Add Inkeep to Slack Community

Overview

You can add Inkeep as a Slack bot to your Slack community to help scale support to your users.

Get Workspace ID

To configure the bot, you'll need your Slack Workspace ID:

1. Open the Slack app in your browser.
2. Select the target workspace
3. Copy the {WORKSPACE_ID} from the browser's navigation bar. The URL will be in the format https://app.slack.com/client/{WORKSPACE_ID}/{CHANNEL_ID}. Workspace ID typically starts with a T and is in the format of TXXXXXXXXXX. Channel IDs are typically in the format of CXXXXXXXXXX.
4. Alternatively, you can find the ID in the workspace settings.

Create Assistant

To use the Inkeep Slack bot, we first need to register it as an assistant.

1. Open the Inkeep Dashboard

2. Navigate to the Assistants tab within the desired project

3. Click on Create assistant

4. From the dropdown menu, choose Slack

5. Fill in the required fields Name and Workspace ID.

6. Click on Create

Add to workspace

To install the Inkeep Slack bot in your workspace:

1. Click here
2. Select the desired workspace
3. Confirm the installation.

Create a channel (optional)

If you don't yet have a channel you'd like to add Inkeep to, you can create an ✨ask-ai or similarly named channel. Move or pin it to the appropriate sections in your workspace for visibility.

Add to channels

Open the workspace you added the Ask Inkeep bot to.

Navigate to the channel you'd like to add Inkeep to.

Type @Ask Inkeep with an example question:

@Ask Inkeep How do I get started?

Confirm Slack's prompt to add the bot to the channel.

Repeat the steps for any other desired channels.

Send a direct message

Create a new message in Slack addressed to @Ask Inkeep or follow the steps below:

1. Find Ask Inkeep underneath the Apps section
2. Click on the Messages tab
3. Type a message and click Send

Use as an auto-reply bot

Instead of requiring a user to tag the bot with @Ask Inkeep, you can configure the Slack bot to automatically reply to all new top-level messages in specified channels.

To configure:

1. Open the Inkeep Dashboard
2. Navigate to the Assistants tab within the desired project
3. Select the assistant
4. Expand Advanced Settings
5. Configure the following:
   • Auto-reply in the below channels: Specify the channel IDs where you want the bot to auto-reply
   • Reply message (optional): Enter a custom initial message for the bot to use when it's tagged or auto-replies
6. (Optional) Click on Human Reviewing Conversations if you'd like to modify the tone of the bot to inform users that team members are actively reviewing and monitoring conversations.
7. Click Save to apply the changes

Customize your bot

You can customize the name of the bot, the image used with it, and the default responses it sends.

Upload an organization avatar (required)

1. Open the Inkeep Dashboard
2. Navigate to the Settings tab at root of your Inkeep organization (https://portal.inkeep.com/{orgAlias}/settings)
3. Under Avatar, select Choose File or if there's an existing file, hover over the existing avatar and click Change
4. Upload a PNG (preferred) or JPG file you'd like to use as your avatar. Recommended dimension: 512x512. Note that SVGs are not supported by Slack.

Configure the bot name

1. In your Slack workspace, click on Add apps underneath the Apps section in your sidebar
2. Select Ask Inkeep
3. Click on Configuration
4. Scroll to Bot User section and click on Edit
5. Specify the desired name of the bot, e.g. Ask CompanyAI

Now, you and your users will be able to tag the bot using this name, e.g. @Ask CompanyAI.

Configure default responses

You can configure the bot to send a default responses to users in different scenarios.

1. Open the Inkeep Dashboard
2. Navigate to the Assistants tab within the desired project
3. Select the assistant
4. Expand Advanced Settings
5. Under Custom Responses, see the list of responses you can configure
6. Click Update
7. Your bot will now use these responses.

Tag a team member

Sometimes, you want users to be able to escalate to a human for additional help.

To make this flow seamless, you can configure your bot to show Mark as resolved ✅ and Ask for help 👋 buttons instead of the default 👍 👎 buttons at the end of messages.

When a user clicks on Ask for help 👋, the bot can tag users, user groups, or other bots.

To set up:

1. Open the Inkeep Dashboard
2. Navigate to the Assistants tab within the desired project
3. Select the Slack assistant
4. Expand Advanced Settings
5. Under When a user leaves negative feedback..., click the dropdown menu
6. Select Tag a team member
7. Specify the User IDs, Group IDs, or Bot IDs you'd like to tag

You can get the IDs by left-clicking on a profile on Slack, selecting the more options button (often represented as three dots), and clicking on Copy member ID or Copy group ID. To create a group of users on Slack, see this guide.