Highlights:

  • Slack’s internal metrics show that 80% of users who build Slack workflows are non-technical.
  • The new features encompass plug-and-play workflow templates, upgraded developer tools, and new integration options with third-party apps like PagerDuty, Asana, and Bitbucket.

Recently, Slack Technologies Inc. launched new features for Workflow Builder, the company’s user-friendly tool designed to automate tasks and processes for teams and organizations.

The new features include plug-and-play workflow templates, upgraded developer tools, and new integrations with third-party apps like PagerDuty, Asana, and Bitbucket. The goal is to offer more accessible, no-code automation for non-technical users.

Historically, Slack offered apps from major developers that integrated with chat channels in a contained manner. However, the company sought to enable users to create their own connected experiences and shift away from the “big app” concept. This vision led to the creation of Workflow Builder in 2019.

“Traditionally, if you look at automation tools, they’re kind of buried in the world of IT. And end users can’t use them, and IT gets swamped, therefore a lot of things that could be automated don’t even get attempted. From a user perspective, this powerful capability is now in your hands. From a company perspective, you’re ultimately going to get more productive employees,” said Rob Seaman, Chief Product Officer at Slack, in an interview.

Slack’s internal customer success metrics show that 80% of users who create Slack workflows are non-technical. To improve their experience, Workflow Builder now features an easy plug-and-play workflow creation process, which Seaman likened to a “Mad Libs” style approach.

Rather than creating a workflow through a complex visual diagram that may become convoluted, users can now simply fill in missing words and phrases within a declarative sentence that outlines the task they want to accomplish.

Seaman said, “We’ve also introduced tens of templates for common use cases that we see amongst our customer base that will allow you to basically pull one down from a catalog like you might see from Notion or Air Table or something like that, and get started from, a starting point that isn’t just a blank slate.”

Templates include tasks like adding teammates to relevant meetings as they join, sharing important documents, and sending welcome messages. Incident response can be streamlined with a simple template that sets up incident details, creates a channel for the appropriate team members to address the issue, and logs details from management tools like Jira Cloud for progress tracking.

Workflow automation can now be triggered by a broader range of third-party apps beyond Slack. Previously, Slack workflow could only be initiated by actions within Slack or Salesforce. Now, they can start from events in numerous external apps. This enhancement is particularly useful in incident response scenarios. For example, suppose a critical app failure triggers a PagerDuty event. In that case, it can activate a no-code workflow created in Slack to set up an incident channel, add team members, and populate relevant details, enabling the team to respond quickly and effectively.

For advanced users, Slack has introduced new tools on its developer platform using the company’s open application programming interface. These enhancements make it easier to develop custom steps, accelerating the transition from idea to implementation. This includes creating and managing custom steps directly on the Slack app settings page, hosting steps anywhere, and improving custom-built Slack apps, like bots, so that they can be integrated with Workflow Builder.