When creating a slack app, it creates a new "channel" in the left hand menu. I want to be able to send a message to specific users and not to all users in a workspace who have integrated with the app.
For example, if I make the following request:
curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' --data '{"text":"Hello, World!"}' https://hooks.slack.com/services/ABxxx/CDxxx/EFxxxxxx
It will send a message to all users who have integrated with my app with the text "Hello World".
But I only want to send a message to user A without User B being notified.
I don't want to message a user directly and it to appear to come from slack bot. I want the message to appear to come from my bot / app.
How can this be achieved via slack API?
I found this quite hard to explain so please let me know if you'd like me to clarify anything.
The problem of your request that you are using a hook URL which is bound to a particular channel (you pick it during Slack App installation).
To send a direct message to the user on behalf of your bot, you need to consider the following things (this is not the single way to achieve it, but works for me):
Ensure you have a bot registered for your Slack App.
Ask for bot and chat:write:bot permissions during App installation process (example for Slack Install button and here).
Store the bot access token on successful installation (see for details).
Now using the bot access token you can send Slack API requests.
To achieve what you need, use chat.postMessage API method. channel argument can be user ID (e.g. U0G9QF9C6). By setting up as_user argument to true, your message will be always sent on behalf (name and icon) of your bot (seems for bot tokens it's always like this, but it's recommend it to specify it explicitly).
Hope it helps. Feel free to ask for details.
Related
My username is "Charlie", and I'm the admin of a Slack environtment.
I create my incoming webhook following the steps:
https://api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks
And I create a bot called "Bot" with all the "write" scopes.
Then, I add a Webhook URL to be able to send direct messages to username "Peter".
When I use the typical curl method to send a test:
curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' --data '{"text":"Hello, World!"}' https://hooks.slack.com/services/xxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Peter receives a message from Bot ... that's ok !!
But I see in my private messages with Peter that notification also.
That's to say, it's like Bot has written to Peter as me ... in my private channel with Peter.
What I want is Bot to write DIRECTLY to Peter, not in my private channel with that person.
Thank you!
Unfortunately, incoming webhooks won't be able to post a DM to a user on behalf of the bot. This type of functionality requires additional permissions and therefore can only be accomplished using a Slack WebAPI methods via a bot token.
To post a DM to a user with a Slack API app you will have to:
Add a bot user to your app. The bot token will appear in your OAuth and Permissions page after you install the app.
Make a call to the chat.postMessage api method and pass the id for the channel/conversation your want to post to. https://api.slack.com/methods/chat.postMessage
To get a list of all channel and conversations in your workspace including DMs make a call to conversations.list https://api.slack.com/methods/conversations.list
To open a DM with a user you can call conversations.open https://api.slack.com/methods/conversations.open
I want to utilise Google Meet api, which is used in Hangouts integration for Slack, description follows
TL;DR:
Links such as https://meet.google.com/new?gid=123&gd=qwe987 can be generated, so a modal is shown which can ask user's confirmation and then some request is sent from user's browser (where the Google Meet page is opened) to some endpoint (probably it is determined from gid which seems to be google application id). Is there a way to configure my application to have a webhook, so I can generate these custom links?
There's Google+ Hangouts app for Slack. Here's how it works (after you add the app in your workspace):
you send /hangout command in any Slack channel
slackbot sends an "Only visible to you" message in this channel with a link to start a new hangout. it looks smth like this (I changed data in the link): https://meet.google.com/new?gid=691521906844&gd=THTJ30X6W%7CU01113BD13M%7CD01113BDB5Z%7Csuren%7C%7C1846381238693%7C1%7CB01QFGG5GJF%7CE1MDm4DWcuVa0RbN5ZT9o5KF
when you visit the link, a new meeting is started instantly, and the page shows modal with text "To bring others into this video call, post a link it to your Slack channel" with buttons 'Cancel' and 'Post'.
when you click 'Post', a new message is sent to the Slack channel, where the command was sent. Text is "#Suren Khorenyan has started a Google+ Hangout and would like you to join. Join Hangout." and contains a link to the meet, which was created previously
How can I utilise this integration for another app, like Mattermost (or anything else like Telegram chats via bots)?
As I see, data in the url slightly changes. Probably it's payload for Google Meet to trigger Slack to send a message with link to the channel.
gid seems to be something like google app id
gd seems to be something like google data. If I url-decode it, it becomes THTJ30X6W|U01113BD13M|D01113BDB5Z|suren||1846381238693|1|B01QFGG5GJF|E1MDm4DWcuVa0RbN5ZT9o5KF. This is some kind of payload, separated by pipes (obviously), but I don't know what any part of this means (suren is my username in the Slack workspace, probably this is used for creating an invitation message).
When I click Post, this happens:
a new POST request to https://hooks.slack.com/services/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 is sent with form-data
hangout_id: 1812381238693
hangout_url: https://meet.google.com//abc-iuqx-def
a new message is posted to the Slack channel
Google meet somehow knows where to post back! Is this configured at the Google application (application id is provided via gid)? How can I configure my application for such behaviour? Where can I setup webhook url?
If we breakdown the request, we can see that url contains some parts of the gd payload:
THTJ27X6W - this is the first part of the gd payload
B01ABCD5GJF - last but one
E1MDm4DWcuVa0RbK5ZT9o5KD - the last part of the gd payload
and form-data contains:
hangout_id - this is in the gd payload after my name
hangout_url - obviously, this is the url for the new created meeting
How can I change it for my needs?
I created a new application at Google APIs dashboard (here console.developers.google.com/apis), but can't find any docs for this integration. There's Google+ Hangouts API in API Library, but it says Apps will continue to function until April 25, 2017..
I tried to approach it from another side:
In the API Library there's Google Calendar. I found mattermost-hangout app on GitHub (had to update it a bit, so it works with updated api). Here's how it works:
oauth2 for authorising at google (single account)
it handles POST request, which is meant to be received from Mattermost (triggered by a slash command),
creates a new calendar event using Google Calendar API (with conference),
takes hangouts url from the response and sends a new message in the Mattermost channel with invitation to join the meeting.
But it has some downsides:
you have to use one account to authorise all event creation events (yeah, it can be upgraded to authorise any number of users, but it'll be inconvenient. why to force anyone to provide access to their Google Account, when Google Meet authorisation just happens in browser, we don't need to create events)
account, used for auth, now has events in his calendar. of course, events can be deleted, but it's not the way.
Is there any documentation on utilising gid and gd params?
Generally, I want to find a way to configure a webhook in my app, so when Google Meet finds my application's ID in the gid query param, it looks at the app's config and sends a request to my app (previously configured endpoint (I assume it works this way)).
Of course there's a chance that it's some kind of internal API and it cannot be used by everyone, but I could not find any information on this.
When sending the response to a Slack slash command, I would like to send it under the user that has launched the slach command.
I have created a Slack app with a slash command. It calls my Flask webservice and I use the "response_url" webhook to write something back to the channel. The response in the channel is given by my app. This works as expected. But I would like for the response to be displayed as if a user has given it.
An example would be the Slack plugin from giphy. If I call it, I get an ephemeral message to choose the gif I would like. But then it is posted in the channel under my name.
So I have 2 questions:
How does the API call look like to respond to the slash command as a specific user?
What permissions for my app are required to allow for such behaviour of the app?
The Slack API documentation is comprehensive, but much research didn't yield the result I wanted.
Thanks!
When you are using response_url, you can't customize your username or icon. For this, you'll need to use chat.postMessage API method. There are now two ways to achieve what you need here:
Use user token: This gives you access to take actions on the behalf of the user. Although, you'll need to take authorization from every user you want post the message as.
Request chat:write.customize scope with your bot token: You can post a message with icon_url and username parameters where you can provide the user's icon and name respectively for both the parameters. This is much easier, as this only requires one-time authorization.
More information in the official documentation.
Is there a way to keep my Slack App from being used in Channels?
I only want the current user to be able to interact with the App directly and it not to show in any channels.
When setting up a app in MS Teams using App Studio there is a option that lets you limit the App to "Personal" I'm looking for something similar in Slack.
I am not sure what use cases you want to prohibit exactly, but in general your app can check each incoming request and decide if and how it wants to react to it.
For example you will always get the user ID of who sent the slash command or message to the bot. You can use that to filter our users that should not have access.
Update
To restrict your app the the app channel you need to do the following:
When receiving a request from the user, first open a direct message channel to the user from the bot user. That will always give you the channel ID of the app channel.
Then reply with a direct message in that app channel
or alternatively check if the received request is from the app channel and ask the user to only talk in app channel if it is not.
See also this answer on how this works in detail.
In a Slack conversation, is it possible to click on a button to send a message to the Slack channel?
The Slack conversation could be:
The user types a word (or message)
A slackbot shows some text and two buttons
The user clicks on a button to send a TEXT message to the Slack channel
The Slackbot reacts on the 'action' message.
It is not possible to create an REST service for my Slackbot, because the Slackbot is behind a firewall. So, registering commands is not possible.
So sending a message as the result of a button click is needed. The Slackbot can react on that message.
I read that attachments could be a good way to do this, BUT the is 'outmoded'.
I tried to send an secondary attachment, which is outmoded, but that was not possible.
The next approach was adding a webhook. So pushing a button resulted in using the url, but that is of course not possible because I cannot send a POST request via a simple (get) url.
Please give a short example.
This will not work.
Every interactive feature (e.g. buttons) require your app to be able to receive POST requests from Slack through the public Internet. Since you say you can not provide that (e.g. behind a company firewall) you will not be able to use any interactive features.
See also this answer: How to integrate internal APIs (Not accessible outside office network) to slack slash commands