Slack: reading, replies and your own connection

The previous page was about giving Rally work from Slack. This one is about Slack as a source and a destination: what Rally can look up there, what it can post, how Rally links look when you paste them, and how a Sidekick can talk to you in Slack and listen to your reply.

What Rally can do with the Organization install#

Once an owner or administrator has installed Rally in Slack, you can ask Rally, in Slack or in the Mac app, to use Slack as part of a job. With the bot alone it can:

• Search messages in public Slack channels, when you have asked it something with a direct message or a mention.
• Read the history and threads of conversations the bot has been invited to.
• Find people and channels, and list who is in a channel.
• Read text files shared in those conversations.
• Post messages, add reactions, create a channel, or open a direct message or group message, all as the Rally bot.

So "@Rally what did the design channel decide about the logo last week?" works, as long as Rally can see the design channel.

The bot has two limits. Its search covers public channels only. And it searches only when you have asked it something, never quietly in the background.

Your own Slack connection#

The bot sees what the bot can see. For anything private to you, there is a second, separate connection: your personal Slack connection.

With it, Rally can also see your private channels, your direct messages and group messages, your canvases and Slack's search as you, and it can act as you, including writing to canvases. That is what lets you ask "what did we decide in that private thread with Sam?" and get an answer.

To connect it, open Settings → Connections, find the Slack card and click Connect for me. Clicking Connect Rally on the Slack Home tab can also carry on into the same step.

• It is optional. You do not need it to talk to Rally in Slack.
• It is independent of the Organization install. Neither one stands in for the other: the install lets people use Rally in Slack, and your personal connection lets Rally use Slack as you.
• Disconnecting it removes Rally's access to your Slack. It does not delete any work in Rally.

The Slack page in chapter 5 covers connecting and refreshing in more detail.

Talking back to a Sidekick in Slack#

A Sidekick can post its results into Slack through the Rally bot. When it does, the Slack thread under its post is connected to that run. Reply in the thread and the Sidekick reads your reply and carries on, so you can answer its question, correct it or give it the go-ahead right where it spoke. Rally reacts to your reply with the usual eyes emoji to show it heard you.

• Your reply runs with the Sidekick's own access, not yours.
• If the Sidekick is paused or archived, your reply gets the stop sign and nothing happens.
• Guests in your Slack workspace, and people in channels shared with another company through Slack Connect, cannot continue a Sidekick's run this way.

Where a Sidekick's results go explains how to tell a Sidekick to post in Slack in the first place.

Rally links in Slack#

Paste a link to a Rally Channel into Slack and it opens out into a small card. The card shows the Channel's title, when it last had activity, and whether a Sidekick started it. While the Channel is running, waiting for input, has failed or was stopped, the card also shows a status badge, and the badge updates as the status changes. Your team can see that the report is still cooking before anyone clicks.

To get a link, use Copy link in the Channel's title pill menu in Rally, as described in Search and links.

• The card carries no content from the Channel. Opening the link still needs normal access in Rally.
• A Channel from a different Organization, an archived Channel, or any link pasted into a Slack Connect channel shows a plain card with no details.
• Old Rally links that start with rallywithai:// do not get a card.

A recipe: your morning email briefing in Slack#

This is the example Rally itself suggests, and a good first Sidekick if you start the day buried in email. Send Rally this, in Slack or in the app:

Check my Gmail every morning at 9 AM and send me the stack-ranked top 3 emails in Slack.

Rally saves a personal Sidekick that runs every morning and sends you a Slack direct message with up to three emails, ranked. Each one has the sender, the subject, why it matters, what Rally suggests you do, and a link to open it in Gmail. The Morning email briefing starter in Rally's Slack messages tab sends the same request.

• You need your own Gmail connection and a linked Slack account (see Connect Rally).
• On a morning with nothing worth telling you, it stays quiet rather than sending an empty message.
• If you disconnect Gmail or Slack, the next run shows that it needs your input instead of guessing.
• Saving the Sidekick is your say-so for it to read your Gmail and message you on schedule. It will not ask again each morning.

Your inbox will not get any smaller, but at least it will arrive in order.

Slack and your data#

What Rally's Slack app does with what it sees in Slack:

• Rally does not copy Slack. It keeps no mirror or searchable index of your Slack workspace. It keeps the work done in a task, such as your request, its answer and anything Rally wrote down while working.
• The bot reads only conversations it is in. It is there because someone invited it, or because a Sidekick that watches a public Slack channel needed it to join.
• Bot search covers public channels only.
• Your personal connection uses your own Slack permissions, and only yours.
• Disconnecting stops new access. It does not delete work in Rally that already includes Slack content. To remove the Rally app from Slack entirely, a Slack administrator removes it in Slack's App Management.

For the wider picture, see What Rally shares, and with whom.

Next, Slack's quieter cousin: email.