Overview
Connecting your Slack workspace to Focal allows you to tie actions in Focal to automatic notifications to Slack. If Slack is at the center of all your internal communication, this can be a great way to add visibility into your creative workflows, and to make sure everyone stays up-to-date on things that require action.
Connecting your Slack workspace
Slack notifications can be enabled for both asset library folders and individual pages in Focal. To connect your Slack workspace, start by navigating to the folder or page you would like to enable notifications for, and click on the Slack logo at the top right.
Clicking on connect Slack will start the authentication process. You will be taken to a screen displaying the permissions Focal will need to enable notifications. If you have access to multiple workspaces in Slack, make sure you select the correct on in the dropdown on the top right. Once you have reviewed the permissions, click on "Allow".
After clicking allow, Focal will display a list of all the public channels in your Slack workspace. At this step, please select the channels you plan on using for Focal notifications, and click on "Use channel" for each of them. The channels you choose here will later be available destinations whenever you set up Slack notifications for any new page or folder.
Connecting a page to a Slack channel
Now that your Slack workspace is connected, go back to the page or folder that you are setting up Slack notifications for, and click on the Slack logo on the top right one more time. This will open up a new modal displaying all the Slack workspaces connected to Focal.
Once you click on "Connect to page", you will see the available Slack channels in your workspace displayed in a list. From that list, select the channel you want to use for this particular page.
After selecting the channel by clicking on "connect", you will get a confirmation message in the Slack channel letting you know that it is connected to a page in Focal.
Notification types
Creative feedback
After a folder or page is connected to a Slack channel, all comments and annotations on creative assets are automatically sent to Slack. When a comment is added on a creative file, Focal automatically posts it to the Slack channel along with a thumbnail of the image or video frame it was left on.
When the Slack notifications are enabled for creative comments, you will see a small Slack icon displayed after every comment.
The Slack integration in Focal is bidirectional, so if replies are added to the thread started by Focal in Slack, they will be fetched and displayed in Focal. Any comments originating from Slack will be labeled (from Slack) to avoid confusion.
Board updates
In board automations, you can also tie other actions in Focal to notifications on Slack. Examples of these are status changes or when new creative assets are uploaded. To set up Slack notifications on a board, click on the automations icon on top of the board.
When the automation modal opens up, click on "add new automation". Here, you will have two options for how to configure the Slack notifications.
Send a message to a Slack channel. This will send out a message to the channel you select whenever the conditions are met and the automation runs.
Send a direct Slack message. This will send over a 1-1 notification to a person on Slack, which can be a good option for more frequent updates.
The next step is to select the Slack channel you want to send the notification to, as well as if it should always notify a specific user or use a column on the board to identify which user to notify.
After configuring how the notification works, click next to set up the conditions for this automation to run. Start by adding the trigger and add optional conditions if you only want this to happen in specific situations, instead of every time a column is updated.
Technical documentation
Bot Token Scopes
channels:history. Used for determining when users have replied to a slack message within a thread. When Focal sees this it will reflect the same message as a response within the creative comment thread.
channels:join. Focal needs to be able to add the focal-bot to a selected channel that will be used to display notification updates from boards and media files
channels:read. Used to determine what public channels that are available for the Focal bot to post to. Also used to listen whenever any new public channels are updated, renamed, archived or deleted.
chat:write. Allows the Focal bot to post messages to public and private channels as well as direct messages to users.
chat:write.customize. Allows for the Focal bot to impersonate a post from a Focal account by setting the same username and avatar values.
chat:write.public. In the event that the focal bot fails to be added to a channel, it can still post messages to a public channel in a limited context”
groups:history. If the focal bot direct messages a user it will need this permission so that it can listen on replies within that conversation.
groups:read. If the focal bot direct messages a user it will need this permission so that it can determine what private message conversations it is apart of.
im:write. This permission allows for the Focal bot to direct message users instead of messaging a channel. This feature is made available by the board automations.
reactions:read. When a user reacts to a message posted by the bot within Slack, Focal will need to recognize this event and reflect the reaction within the Focal app.
reactions:write. When a user reacts to a feed message within Focal that same reaction will need to be reflected on the matching message within Slack.
users:read. When a Slack workspace is connected to Focal, Focal will need to match Slack users to the users within Focal (this is done seeing which users have the same email address).
users:read.email. By being able to read email addresses of users on Slack, Focal can then determine if the user's email matches any account within Focal.
User Token Scopes
channels:history. This permission is required to determine which users have replied to a conversation thread within a Focal feed thread for public channels.
channels:read. This permission is required to determine which users have replied to a conversation thread within a Focal feed thread for private channels.
groups:read. This permission is required such that Focal knows when a user has responded to Slack direct message conversation with the Focal bot.
reactions:read. This permission is required such that Focal knows which user has reacted to a Focal feed conversation message within Slack.