What I'm trying to accomplish?
Send an API (chat.postMessage) from a 3rd party app to a Slack user - Done
The message will have two buttons (approve and decline) which the user can click on - Done
Upon clicking on one of the buttons, Slack should send an API back to the 3rd party app - TBD
Before sending an API, Slack should retrieve an authentication token via API - TBD
Note: I've seen in Slack docs mentioning of /incoming endpoint (also /interactive-message). My 3rd party app has a strict set of available APIs. I'm not able to create new API endpoints. Also, I need the payload to be sent in a specific JSON structure.
I've reviewed Slack documentation but I can't figure it out.
Making notifications actionable
I'm technical but not a developer so there might be nuances which I'm missing.
Is there any section in Slack where I can add custom code to accomplish such integration?
If not, how I can accomplish it?
Edit:
I've configured a Request URL (in slack), when I click on one of the buttons in the message, I can see an API request is being sent to the URL.
I'm able to see the payload as well.
My problem is that I need the information to be sent in a different format and to a different endpoint.
What is the best approach to take for this? Do I need to develop a new service to capture and parse the payload and then generate the API request to my 3rd party app?
Ok, so here is how I've accomplished it.
Upon clicking a button in slack, Slack sends an API with a certain payload to the predefined endpoint which you configure (Request URL).
I've used free tier AWS serverless components:
API Gateway and Lambda
API gateway receives the payload and invokes the Lambda function (I used Python as it seems the easier for a non developer)
My Lambda function is processing the payload and has the logic to interact with my 3rd party app in the required way.
Related
I want to pull some metrics daily posted in my slack channel. these metrics are located in my personal server, and to pull them via rest API a basic authentication is also required.
Does slack support this?in other words can slack do external api call in such way?
and if yes how?
To achieve this, you need to create a custom application(bot).
You can implement your custom business logic and then use slack APIs to post generated data to Slack Client.
https://slack.com/intl/en-in/help/articles/115005265703-Create-a-bot-for-your-workspace
We are using BotFramework Composer to create bots. These bots are supposed to get information from a backend REST service, where we need to know, which user is submitting the request for data. We are currently using {turn.activity.from.id} to get the Teams user's id, and sending it in a special http header in the "Send an HTTP request" action. We then perform a mapping of this id to our internal users.
We are, of course, aware, that this is not secure at all, since anyone who knows this, could get the user's id and send it to our service. We are currently thinking along the lines of generating a short-lived jwt token in the Bot to send to our application. However, we see no direct way of implementing this token generation in the Bot Framework Composer itself.
Also, we don't want to use OAuth, because we don't want the user to have to log in via the bot.
Is there a way to implement custom token generation using C# or js and assigning it to a dialog variable to be used in a "Send an HTTP request" action?
This document discusses how to implement an HTTP request in Composer. The first half is focused on creating a login for OAuth, which I know is not your focus, so look at the second half. If you set up a simple server that can generate a token for you, then you can make a request to it from Composer using the method described.
As links can break and docs can change (and Composer is still in Preview), I would recommend saving the doc somewhere and checking back every so often for any updates.
I've used HTTP requests from within Composer, myself, so I know this will work for you.
Hope of help!
You can create a custom Action or a package component and create any c# methods there for JWT generation. This will keep it all local to the bot.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/composer/how-to-create-custom-actions
When I did research online, most of the solutions are about triggering Slack notification from TravisCI. Now I want to do the reverse direction - type some message in slack, and trigger a build task in TravisCI.
I'm looking at Slack's Outgoing WebHooks - under their "Custom Integrations" in Slack app directory. However, their webhook POST data spec is fixed, not seem to be programmable through just their webpage UI. They have a column in the UI that lets you fill in URL(s) to POST to. But I don't see any ways that I can customize the data field of the POST request.
Same as TravisCI's Triggering Builds API v3, the data fields they expect in the POST are fixed and unchangeable.
I know I can sign up a cloud service, write some code and spin up a server to re-package the parameters to do the work, like a middleware between these 2 APIs. But just want to see if anyone manages to achieve triggering TravisCI by Slack in such way that doesn't involve spinning up a server myself?
I ended up hosting a server and writing the porting logic myself. I guess there's no simple way to do this, after all they are different APIs. Here is the code where I request against travisCI API, and here is the code where I unpack the slack webhook POST request.
I have my own slack team, with its own slackbot user.
I want to create a basic slack bot that will respond to direct messages, and I since I need specific events, I need to use the Events API.
I understand that slack will POST to my server the event that happened with its parameters, but I don't understand what needs to be done with the oauth permissions.
How can I add permissions to the slack app, without submitting the app?
reading the docs, I couldn't find the answer to this..
what am I missing?
You do not need to submit your app to the Slack App Directory. That is optional and only necessary if you want to make your app available to the public.
But you need to install your app to your Slack team before you can use it. During the installation process your app will be authenticated to your Slack team and you will receive a special token based on the scopes you requested.
The authentication process follows the OAuth standard and works similar to the process used by other web services, e.g. Twitter or Facebook.
I use a mini website for each of my Slack apps that has the "Add to Slack" button and is able to run through the OAuth process with Slack. This website is basically another script in addition to the one that will handle the events coming form Slack.
Check out the excellent documentation from Slack on the Slack button and how to use Oauth with Slack.
I am developing an API for a social network website. This API will basically get all the requests from the users (get friend list, post a status update etc) and reply back if necessary.
We will implement OAuth 2.0 protocol for authentication. Consumer (our php project) has API id and secret.
Basic scenario:
Client wants to log in
API Consumer (php web project) takes this request, directs user to API
User send his/her user credentials to the api, gets the token.
User comes back to our website, pass token to the consumer.
Consumer goes to the api server, gets the access token.
Now consumer (php project) has access to user's private information.
Since this is a social network website, we want app developers to be able to use our API in the future.
I am not experienced in API-design. Does that flow make sense? I guess the simplest authentication would be accessing user information through php project. But we don't want to access database in php code. We will use ajax in client side and send a request to the API. And I believe there should be a better solution, what would you suggest?
Sure, API design is basically point where you need to choose technology.
Either it can be PHP or .net or Java.
I would prefer either PHP or .Net as we get lot of flexibility in it.
API will return XML or Json depending upon the request.
There are lot of CMS in php which can be helped.
.net we have Service Stack to help you.
API's had to be fully independent from other world as well as within API method as well.
If you are able to achieve this, then you will surely create a good architecture.