Using a conversation bot in the Slack Direct Messages channel

You can use bot builder to add a conversation bot to your Slack Direct Messages channel. By adding a conversation bot to your Slack DM channel, you can deliver automated bot functionality to your Slack-messaging connection.

Note: The feature described in this article is used with the Slack Direct Messages channel for messaging. It does not apply to the Slack for Zendesk Support integration.

This article includes the following topics:

• Account requirements, feature limitations, and best practices
• Adding a bot to your Slack DM channel
• Removing the bot from your Slack DM channel

Account requirements, feature limitations, and best practices

Before adding a bot to your Slack DM configuration, your account must meet the following requirements:

• Agent Workspace and messaging activated.
• Have at least one Chat-enabled agent.
• The Slack Direct Messages channel for Zendesk messaging activated.
• A conversation bot. You can publish a previously-built bot, or create a new bot to use in the channel.

Some messaging bot features perform differently in the Slack DM channel than in other messaging channels:

• The Ask for details step is not available in the Slack DM channel. If it is included as part of an answer in your bot flow, it will be bypassed.
• The Greeting response does not appear in the conversation.

Because of the above limitations, there are a number of best practices we recommend when creating your bot:

• Because the Greeting response is not active in the conversation, we recommend creating an answer that includes a welcome message, with conversation starters (such as “hello”) as intents.
• Turn off the automated fallback response.
• Create a trigger to immediately close solved tickets.

Adding a bot to your Slack DM channel

When your account is ready, you can integrate the messaging bot with your Slack DM channel.

To add the bot to your Slack DM channel

1. Sign in to Slack using the dedicated Zendesk user account.
2. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automation > Bots.
3. Click Manage bots.
4. On the Conversation bots admin page:
   • Create a new bot and publish it to the Slack DM channel, or
   • Click the bot you want to use and publish it to the Slack DM channel.

Note: Panels in the Add Carousel step are displayed in a list, rather than as a scrollable array. Otherwise, they function as expected.

Removing the bot from your Slack DM channel

If you no longer want to include a conversation bot in your Slack DM channel, you can disconnect it. The channel will then resume Slack DM Support functionality.

When you disconnect the bot from the channel:

• Conversations that have been handed off to an agent are unaffected.
• If the end user interacts with the bot, for example by entering text or clicking a button, they are handed off to an agent. This is a “silent handoff”, and the end user will not receive an automated response or notification of the handoff until the agent responds.

To remove bot functionality from your Slack DM channel:

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Bots and automations > Bots.
2. Hover over the bot you want to update and click Settings.
3. In the General tab, scroll down to the Channels section.
4. Deselect the bot you want to remove.
5. Click Save.

Note: Adding the bot to another channel automatically removes it from the Slack DM channel.