Tutorial: post new sign-ups to Slack

Know the moment someone joins your app. You will connect Slack, add one workflow that posts each new member to a channel and also notifies your admins in the app, and test it without waiting for a real sign-up. It builds on the todo tutorial, but works on any app with a sign-up persona.

1. Connect Slack

1. Open the project, then Backend, Integrations.
2. Find Slack, click Connect and approve it in your Slack workspace.
3. Copy the id of the channel to post to (in Slack: channel details, at the bottom), for example C0123456789.

2. Add the workflow

Ask your agent:

When a new member signs up, post "New sign-up: <name> (<email>)" to Slack
channel C0123456789, and notify admins in the app.

It adds this workflow (send it with patch_contract as a set_workflow op, or put it in workflows):

{
  "id": "slack-new-member",
  "title": "Post new sign-ups to Slack",
  "on": {
    "entity": "member",
    "event": "created"
  },
  "do": [
    {
      "action": "integration",
      "integration": "slack",
      "call": "send_channel_message",
      "props": {
        "channel": "C0123456789",
        "text": "New sign-up: {{name}} ({{email}})"
      }
    },
    {
      "action": "notify",
      "role": "admin",
      "title": "New sign-up",
      "body": "{{name}} just joined"
    }
  ]
}

The todo app has no admin role, so add one first: a staff persona and its table.

"personas": [
  { "id": "member", "label": "Member", "description": "keeps a personal todo list", "kind": "consumer" },
  { "id": "admin", "label": "Admin", "description": "runs the app", "kind": "staff" }
],
"entities": [
  { "name": "admin", "label_field": "name", "fields": [{ "name": "name", "type": "text" }] },
  …
]

On check, Appbricx adds a Team page for the admin so they can invite other admins. Apply.

3. Test without a real sign-up

Create a member row as the platform would on sign-up, through the app's data API so the workflow fires:

edit_rows { "table": "member", "env": "dev", "op": "insert",
            "rows": [{ "name": "Test Person", "email": "test@example.com" }] }

Or in the builder: Backend, Data, table member, add a row. Then check:

• Slack shows "New sign-up: Test Person (test@example.com)".
• The admin sees a "New sign-up" notification.
• Backend, Logs (or logs) shows the run of slack-new-member and what Slack answered.

4. Publish

Deploy. From now on every real sign-up on production posts to the channel.

Gotchas

• Before you connect Slack, the Slack step is skipped and the notify step still runs. The run log says so.
• Use the channel id, not its name. Invite the Slack app to private channels.
• SQL inserts don't fire workflows. Test with edit_rows or the Data pane, which go through the app's data API.
• Don't post private data to a busy channel. Name and email may already be more than you want there.

Related

• Integrations
• Integrations catalog
• Messages