M↓ View as Markdown ↗

Slack¶

Deploy your AI Analysts to Slack channels so your team can ask data questions without leaving Slack. Connect your Slack workspace once, then choose which Analyst answers in which channel.

Availability

Who can do this: members with the Edit capability in the active Workspace.
Deployment: Slack must be configured for your deployment. Not available on air-gapped self-managed deployments.

Before you start, read who can ask questions in a channel: everyone in a channel, including guests without an AI Analyst account, can query the Analyst you deploy there.

Step 1: Connect your Slack workspace¶

In Studio, open Connections and click + (Add connection).
Under Channels, click Slack. Slack's permission screen opens.
Review the permissions and click Allow.

You return to AI Analyst and see Slack workspace connected. The workspace is listed under Channels in Connections.

In the same Slack permission screen you approve two things:

The AI Analyst bot, which reads @mentions, answers in channels and posts under the Analyst's name and avatar.
Permissions for you, the person installing it. The screen includes permissions to read your private channels and to invite people to channels on your behalf. AI Analyst uses the installer permission only to list the private channels you belong to, so they appear in the channel picker when you deploy.

The connection belongs to your whole organization, not to you personally, and your organization can connect more than one Slack workspace.

Step 2: Deploy an AI Analyst to a channel¶

Open the AI Analyst you want to use in Slack.
In the header, click the deployment status button (it reads Not deployed or Deployed) and choose Slack.

If no Slack workspace is connected, or the connected workspace needs reconnecting, you're taken to Add a connection instead.
In the Slack dialog, if your organization has several Slack workspaces, choose the one to use.
Under Channel, pick an existing channel. Use Search channels… to filter the list, and Show more to see more channels. Channels marked Already deployed already have an Analyst and can't be picked.
Under Confirm access, tick I understand and want to deploy. Everyone in the channel, including guests without an AI Analyst account, gets read access to this Analyst's semantic layer and the data it can query.
Click Deploy.

You see Analyst deployed, and the channel appears under Deployments in the same dialog. The Analyst's Overview tab also shows its deployments.

Deploying to a channel also deploys a Draft Analyst

If the Analyst is still a Draft, deploying it to a channel also marks it Deployed. That makes it available in Explorer to its Explorer audience too. The default audience is Everyone unless you changed it.

You can't create a new Slack channel from AI Analyst. Create it in Slack first.

Step 3: Ask questions in Slack¶

In the channel, @mention the AI Analyst app with your question.
The answer appears as a reply in a thread. While the Analyst works, the reply shows its progress steps and a ⏹ Stop button.
To ask a follow-up, @mention the app again in the same thread. The Analyst continues the same conversation.

The answer is posted under the deployed Analyst's name and avatar. The first answer in each thread is labelled as AI-generated content.

What you can do with an answer¶

When an answer is finished, it can include:

Explain: the Analyst replies in the thread with how it arrived at the answer: the metrics and dimensions it used, any filters, its reasoning, and the SemQL queries it ran. Available when the answer ran a query.
Open in Explorer: opens the conversation in Explorer, where you can continue the analysis.
👍 / 👎 feedback buttons.

If someone asks a follow-up in Explorer on a conversation that started in Slack, the question (marked via Explorer) and its answer are also posted to the Slack thread. The same applies to Teams threads.

Plan Mode¶

Add --plan to a message to turn on Plan Mode for that thread. --plan off turns it off. The setting applies to the whole thread, for everyone in it. In an existing thread, a message with only --plan or --plan off switches Plan Mode without asking a question.

In Plan Mode, the Analyst first replies with a plan card that you can Approve, Edit, Reject or Cancel.

Charts and tables¶

Charts appear as native Slack charts when they fit Slack's limits (up to 12 series and 20 points, and at most two charts in a message). Otherwise, charts are sent as images, up to 4 per answer. A chart that can't be shown either way appears as a table.

If you paste a link to an Explorer conversation into a channel that has a deployed Analyst, Slack shows a preview with the question and the answering Analyst. The preview never contains row-level data. Only links to conversations in the same Workspace as the channel's Analyst show a preview.

Limits¶

Only @mentions in channels are answered. Direct messages to the bot are not supported.
The bot can't read attachments. It answers from the text of your message, and asks for text if you send only attachments.

Manage the Slack connection¶

Check the connection¶

Open the Slack workspace under Connections → Channels. The Integration summary shows Provider, Status, Workspace, Workspace ID, Connected by and Connected on.

Status	Meaning
Connected	The workspace is working.
Reconnection required	Slack revoked the app's access.
Disconnected	The app was uninstalled from the Slack workspace.

If the status is Reconnection required or Disconnected, the page says This workspace stopped accepting requests. Reconnect it to resume answering in its channels. Click Reconnect and approve the Slack permissions again. Only members with Edit see Reconnect and Remove.

AI Analyst refreshes Slack's access tokens automatically, so you don't need to reconnect on a schedule.

Remove a channel deployment¶

Open the AI Analyst and click the deployment status button, then choose Slack.
Under Deployments, click Remove (trash icon) next to the channel.

The channel stops routing to this Analyst. Existing conversations are kept.

Remove the Slack workspace¶

Open the Slack workspace under Connections → Channels.
Click Remove (trash icon) and confirm in Remove integration.

The workspace is disconnected from your organization, and every channel deployment your organization has in it is removed, in all Workspaces. Existing tasks and their history are kept. Other organizations that connected the same Slack workspace are not affected.

If no other organization uses the Slack workspace, follow-ups in old Slack threads no longer continue their conversations. Removing the workspace doesn't uninstall the app from Slack. To do that, use Slack's own app management.

Troubleshooting¶

What you see	What to do
The bot replies No analyst is connected to this channel yet.	No Analyst is deployed to this channel. Deploy one from the Analyst's header, as in Step 2.
The bot replies This channel's analyst is no longer available.	The Analyst deployed here was deleted or set back to Draft. Deploy it again, or deploy another Analyst to the channel.
The bot doesn't reply at all.	Check that the Slack workspace's status is Connected under Connections → Channels. If it is, and the bot still doesn't reply, check that the app has access to the channel and add it to the channel in Slack if needed.
This channel is already deployed to another Analyst when you deploy	Each channel can have only one Analyst. Remove the other deployment first. This message can also appear when the Slack workspace needs reconnecting.
A private channel is missing from the picker	Only private channels that the person who connected Slack belongs to are listed.
The bot posts that your organization's trial has ended or it's pending deletion	See When your organization's trial has ended or it is pending deletion.

The bot's replies mention Studio → Connections → Integrations. In the current app, connected workspaces are under Connections → Channels, and you deploy from the Analyst's header.

Need help? Use Support in the Studio sidebar, when your deployment offers it, or contact Actian support.