Slack Chatbot - How to Easily Build one ?

If you are a frequent Slack user who utilizes the platform on a daily basis for communication purposes, then this article is for you! In this article, you can learn all kinds of useful things regarding Slack, including how to use and build a Slack chatbot.

Also, even if you don’t use Slack and have no idea what it is, you can learn more about it and see how you can use Slack and a Slack chatbot to improve the communication flow in your team and its overall productivity. So, stick with us and learn what you can use a Slack bot for, how you can build a Slack chatbot, and more!

What is a chatbot ?

A chatbot is a robot with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can have a conversation with a human interlocutor. It can be used in many different situations and have various roles like answering customer queries, automating repetitive tasks, and more. You will find more information concerning chatbots in our article, here.‍

What is a Slack chatbot ?

Before we get into how you can build a Slack bot, we first need to cover the basics. In other words, what it is. A Slack bot is a separate piece of software you can use with Slack. It is a bot that you can use to interact with other users on your Slack. You can use it for all kinds of purposes, but more on that later.

You can easily activate your Slack chatbot and customize it to do a wide range of tasks. The bot can access the same array of APIs and do many of the same tasks that the Slack app can do. However, if you build a Slack bot, you can automate many different tasks and get the most out of Slack as a whole.

What can I do thanks to a Slack chatbot ?

A Slack bot can help you complete a wide range of tasks. You can use it for all kinds of simple and more complicated tasks and save a lot of time. Also, you can increase productivity and the overall flow within your team with it. But, which tasks can your Slack bot do for you? Let’s find out!

Share the Wifi Password

After you build your Slack bot, you can program it to share your office’s WiFi password and name. You can do so by programming it to automatically type both the password and WiFi name whenever someone messages you using keywords like WiFi password or guest WiFi.

By doing this, you will save time and won’t have to bother with such unproductive tasks. Also, the people who need access to WiFi will immediately get it and save time as well. That way, they will be able to start their work immediately with no unnecessary disruptions. An added bonus to this is that you won’t need to remember any passwords!

Build a Slack bot and send custom messages

You can program your Slack bot to send all kinds of custom messages. Namely, it can send custom “Good Morning” messages paired with inspirational quotes and other fun messages to keep team morale up. In other words, you can use the bot to lift up people’s spirits and give them a laugh from time to time.

You can also program your Slack bot to run fun little games among team members. For example, you can create “word of the day” games and coinflip games. When someone wins the game, the bot can fire up confetti as a celebration and award the winner with a reward of your choosing.

Tech Support

You and the members of your team can ask Slack bot questions and get useful answers within a minute. For instance, you can ask the bot questions like “How do I underline a word”? and get a simple explanation.

Also, you can ask it other, more complex questions, and it will provide you with useful links directly from Slack’s Help Center.

Build a Slack chatbot and use it as a reminder

One of the most widely-used and popular commands that the Slack bot offers is the /remind command. This command can be super useful for teams and companies and acts as an automatic reminder for different tasks.

You can use it to remind yourself and your team to complete certain tasks. Also, you can program it to continuously remind you of certain tasks. For example, if you need to complete a task every day, you can use your Slack bot to remind you of it at a certain time. Team leaders can also send reminders to other people.

Aanswer FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are a series of questions that employees or team members ask all the time. They can range from questions about break times and working hours to deadlines or other project-related things. If you don’t want to spend a few hours answering such questions every day, you can build a Slack bot to do that for you.

All you would need to do is find out which questions people ask the most and give answers to those questions to your bot. That way, when someone asks one of those questions in the future, the bot will immediately answer it without your help.

Make to-do lists

You can make to-do lists with the /to-do Slack command. You can add assignments, tasks, and deadlines and access them via the command. That way, you can track everything and stay on top of your schedule.

Also, you can assign tasks to your team members and track reports. That will allow you to have real-time insights into which tasks are completed and which are still open.

Check emails

Slack has its own email app that you can integrate with your bot and use to check your emails. When you add Slack’s email app to your Slack account, you will get a secret email address. You can use the email app to check and forward emails directly from your Slack account.

‍How to create a Slack bot ?

STEP 1 ー Determine your Slack chatbot’s purpose

As previously mentioned, Slack bots can be used in a wide variety of cases. Thus, the first step to creating a Slack bot, and perhaps one of the most important steps, will be to define what roles you would like your chatbot to serve. As written in an article on Slack’s website, Slack bots can be used for different purposes.

For our demo, we'll build an internal FAQ chatbot that answers repetitive questions from your employees (Wifi, HR etc.)‍

Once you have a better idea of what you want your Slack bot to do, this is where the fun begins!

STEP 2 - Create a Slack chatbot with Ideta (15 min)

Ideta is a platform which enables its users to create multiple chatbots without needing to learn nor write a single line of code. In fact, Ideta makes it possible for anyone to create their own chatbot in just a few hours. This time range is an indicator and can obviously vary depending on how complex and powerful you want your chatbot to become.

The steps to creating a Slack bot are quite similar to the ones one has to follow to create a ‘classic’ chabot. Together, we'll build a simple FAQ chatbot.‍

You can go to https://connect.ideta.io and create an account. Then create a new chatbot and create a new chatbot with Open AI enabled.

Here is the tutorial on how to setup Open AI (chatGPT, GPT4...) in your chatbot :

Alternatively, you can watch this video to understand how to setup your bot with Dialogflow :

You can repeat the process over and over to expand its capabilities. For the moment, we will leave it there.

STEP 3 ー Integrate your Slack bot on Slack

Once your chatbot is ready to use, you can easily deploy and integrate it on your Slack workspace. Ideta made it really easy to integrate your chatbot on any channel in just a few clicks.

You will have to allow Ideta to connect to your Slack Workplace in order to be able to connect your Slack bot.

It’s now up and running on your Slack workspace! You can try it and share it with your coworkers.

You can also deploy your own Slack app by following that thread in our forum, or you can watch that video :

Make your Slack chatbot even better!

Once your Slack bot is deployed, you can still work on it to make it smarter and more efficient. You can either connect it to one of your business’ API or add an analytic tool. It is also possible to directly have a look at your Slack bot’s conversations in order to detect errors and correct them with the Ideta app.

Track data coming from your slack bot

To go further in the improvement of your Slack bot, you can analyse data coming from your Slack chatbot by using our Analysis Dashboard

Observe and learn

Once your Slack chatbot is up and running, you just need to slightly tweak it until you find it perfect.

When your Slack bot is deployed, the Ideta app allows you to have access to a ‘cockpit’. The cockpit allows you to read your chatbot’s conversations so you can identify areas of improvement. You will then be able to keep modifying and improving your Slack bot even when it is deployed!

To conclude, Slack bots can be used to do many things. You can check out Slack App Store to find a bunch of awesome Slack chatbot ready for you to use. Having a chatbot on your slack workplace is like having a virtual assistant, it can help you and your team with a variety of daily tasks and make your life easier.

You can try our Weather Bot, here. What task do you want to automate ? Tell us and we'll help you set it up!

What are the main differences between a Slack chatbot and a normal bot ?

Both Slack bots and normal chatbots are pieces of software that you can use to automate tasks. Also, both can use technologies like Artificial Intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning to better understand messages and communicate with customers, employees, and team members.

People use normal chatbots mostly for marketing and sales. Also, a lot of companies and individuals use them as personal assistants who help them manage teams in different departments.

Slack bots can be seen as normal chatbots that are used to help team leaders and employers communicate with team members and employees via Slack. In other words, they are chatbots created specifically for Slack. Slack bots are mostly used to help people lead more productive conversations via Slack. They are used to help with a wide range of small tasks and save time for both employers and employees. Most people use them to communicate details about projects to their team members so that they don’t have to message each member individually. Instead, they can send out messages, reminders, and tasks automatically and save a lot of time while also providing them with all the information they need to complete tasks successfully.

All in all, the main difference between a Slack bot and a normal chatbot is that Slack bots are built specifically for Slack and for aiding in communication and project management, while normal chatbots can be used for other purposes across a wide variety of platforms.

Final remarks

You can build a Slack bot easily if you follow our guide. Since Slack itself recommends that you build your bot via Slack apps, we also recommend you do the same, as the process is pretty straightforward and fast. If you feel that you may not succeed in building your bot right away, you can always build a test bot first and see how it comes out. After that, you can see where you made mistakes, correct them, and build the perfect Slack bot in no time.

As you can see, you can use a Slack bot for a wide range of purposes. It can prove to be extremely helpful to you and your employees. It will save you time and help you manage your projects more efficiently. Also, it can keep your team members and employees up to date with everything and remind them of their tasks and deadlines.

You can also use the bot to send cheerful and fun messages to your employees. By doing so, you will keep them entertained and provide them with a comfortable work environment. All in all, the bot is an excellent management and communication tool that you can use for business and personal purposes.