This automation demonstrates workflows for requesting and collecting feedback on messages and storing responses in a Google Sheet.
simple-survey-demo.mp4
Guide Outline:
- Included Workflows
- Setup
- Running Your Project Locally
- Creating Triggers
- Datastores
- Testing
- Deploying Your App
- Viewing Activity Logs
- Project Structure
- Resources
- Prompt survey creation: Ask if a user wants to create a survey when a :clipboard: reaction is added to a message
- Create a survey: Respond to the reacted message with a feedback form and make a new spreadsheet to store responses
- Respond to a survey: Open the feedback form and store responses in the spreadsheet
- Remove a survey: Delete messages with survey related link triggers
- Event configurator: Update the channels to survey and surveying users for reaction events
- Maintenance job: A daily run workflow that ensures bot user membership in channels specified for event reaction triggers. Recommended for production-grade operations
Before getting started, first make sure you have a development workspace where you have permission to install apps. Please note that the features in this project require that the workspace be part of a Slack paid plan.
To use this sample, you need to install and configure the Slack CLI. Step-by-step instructions can be found in our Quickstart Guide.
Start by cloning this repository:
# Clone this project onto your machine
$ slack create my-app -t slack-samples/deno-simple-survey
# Change into the project directory
$ cd my-app
With external authentication you can programmatically interact with Google services and APIs from your app, as though you're the authorized user.
The client credentials needed for these interactions can be collected from a Google Cloud project with OAuth enabled and with access to the appropriate services.
Begin by creating a new project from the Google Cloud resource manager, then enabling the Google Sheets API for this project.
Next, create an OAuth consent screen for your app. The "User Type" and other required app information can be configured as you wish. No additional scopes need to be added here, and you can add test users for development if you want.
Client credentials can be collected by
creating an OAuth client ID
with an application type of "Web application". Under the "Authorized redirect
URIs" section, add https://oauth2.slack.com/external/auth/callback
then click
"Create".
You'll use these newly created client credentials in the next steps.
Start by renaming the .env.example
file at the top level of your project to
.env
, being sure not to commit this file to version control. This file will
store sensitive, app-specific variables that are determined by the environment
being used.
From your new Google project's dashboard, copy the Client ID and paste it as
the value for GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID
in the .env
file. This value will be used in
external_auth/google_provider.ts
โ the custom OAuth2 provider definition for
this Google project.
Once complete, use slack run
or slack deploy
to update your local or hosted
app!
Note: Unlike environment variables used at runtime, this variable is only used when generating your app manifest. Therefore, you do not need to use the
slack env add
command to set this value for deployed apps.
At this point you should be able to build and start your project. Go ahead and execute the following command to see if your app works properly.
When prompted:
- install the app to your workspace
- create the
triggers/configurator.ts
trigger.
# Run app locally
$ slack run
Connected, awaiting events
Note: Ignore warnings at this stage!
Once complete, press <CTRL> + C
to end the process. You will need to create
additional secrets before using your application.
With your client secret ready, run the following command, replacing
GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET
with your own secret:
$ slack external-auth add-secret --provider google --secret GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET
When prompted to select an app, choose the (local)
app only if you're running
the app locally.
With your Google project created and the Client ID and secret set, you're ready to initiate the OAuth flow!
If all the right values are in place, the following command will prompt you to
choose an app, select a provider (hint: choose the google
one), then pick the
Google account you want to authenticate with:
$ slack external-auth add
๐ Spreadsheets generated as part of the Create a survey workflow will be created from the account you authenticate with! To limit the users that can create surveys, an Event configurator workflow is used.
Once you've successfully connected your account, you're almost ready to create surveys at the press of a reaction!
While building your app, you can see your changes appear in your workspace in
real-time with slack run
. You'll know an app is the development version if the
name has the string (local)
appended.
# Run app locally
$ slack run
Connected, awaiting events
To stop running locally, press <CTRL> + C
to end the process.
Triggers are what cause workflows to run. These triggers can be invoked by a user, or automatically as a response to an event within Slack.
When you run
or deploy
your project for the first time, the CLI will prompt
you to create a trigger if one is found in the triggers/
directory. For any
subsequent triggers added to the application, each must be
manually added using the trigger create
command.
When creating triggers, you must select the workspace and environment that you'd
like to create the trigger in. Each workspace can have a local development
version (denoted by (local)
), as well as a deployed version. Triggers created
in a local environment will only be available to use when running the
application locally.
A link trigger is a type of trigger that generates a Shortcut URL which, when posted in a channel or added as a bookmark, becomes a link. When clicked, the link trigger will run the associated workflow.
Link triggers are unique to each installed version of your app. This means that Shortcut URLs will be different across each workspace, as well as between locally run and deployed apps.
With link triggers, after selecting a workspace and environment, the output provided will include a Shortcut URL. Copy and paste this URL into a channel as a message, or add it as a bookmark in a channel of the workspace you selected. Interacting with this link will run the associated workflow.
Note: triggers won't run the workflow unless the app is either running locally or deployed!
To manually create a trigger, use the following command:
$ slack trigger create --trigger-def triggers/configurator.ts
With the configurator link trigger (triggers/configurator.ts
) you can
configure the channel list and surveying users, as shown below:
Once the app is added to the channel being surveyed, configured users that add a
:clipboard:
reaction to a message will begin the survey process with a prompt
to create a new survey.
For storing data related to your app, datastores offer secure storage on Slack
infrastructure. For an example of a datastore, see
datastores/survey_datastore.ts
. The use of a datastore requires the
datastore:write
/datastore:read
scopes to be present in your manifest.
Test filenames should be suffixed with _test
.
Run all tests with deno test
:
$ deno test
Once development is complete, deploy the app to Slack infrastructure using
slack deploy
:
$ slack deploy
When deploying for the first time, you'll be prompted to create a new link trigger for the deployed version of your app. When that trigger is invoked, the workflow should run just as it did when developing locally (but without requiring your server to be running).
For production, we recommend enabling the included maintenance_job.ts
workflow.
The app's bot user must be a member of a channel in order to listen for events there. When you add a new channel in the configuration modal, the bot user automatically joins the channel. However, anyone can remove the bot user from the channel at any time.
To enable a job that will re-add the bot user to channel, run the following command that generates a scheduled trigger to run daily:
$ slack trigger create --trigger-def triggers/daily_maintenance_job.ts
Activity logs of your application can be viewed live and as they occur with the following command:
$ slack activity --tail
Contains apps.dev.json
and apps.json
, which include installation details for
development and deployed apps.
Datastores securely store data
for your application on Slack infrastructure. Required scopes to use datastores
include datastore:write
and datastore:read
.
External authentication enables connections to external services using OAuth2. Once connected, you can perform actions as the authorized user on these services using custom functions.
Functions are reusable building blocks of automation that accept inputs, perform calculations, and provide outputs. Functions can be used independently or as steps in workflows.
Triggers determine when workflows are run. A trigger file describes the scenario in which a workflow should be run, such as a user pressing a button or when a specific event occurs.
A workflow is a set of steps (functions) that are executed in order.
Workflows can be configured to run without user input or they can collect input by beginning with a form before continuing to the next step.
The app manifest contains the app's configuration. This file defines attributes like app name and description.
Used by the CLI to interact with the project's SDK dependencies. It contains script hooks that are executed by the CLI and implemented by the SDK.
To learn more about developing automations on Slack, visit the following: