The Slack for Zendesk integration includes the Answer Bot for Slack integration.
The integration implements the autoreplies with articlescapability in Slack, so your end users can get help without waiting for someone to reply. It listens on selected Slack channels and resolves questions by providing article suggestions from your Guide knowledge base.
Answer Bot for Slack is a free feature available in the Slack for Zendesk integration.
This article includes the following topics:
About the Answer Bot for Slack integration
This integration is built on top of the Slack for Zendesk integration. It is automatically available when you install the Slack for Zendesk integration. After Answer Bot for Slack is installed, Zendesk admins can use Admin Center to add it to Slack channels.
Adding the integration to a Slack channel
Zendesk administrators can add autoreplies with articles to specific Slack channels in Admin Center. The feature can be added to public and private channels. You must have access to the private channels to add this feature to them.
You first need to install the Slack for Zendesk integration and activate autorepliesfor this feature to be available.
To add Answer Bot to a specific channel
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
- Click the options menu icon (
) next to Slack, then click View.
- Click Configure under the name of the Slack workspace you want to configure.
- Click the Answer Bot tab.
- Click
Add Answer Bot.
The Add Answer Bot page appears.
- In the
Slack Channel
field, select the channel where you want to add
Answer Bot.
The drop-down list displays public and private channels (that you have access to) where Zendesk is invited and Answer Bot for Slack is not already set up.
The Slack channel list includes private channels that you are a member of. If the app is a member of a private channel that you're not a member of, you won't see it here until you are also invited to that channel.
If you don't see your private channels in Zendesk (and you do see them in Slack), make sure you added the Zendesk app to these channels. Also, ensure that your default email in Zendesk matches your Slack email address.
- In the Brand field, select the brand to associate with this Answer Bot.
- In the Segments field, select user segments to refine article recommendations by user segment.
- Click Save.
Answer Bot is added to the channel.
Removing the integration from a Slack channel
To remove Answer Bot from a channel, you need to delete the integration from that channel. You can’t recover it after you delete it.
To delete Answer Bot for Slack from a single channel
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
- Click the options menu icon (
) next to Slack, then click View.
- Click Configure under the name of the Slack workspace you want to configure.
- Click the Answer Bot tab.
- Hover over the channel, click the options menu that appears (
), then click Delete.
- Click Delete configuration.
Editing autoreply settings for a Slack channel
After you’ve added Answer Bot for Slack to a channel, you can update the settings. The changes take effect within the Slack channel immediately after you save them.
To edit autoreply settings for a Slack channel
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
- Click the options menu icon (
) next to Slack, then click View.
- Click Configure under the name of the Slack workspace you want to configure.
- Click the Answer Bot tab.
- Hover over the channel, click the options menu that appears (
), then click Edit.
- Update the Answer Bot settings as needed.
- Click Save.
Asking a question in Slack
Answer Bot for Slack listens on configured Slack channels and offers article suggestions when a question is posted. The integration only listens on Slack channels and does not interact with direct messages in Slack.
If your company uses multiple Zendesk accounts and has them configured in the same channel, you'll receive article suggestions from all help centers tied to the Slack workspace. The article suggestions aren't combined into one response; you will see multiple Answer Bot responses.
To ask a question using autoreplies with articles in Slack
- Post a question in the Slack channel containing at least five words
ending with a question mark. The bot responds to the question by starting a
thread.
If the bot doesn't respond, no articles were found related to your question. Try rephrasing your question.
- Click
Yes
or
No
to indicate whether your question is
answered.
Clicking No gives you options to give feedback and Submit a Request to create a ticket.
- If more than one article is found, click More suggestions to see additional articles.
- Click the article number button if it answers your question, or None of the above if a suitable answer is not provided.
Your response to article suggestions is visible as a green tick or red cross emoji reaction after the question. This is particularly useful in a busy Slack channel. It indicates to other members of the channel whether the question was successfully resolved or whether it needs someone to respond.
If the suggestion doesn’t answer your question, you can create a ticket directly from Slack by clicking Submit a Request. For more information on submitting and viewing tickets created in Slack, see Using the Slack for Zendesk integration .
23 comments
Michael Chun
Big +1 to Nicole above.
My team would LOVE to integrate this into ZenDesk but with the base permissions set within Help Center not working in the Slack integration we are moving away from it as we'd have to completely migrate all internal documents out of our Help Center to avoid user visibility on things they shouldn't see.
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Nicole Woods
Ha! Michael, I've literally been migrating all of our internal articles out of Zendesk this past week! It's a workaround but definitely not ideal b/c our agents would rather see all articles in the same place.
0
Christopher Bosma
Did this ever get fixed?
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Christopher Bosma,
Could you please share the issue you're experiencing with Answer Bot for Slack?
1
Christopher Bosma
It looks good now, Sean.
This issue was actually in our Zendesk - something misconfigured on our end with the Slack integration. We've set our Slack integration back up with Zendesk and channels are now receiving tickets.
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Christopher Bosma,
Thanks for the update, great to hear everything is working as expected now.
0
Janiece Caldwell
How does this work if we have one instance of Zendesk with multiple brands? Does it allow you to pick which brand you want the answerbot to offer articles from?
Are there any roadmap plans to resolve the permissions issue?
1
Sean Bourke
Hey Janiece Caldwell,
When setting up Answer Bot in Slack, you are able to select the help center brand which should be utilised in that channel's responses.
We're working on improving the integration to include the ability to filter article recommendations more granularly. More information will be available in the coming months.
0
Chris Lauff
Can anyone describe how the Answer Bot manages to generate its matched articles? I'm not finding the suggestions to be very good and I'm wondering if there are techniques to optimize our articles for the Answer Bot's search/matching criteria. It doesn't seem like the Labels added to articles have any noticeable effect on the likelihood of getting a good match.
BTW, I found the functionality for the first time through the Slack integration setup. It sounds super useful, in theory, and I wish I had found it sooner!
1
Dave Dyson
This article may be of help: Understanding how Answer Bot works with your content
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Chris Lauff,
Thanks for your feedback. We're currently exploring adding the ability to better refine content searches in Answer Bot by enabling the selection of both Segments and Labels in the Answer Bot configuration. This should support more targeted scoping of search for a channel (for example being able to limit HR labelled articles within a #ask-hr channel).
As we have more information regarding this, I'll update this thread.
0
royaleagle
Why doesn't answer bot give suggestions to every question that fits the criteria?
![](/hc/user_images/rxfFlAS5benweAiFI-k5Rw.png)
I asked two different questions and answer bot had no response for us.
We use this as a tool to see where we have knowledge gaps, so when someone asks a question, and we don't have an article for it, we write one.
0
Dainne Kiara Lucena-Laxamana
Hi royaleagle team!
I went ahead & created a ticket for your behalf as this might need further troubleshooting. Please keep an eye out for our email!
0
Christian de Heij
If we have the Zendesk bot active with the Slack integration but not enabled in Zendesk configuration.
Is it added value to add triggers for the bot to improve the answering of the bot in Slack?
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Christian de Heij,
The responses within Slack will also provide an ability to respond on whether the article recommendation was useful or not, which should support the answer responses.
0
Judy Phu
Hi team! Did Zendesk ever resolve the issue where Answerbot in Slack was answering with guides that should only be viewable to agents and admins? I didn't see a definitive answer in the comments section.
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Judy Phu,
While the current Answer Bot responses should only include articles which are available to Everyone, we are working on an improvement which will support explicit selection of the Guide segments which you want to respond to in each channel. This will enable configuration for Slack channels to also query articles which are viewable by authenticated users.
0
Ryan Lozon
Hallo, any update on allowing this for agents and admins? I could see this being much more useful for internal questions than for external questions.
1
Sarah Kruhlak
My team would like to use Answerbot for Slack. However, our Support team doesn't want Slack users to be able to "Submit a request" if Answerbot doesn't come up with an article.
I was wondering if the "Submit a Request" button can be disabled or removed entirely.
Thanks!
0
Cheeny Aban
As of the moment, there is no option to remove the "submit a request" button in Slack integration. Nonetheless, we highly suggest that you post on our Product Community Feedback page so you can engage with others who may have the same use case. Those with high levels of engagement were prioritized by our Product Managers. We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes on the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality
0
Tim Support
I think we have to make that it has not to be at least five words to trigger the Answer Bot, some questions sometimes only need 2-3 words to be asked. Will there be any development in the future?
1
Shawna James
0
Eva Edmondo
We are really excited to implement this! However, 100% of our company knowledge is on Notion. Is there a quick and easy way to sync it to the Zendesk guide/help centre? Alternatively, is there an integration that would allow the bot to pull information from Notion instead? I understand it can only link Zendesk articles. Thank you!
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