Connect Slack

Before you start

• The Slack feature is turned on under Settings → Features. When it is off, the Slack settings page shows an Enable Slack button instead of the setup steps.
• A Slack workspace, and a Slack account that may create apps in it (api.slack.com/apps) — or someone who can create one for you.
• In some workspaces only a Slack workspace admin (Workspace Owner or App Manager) may approve a new app. If that applies to you, ask your admin to help with step 3.
• A FlowState owner or admin role.

Connect Slack

FlowState uses a bring-your-own-app model: there is no FlowState-hosted Slack app to install with one click. You create your own small Slack app, give FlowState its Client ID and Client Secret, and then approve the app in Slack. Go to Settings → Integrations → Slack. The page walks you through four steps and shows your progress at the top.

The page remembers your step. If you reload it, or come back from Slack, it opens at the step where you stopped.

Step 1 — Create the Slack app

1. Click Create the app in Slack. Slack opens in a new tab, with all app settings filled in.
2. Pick your Slack workspace and click Next.
3. Check the summary and click Create.
4. Go back to the FlowState tab and click Next.

If Slack opens without the settings filled in, click Create New App → From a manifest, pick your workspace, choose JSON, and paste the settings that FlowState shows (there is a Copy button).

Why? The settings tell Slack where to send you back after you connect, and what FlowState may do in your workspace.

If you already created the app another way, open the section I already created the app another way on the page, and do this in Slack:

1. Open api.slack.com/apps and click your app.
2. In the left menu, click OAuth & Permissions.
3. Under Redirect URLs, click Add New Redirect URL, paste the address FlowState shows (it ends in /oauth/slack/callback), click Add, then Save URLs.
4. On the same page, go to Scopes → Bot Token Scopes, click Add an OAuth Scope, and add each of these: chat:write, channels:read, groups:read, im:write, users:read, users:read.email. FlowState shows each one with a Copy button.

You can ignore these Slack items. After you create the app, Slack may show a window called FlowState is ready! with a Bot token (xoxb-…), an App token (xapp-…) and Slack CLI steps (install, login, create, run). You can close it. FlowState also does not need the Signing Secret, the Verification Token, App-Level Tokens or Socket Mode. FlowState gets its own access from Slack when you click Connect to Slack in step 3.

Step 2 — Enter the app credentials

1. Open api.slack.com/apps and click your app.
2. In the left menu, click Basic Information.
3. Scroll down to App Credentials.
4. Copy the Client ID and paste it into FlowState. It is two numbers joined by a dot, for example 1234567890.0987654321. FlowState rejects any other format before it saves.
5. Next to Client Secret, click Show, copy the value and paste it into FlowState.
6. Click Save & continue.

Why? FlowState uses these two values to ask Slack for access to your workspace. FlowState stores them encrypted, for your tenant only.

If the credentials are already saved, you can click Continue without typing the secret again, or type new values and click Update & continue. Remove saved credentials deletes them and returns you to step 1. An optional Advanced field lets you use a different redirect address; leave it empty to use the one from step 1.

Step 3 — Connect

1. Click Connect to Slack. You leave FlowState and Slack opens in the same tab.
2. Check that the workspace name at the top right is correct.
3. Click Allow. Slack sends you back to the FlowState Slack page, at step 4.

If Slack says the app needs approval, a Slack workspace admin must approve it first. Then click Connect to Slack again.

If the connection fails or you click Cancel in Slack, FlowState shows the error. Use Back to Slack settings: the page opens at step 3 with the error shown. Your saved credentials stay, so you do not need to repeat steps 1–2.

Step 4 — Test and choose where alerts go

The page shows Slack is connected and the name of your workspace.

1. Click Send test message. FlowState sends you the direct message “FlowState is connected to this Slack workspace.”
2. Check your direct messages in Slack.
3. Under Where should alerts go?, choose for each alert type (overdue deals, weekly digest):
   • People (default) — each deal owner gets a direct message. You can also pick a fallback channel for deals whose owner FlowState cannot find in Slack.
   • Channel — all messages of this type go to one channel. Invite FlowState to that channel first: in Slack, open the channel and type /invite @FlowState.
   • Off — nothing is sent for this alert type.
4. Click Save. If FlowState is not in a channel you chose, the page says so; invite it and save again.
5. Click Finish.

Why? This proves FlowState can reach you. FlowState finds you in Slack by your FlowState email address, so that address must also be your email address in the connected Slack workspace. If the test fails, the page shows Slack’s error on this step.

The test needs no channel: it is always a direct message to you. See Notifications for what each alert contains, how the fallback channel works, and how people can opt out.

After connecting

• The Slack page shows Connected to <workspace name>, with Send test message, Reconfigure and Disconnect, and the Where should alerts go? section, where you can change the alert settings at any time.
• Reconfigure opens the setup steps again at step 1, for example to change the Client ID or Client Secret. Cancel closes them without changes.

If you choose Channel (or a fallback channel), invite the FlowState bot into that channel with Slack’s /invite @FlowState command — required before it can post there, though not for the test message or for direct messages to deal owners.