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Receiving base activity notifications in Slack
  • 11 Nov 2022
  • 2 Minutes to read
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Contents

Receiving base activity notifications in Slack

  • Updated on 11 Nov 2022
  • 2 Minutes to read
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  • Dark
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If you're ready to install the Slack app, click here to go directly to the installation page. Otherwise, you can read this article to learn more about generating Slack notifications based on activity in your Airtable base.

Note
If you are looking to add the Airtable app to your Slack interface, then check out Slack's support documentation here.


Introduction

Integrating Airtable with Slack is simple. You can use this integration to receive updates in a specified Slack channel whenever changes are made:

  • To an Airtable base
  • To specific records in an Airtable base
  • To specific views in an Airtable base

You can create as many Slack notification "rules" as you'd like, so that different bases can post updates to different channels in Slack. For example, you may want changes in your "Applicant Tracking" base to notify your team in the "#recruiting" slack channel, while changes in your "Bugs" base are posted to your "#dev" channel.

For changes made in specific views, only changes made to visible fields will trigger notifications. Changes made to hidden fields will not trigger a slack notification. This can help cut down the number of notifications sent for an active base.


Setup a new Slack notification

To set up a new Slack notification rule, go to the base you want to receive notifications from, click the drop-down arrow next to the base name, then the ellipses icon, and select "Slack notifications".

4407201140631slackNotificationsNewBaseUI.jpg

Or, go to the Slack notifications page directly, where you can add a new notification rule or see all of the other rules that you've set up:

360028445153ScreenShot2019-03-01at25623PM.png

From here, you can create a new notification rule by clicking "Add a slack notification rule" or modify an existing notification rule.


Configure notification rules

In the notification rule configuration page, first select the base you'd like to post updates from, if it hasn't been set already. Next, choose the Slack channel that you'd like to post updates to.

360028445173ScreenShot2019-03-01at25209PM.png

You can also disable the rule to stop it from posting updates, send a test message to make sure that everything is working, and remove the integration altogether at the bottom of the box. After configuring a rule, give it a try! Make some updates to the base that you selected in the rule, and watch Slack to see the updates appear.

NOTE

In situations where a record enters a view NOT as the result of a user-initiated action (e.g. a view based on a filter tied to time), the slack notification for a view will not trigger. This has important implications for automated, time-based reminders.


Build custom notification using Automations

You can build your own custom Slack notifications with Airtable Automations. Learn more about our Slack automation action here.


OAuth scopes and security

For this portion of our product integration with Slack, we only interact with one API scope from Slack.

Scope nameScope purpose
incoming-webhookPost to the Slack channel

For more information about Slack's scopes, we recommend checking out their support documentation here.

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