click or the typed command, a corresponding recipe with a Workbot for Slack new command trigger will trigger. This recipe will have a Workbot New command trigger that listens specifically to the command Salesforce show account. The pre-built Workbot for Slack recipe that does this can be found below.

Salesforce show account command recipe Example recipe

The trigger configuration for the Salesforce show account command is as follows.

Salesforce show account command trigger configuration

We know that Workbot commands are created by piecing 3 elements together, the app, action and action data. In this case, application is "Salesforce", command action is "Show", and business data is "Account". The command that Workbot will respond to is therefore Salesforce show account.

The command input parameters field lets you decide what data is needed from the user to carry out the recipe actions successfully. In this case, to successfully retrieve Salesforce account data, we need the full account name from the Slack user, so we define the parameter as follows:

name optional: false prompt: false type: string hint: Exact account name sample: IBM

The configured command input parameters will be displayed as follow up questions for the user after the Workbot command.

Input parameters display on Slack

When the user has finished providing all the required input, the recipe actions will be executed. In this case, the recipe action was to display the Salesforce account details as a message attachment in a grid format.

Salesforce show account command results

# New event trigger

The New event trigger executes when the specified event occurs in your Slack workspace. The trigger works with Slack's Events API and interactive components (like block actions & modal submissions). Each trigger subscribes to 1 type of event.

For events in the Events API, your bot must first be subscribed to the event in Slack.

Workbot for Slack new event trigger

By default, this trigger contains a list of the most frequently subscribed events. If the event you're looking for is not on the list, you can switch to Enter custom value to manually configure the event.

Event name points the event to the recipe and is useful in providing context — otherwise, no syntax is enforced

You may also choose to generate the event payload by specifying a sample JSON by clicking on Use a sample JSON under Event schema.

See the list of events you can subscribe to over at Slack's API Event Types documentation.

This trigger is best used with custom bots, as it allows you to specify which bot or workspace events your bot subscribes to. To subscribe to events, head over to your bot in Slack and navigate to Event Subscriptions. Subscribe to the events you need, then hit Save Changes.

Event Subscriptions in Slack

This trigger can also listen to block action and block kit modal view submission events. These events get sent to the Interactive Components request URL, so if you've already enabled interactive components in your custom bot, then there's no further action required — you're all set.

# New message action trigger

This trigger allows you to perform message actions onto existing Slack messages in your Slack team.

When triggered, message actions launch a dialog to collect command input fields from the user. The original contents of the message (along with input obtained from the dialog) can be used to create tasks, tickets, and more. To start using message actions, check out our message actions documentation.

This trigger allows you to build a custom command for Workbot in a Workato recipe. When you call this custom command in Slack to Workbot, the recipe will trigger and execute the actions you have defined. To find out how to create a simple command, check out this guide.

# New URL mention

This trigger monitors certain types of URLs in Slack, and pulls pre-defined, formatted data into the channel when such an URL is mentioned. Currently, Salesforce and Github URLs are supported.

When you send a URL in Slack, you can have Workbot provide certain information into the channel for everyone to see. For example, you can send a Salesforce lead URL into your sales channel and workbot will automatically send a message showing more information about that particular lead.

Simply select the application in the trigger (Currently only Salesforce and Github), and select the Document, and set up your actions as you prefer. By default, giving a Salesforce or Github URL in a channel that Workbot is in will trigger a prompt from Workbot asking you if you want to show details of the content of the URL that you have sent. Click on yes to trigger the recipe. You can also edit the recipe in Workato if you want to have more or less fields included in the message.

# New dynamic menu event

In Workbot command recipes that invoke dialogs, a select field can be defined with dynamic menu options.

A Workbot command recipe with dynamic menu options

This trigger executes when a user types in such a field, and returns what the user typed (i.e. the typeahead value). At least 5 characters must be typed to trigger an event.

Use this typeahead value to retrieve a list of records (from another app, e.g. Salesforce) to return to the main recipe (i.e. the recipe that posts the dialog where the select field is).

You can return the list of records to the dynamic menu by using the Return menu options action. Hence, this trigger should always be paired with a Return menu options action.

# Input

# Dynamic menu name

Identifier for this menu.

# Command input fields

A Workbot command recipe with dynamic menu options can pass parameters to a Dynamic menu recipe via the Dynamic menu recipe params field. The dynamic menu recipe can use these additional parameters in generating menu options.

A Workbot command recipe with a dynamic menu options field passing a 'stagename' parameter with value 'Closed Won'

Correspondingly, the trigger must also have the same parameter defined.

The corresponding dynamic menu recipe with the same 'stagename' parameter defined

The dynamic menu recipe is then able to utilize the additional parameters in generating menu options. In the example below, the parameter stagename is passed to the dynamic menu recipe, allowing the SOQL search to be further refined.

'stagename' parameter is passed to refine the SOQL search

# Output