Slack is a web-based tool that enables you to structure your team’s communications. It can help you organize your communication flow by dividing it into different channels, which may be open for any of your colleagues to join, irrelevant of their role in the company, or private for sensitive information, which are invisible to all, except those invited. The tool also allows you to send direct messages to other users within the account.
One of the great things about Slack is that it can be integrated with a wide variety of tools, including Kanbanize.
The main benefit that comes from connecting the two is that all of your activity in Kanbanize can be sent automatically to your chosen channel in Slack. It will appear in the form of a text-based message in the selected channel or Slack user and will include different types of information depending on the Business Rule you choose for your integration.
Setting up the integration is easy and takes no more than a couple of minutes.
The integration is implemented via our Business Rules. If you’re not sure if your team is using Business Rules yet, learn about this feature here.
We will guide you through the process of linking Kanbanize and Slack step by step below:
1. Go to your Slack account and select the team for which you would like to set up the integration.
2. Select the “Apps & Integrations” option from the left-hand side drop-down menu in Slack to enter its App Directory.
3. Go to the “Manage” option in the top right corner of the App Directory page.
4. Find “Incoming Webhooks” in the search panel to locate this integration option.
5. Locate the name of the team for which you want to set up the Kanbanize-Slack integration and click “Install”.
6. Choose a channel to which you would like the integration to post updates from Kanbanize.
7. Click “Add Incoming Webhooks Integration”.
8. Copy the generated webhook URL and return to your admin panel in Kanbanize with it.
9. Select the Business Rules side tab and choose a rule with which you will use the “Invoke web service” action.
10. Give a name to the service (i.e. “Slack”, the name is just for your own convenience) then paste the webhook URL from Slack in the dedicated field. Tick off the “Send the parameters in the body of the web service call” checkbox, then move to the Parameters section below. Type the word “text” in the left parameter section list and then select the information you would like to receive directly in the Slack channel using the system options available through the green plus icon. When the rule activates, this is the information that will get pushed to Slack.
11. When you are done customizing the service for the parameters relevant to your work, click “test” to make sure everything is working alright. When the “OK” pop-up window appears, you are good to save the rule and finish the process.
*If your test function comes up with an error message, make sure you double-check that you have ticked off the “Send the parameters in the body of the web service call” field.
The final result should look like this:
We went through the process of integrating the “Card is created” rule. However, another great option for integration is the “Card is moved” rule. For example, if you are developing a new feature for your product and you have a channel in which developers communicate, the rule can update the participants about any movement of cards on the development board.
Integration with Slack can be set up with many of the Business Rules. Only the “Time based”, “Card revisions” and “Recurring create cards” rules are exceptions. If you have any problems with the process of integration, do not hesitate to contact our support team. They will be happy to assist you in solving any issues you might come up against.
For more info watch the dedicated video on our YouTube channel.