Slack
Reviews stall because the request sits in an inbox nobody is reading. Connect Slack and the request arrives where your team is already talking, with Approve and Reject buttons on it, so answering takes one click and no context switch.
It is the single biggest thing you can do to speed up a slow review cycle. If your organisation uses Microsoft Teams instead, see Microsoft Teams.
#What your team gets
Feature | Who sets it up |
|---|---|
Direct messages when you are asked to approve, and when something you raised is decided | Automatic once Slack is connected |
Approve, Reject and Comment buttons on the message itself | A Confluence administrator turns it on |
Channel notifications so a whole team can watch a space | A Confluence administrator, per space |
#Connecting it
As a Confluence administrator, open Global settings, then the Notifications tab. You reach it from Global settings under Manage in the Approval sidebar, or from Confluence administration. On the Slack card, turn on the connect switch. You will be asked to authorise the Capable app in Slack. Direct messages start working straight away.
On the same Slack card, turn on Slack approval actions. This is the switch that puts the buttons on messages, and it is off until you flip it. See Site settings.
To broadcast a space into a channel, invite the Capable bot to that channel first. Then select Set up next to Slack channels on the Slack card, add the space, and pick which events the channel should hear about.
One Slack workspace per Confluence site, connected once by an administrator. Connecting a new workspace replaces the old one, and disconnecting turns Slack off for everybody.
#Answering from Slack
A Confluence administrator needs to enable this feature before it is available.
Request messages come with Approve, Reject and Comment buttons. Approve and Reject take an optional note, Comment needs text. Your answer lands on the approval exactly as if you had used the page, and shows up in the history the same way.
Once the request is resolved, Capable goes back and rewrites the message in Slack so the buttons disappear and it shows the outcome. Nobody clicks a stale button on a request that closed last week.
#When Slack refuses your answer
The buttons act on the page as it was when the message was sent, so occasionally you get a reply instead of a confirmation.
Message | What happened |
|---|---|
This page changed since the request was sent | The page was edited, so the review restarted on the new version. Open the page and answer there. See How approvals work. |
You can no longer respond to this request | You were removed from the approver list, or lost access to the page. |
This page was deleted, no approval is required | The page was deleted, so there is nothing left to approve. |
Approvals are read-only for now | Your site is moving its approvals to Capable for Confluence. Answer on the page once the move is finished. See Move from standalone Capable Approval. |
Slack buttons are not offered for spaces that require an authentication code to approve. A signature needs the code, and a Slack button cannot collect one, so in those spaces everyone answers in Confluence. See Sign approvals with a code.
#Channel notifications
Pick the spaces a channel should follow and it gets approval activity for them: requests, approvals, rejections, comments, status changes and expirations, and you can switch each one on or off. Useful for a compliance channel watching a controlled space, or a team channel watching its own.
#Turning your own Slack messages off
Each person decides for themselves. Open Notifications under Manage in the Approval sidebar and switch off Send me Slack notifications, or use the Slack switch in your Capable settings. It changes nothing for anybody else, and channel notifications carry on. See Notifications.
#A few things that catch people out
Slack finds you by matching your Confluence email to your Slack account. If the two addresses differ, no Slack message is sent, and nothing tells you. If a colleague never gets Slack notifications, check their addresses match.
Turning Slack off for yourself only stops your direct messages. An administrator can still turn Slack off for the whole site with the Slack integration switch on the Notifications tab.
Buttons appear on requests only, never on the message telling you something was approved or rejected.
Comments are included in full in the Slack message, quoted under it, so anyone in a notified channel reads them.
The Capable bot cannot hold a conversation. Message it and you get a friendly reply and a reminder of how to stop the messages, but it cannot answer questions or approve anything by text.
#Related
Notifications
Everything Capable sends, and when.
Respond to a request
The other ways to answer a request.
Sign approvals with a code
Why codes and Slack buttons do not mix.
Site settings
Connecting Slack and choosing channels.
View approval history
Where a Slack answer ends up.
Microsoft Teams
The same thing, for teams on Microsoft Teams.
Requests where people already are, answered in one click.
