Slack integration

Connecting Slack gives your team two ways to work with Athean:

• Get updates. Agents and automations can send you a summary when a run finishes, or post to a team channel.
• Chat with Athean. Send it a direct message or mention @Athean in a channel. It is the same assistant as in Athean Chat, with your Athean access and the same approvals.

For example, you could:

• Get a brief each weekday morning with the three accounts to act on first, then reply under it: “Help me follow up on the first one.”
• Ask “What should I know before meeting Acme Corp.?” on your way into a call.
• Mention @Athean in a deal thread: “Summarize this thread and suggest next steps.”
• Ask an agent researching your accounts to message you in Slack when its run finishes.
• Have an automation post to a team channel when something changes in Salesforce, such as a field your team tracks.

Connecting Slack does not send messages or read conversations on its own. Athean reads a message only when someone sends it a direct message or mentions it, and it posts only when a conversation, agent, or automation calls for it.

Slack is a shared organization connection. An Athean organization administrator connects it once for the team, which takes about five minutes. Team members do not need to connect their own accounts.

1. Approve the app in Slack, if required. If your Slack workspace restricts app installs, a Slack admin needs to approve Athean first. Otherwise, skip this step.
2. Open Org settings → Slack and select Connect Slack.
3. On Slack's authorization screen, choose the correct workspace and review the permissions Athean requests. What Athean can access explains each one. Select Allow.
4. Back in Athean, confirm that the card shows Connected to with your workspace name, along with the Connected on date.

A Slack workspace can be connected to one Athean organization. If you cannot access Org settings, ask your organization administrator, or chat with us for help choosing the right setup.

If your organization connected Slack before chat was available, reconnect to add the chat permissions. Slack does not add them to an existing connection. Until an administrator reconnects, anyone who messages Athean in Slack gets a note asking an admin to do so. Updates keep arriving in the meantime.

1. Open Org settings → Slack.
2. Select Disconnect, then confirm Disconnect.
3. Select Connect Slack and approve the permissions again.

Updates pause between disconnecting and reconnecting, so complete both steps in one sitting.

The Slack connection delivers updates. Each agent or automation decides what to send and when.

• To you: ask Athean or an agent to send you a summary in Slack, such as when a run finishes. A personal update goes only to the person using the chat or the person the run is for, never to someone else or a channel.
• To your team: an automation can post to a channel it names, or send a direct message to teammates who use your organization's email domains. To set up a recurring team digest or alerts from another platform, chat with us.

To ask about an update, reply in the thread under it. In a channel, mention @Athean in your reply.

Athean finds people in Slack by email address, so each person's Slack profile email must match the address Athean uses. Invite Athean to a private channel with /invite @Athean before expecting it to post there. When an automation runs as a test, its Slack messages are still sent and marked [TEST RUN]; see testing an automation.

When Slack chat is available for your organization, start a conversation in either place:

• Direct message: open Athean from the Apps section of your Slack sidebar. Each thread is one conversation. Start a new chat for a fresh conversation, or open its history to return to an earlier one.
• A channel: mention @Athean, and it replies in a thread under your message. Inside an existing thread, it reads the thread first. When you mention it again, it catches up on what was said since. In a very long thread, summarize what matters in your message.

Your Slack conversations also appear under Recent conversations in Athean Chat. When a reply includes something Slack can't display, such as a contact table, an agent plan, or drafts to review, Athean posts a link to open the conversation in the app.

Approvals work as they do in Athean Chat. When an action needs your sign-off, Approve and Reject appear in the thread. Only the person who started the conversation can decide, and sending a new message instead dismisses the request without taking the action.

Good to know:

• Your Slack profile email must match an active Athean account in the connected organization. Athean works as you, with your Athean access.
• In a channel, each conversation belongs to the person who started it. Mention Athean in a new message to start your own.
• Athean needs to be in the channel. The first time someone mentions it in a public channel, Slack offers to add it. For a private channel, use /invite @Athean. Channels shared with other organizations are not supported.
• Athean can't open files or images attached in Slack. Paste the text, or attach the file in Athean Chat.
• Athean limits how many messages it answers for each person and workspace. If you reach a limit, try again shortly or continue in Athean Chat.

Slack shows these permissions when you authorize Athean. Each one supports part of the chat, update, or approval experience.

Athean does not watch your channels. In a channel it has been added to, it reads only the thread where it is mentioned, when it is mentioned. It also cannot:

• Join, create, rename, or archive channels. It does not request channels:join or channels:manage.
• Read or post in a private channel unless someone invites it.
• Work in channels shared with other organizations through Slack Connect.
• Open files or images attached in Slack.

Messages Athean reads for context become part of that conversation in Athean, where the person who started it can see them in Chat.

• Athean says chat isn't switched on: ask an organization administrator to reconnect Slack.
• Athean can't find your account: make sure the email on your Slack profile matches your active Athean account.
• Athean says chat from Slack isn't available for your organization: contact support.
• Connecting fails with workspace_connected_to_other_org: that Slack workspace is already connected to another Athean organization.
• A channel update didn't arrive: check the channel name, and invite Athean to private channels.
• A direct message didn't arrive: check that the recipient's Slack profile email matches the address Athean uses.

Disconnect stops Athean from sending messages through that workspace connection, and agents and automations that send to Slack fail until it is reconnected. Removing the Athean app from your Slack workspace also disconnects it. For persistent problems, contact support with the workspace name and the message or run that failed.