Unboxing Workflow Builder by Slack

hey guys this is Richard from unboxing no code today we are gonna be checking out a product by slack called workflow builder so it looks like Slovak releases product late last year 2019 and I initially found this because I was looking at a product called mission stop AI which it looks like slack actually acquired and integrated and which became a builder if I understand this correctly so in any case with what I found interesting was that they basically built a zapier kind of like product where you have triggers and actions all inside of slack and what's interesting to me is that it seems like based on the triggers the actions can actually be interactable with the users in slack so I'm thinking kind of like embedded forms or something to that effect within slot which which could be pretty interesting I'm doing something similar with our product management system with design stack but basically I'm kicking out into other applications where our designers will actually interact and like say a project is done or comments are proofed or whatever it is so I'm really excited to check out this lock and see what what the possibilities are so this was the missions dot a home the AI home page when I clicked here try deciding with slack it basically just said hey like we are not running this project out and work with a lot of nations or workflow builder by slack so here's the work flow builder you'll see I'm actually in Portugal at the moment that's why I'm on this international site workflow builder here so I haven't really played with this quite yet there's a few like pre-built apps I don't know they're calling them workflows I suppose here pre-built work clothes so let's say we want to approve travel our quest this sounds kind of like the direction that I'm thinking about creating and publishing these workflows it goes in 30 minutes so you got a shortcut create a form send a message yeah I don't really know how this is gonna look like any actual product but so far this looks kind of nice reminds me a lot of zapier and those types of board was so rather than reading all of their documentation let's just jump into the app so I've got slack open over here and this is our design stack internal slack that we use for a company I created a new channel called slack we're close here and before this call I was actually playing around with slack to try to find out how to open up workflows so I actually found this there's two ways to do it you can click on this company name over here and then go to tools and workflow builder that's one path another way to get there is to click on this lightning bolt called shortcuts and then create workflows so we'll just go through the shortcuts today okay give your workflow a name gather incoming HR requests I've never really done this before so we just go ahead and do what they suggest gather incoming HR requests let's hit next which channels like workflows yep short name HR requests okay so let's see what we've got going on here we've got this workflow kind of modal window going on we have short cut starts when someone selects HR requests from the available shortcuts okay so it seems like the trigger here is initiated by a person rather than like a another application and see what setting says title icon collaborators okay it seems like I can provide like edit permissions to other people on my team otherwise I imagine other people will just be users of his app this workflow and delete this work okay I can publish it can download the file and make a copy delete and you go to help Center okay sounds pretty reasonable let's uh let's see what my other options are in terms of this channel I just wrote that name okay basically the ongoing that we just did so let's click on add a step ok so we've got our triggers which I seems like at this moment can only be initiated by users I'd be curious to see if we can trigger something guys talk like a like a form submission or you know someone fills out this form and a new row gets populated in Google sheets then initiating one of these workflows that's that's where my head's spinning right now I don't know if that's possible yet missus in this application well let's go ahead and click here so add a step we have send message sends a message to a channel or a person we're creative form okay so let's try sending a message first and see what that looks like send this message to let's see somebody's message to person through quick HR request okay so it's got its got variables or data that you can pull in based on based on the user who actually initiated the the workflow channel will work those started nice I see okay you okay so let's just do this and say hello Thanks see what kind of variable she's not going on okay there we go so we can do hey where how this works name location first mentioned name email okay so you can actually I guess this would just say the name this will just say the email and this will actually mention the person okay so those are the different ways to update it hey person who clicked each on request we are about to process your request we just need a bit info from you a clue to button his message clicking it will move people to the next step of the flow okay so this is kind of like the the stages of the workflow continue okay see what happens there when you're done building your workflow publish it to make it available to you dance luck okay that's pretty neat so you've got the shortcut and here's the message that's what the message will say and then it'll have this button which the button text is customizable update or add request details let's say that's cool okay click on that that doesn't do anything so let's click on add step then create warm in the situation some this form to person who clicked add request details yes that's what I want gather incoming HR requests open okay I can got it I can change the button text here too okay add a question Department is his question type okay so we can include the types of information that people can actually put in short answer okay and then let's say what is your request curious to see what the best options are okay vacation it's a requesting vacation hey Tyler I don't know IT requests something like that default selection I was just saying none right now send submitted responses to a channel or someone in the DM but that's pretty neat okay so we can actually notify an individual person or an entire channel when this form has been submitted okay so let's it's safe okay I'll be notified personally so one thing that I'm not sure about at the moment is in this send message step I actually have this include a button and so one of the confused about it says you can add a button this message clicking it will move people to the next step of the workflow does that mean if I don't have this button this won't happen so broke first click the button person who equipped HR requests hmm okay so it seems like if I'm triggering off of this initial shortcut then they'll get both the message and the form and if it sounds like if I have that button in here in the same message then this form will only appear this one will only appear when someone clicks on the button so why don't we go ahead and test that right now so my hypothesis that moment is when I publish this application and I go back and I initiated a char request I'm gonna get both the message and let's see if that works okay let's go to the shortcuts which are request hey Richard worry about registry requests we just need a bit of information from you hello to get sorry first of all that's one okay cool so perfect I got that's the message and this is the form Department are you man call myself sales what is your request need some time off submit okay not I should be notified I wonder if it's an issue because it's myself who's who's supposed to get it but then I I fell out before myself okay well that seems not sure how to handle that one okay so let's go back to the odd and how now my question is how do I actually edit to the workflow go back apps for flow builder gather [Music] enjoy requests this is when I was trying to play with last night let's edit this alright so this time let's just focus in one problem at a time let's this time let's include that button again okay and so now I suspect let's update this to only get triggered when someone clicks on the button so what I'm hoping that will happen here is when I initiate an HR request I'll first get this message and then you know the form will only appear after I click on continue all secured with that tux those who are yet started okay so let's try this out let's go back here let's go back into my stock we're close chatter quest okay they're just like bought we benefit from you continue nice nice okay there you go now now the formula was there perfect so one thing is I want to update this text because it doesn't really it sounds kind of weird to say hello das articles about this form after we already sent that initial message I guess what you could do is just remove the message in the beginning and just update this text that's probably the cleanest way to do it but I kind of wanted to I kind of wanted to see what what it would be will we do look like to have a two step or float I kind of got the idea there so now one thing that I am still not sure about is the word of the responses go and I think that's I was indicated here where's your requests and responses you know maybe I'll just send responses here to slack or close and see what happens there when we also update this text to say let's just say please fill out this form let's say and then publish cool let's close that out let's go back to slack workflows and start this again over here hey rich we're about to process it request okay that's great that's the initial intro it continued okay please the Hawks won great now sales and requesting paid time hey hey there we go so it appears I don't know if this is actually true or not but it appears that the response doesn't get sent if the recipient is the person who's actually submitting the form that seems to be a thing but I probably have to dig into their help box or reach out to customers or to actually find out if that's true let's check out slack workflows request form submission from Richard there you go wonder if they sent that to me no never sent that to me you area I think that's that covers it let's see if there's anything else to cover here so I guess what's going on through my head right now is can we can we create can we trigger based off of other things rather than just a person so a shortcut to give a team update equipped way to send info that we stand-ups we just create let's call this test shortcut someone selects the workflow from available shortcuts someone joins okay these are all the different triggers someone joins the specific channel someone has a specific moji emoji reaction in a channel schedule time and date okay web here we go okay so it seems like what the way they're handling external app integrations is through these web hooks so let's see what that says work was using on folks gotcha you okay that would be pretty interesting I do think the natural progression here is probably for them to integrate with something like zapier I'm thinking connected zapier then you can basically set up any trigger that you want like all of a sudden even connects lot to all exact years applications which is like tons so that would be super super powerful but in the mean time it seems like what books is your is your solution to connecting with outside applications which isn't bad so far I mean I think that this is a pretty cool application it seems pretty easy to learn and it seems pretty powerful I mean like I think in its first iteration it seems like this is really good for streamlining existing workflows that your team is already doing perhaps like sending norms or or whatnot I think what will make this like a credibly powerful is when you can connect this out with other applications for example in this form rather than just sending the result over into this channel what I really want is to connect this to like Google sheets or some other external database like the air table or you know a real database where these answers get piped over into something else that can be used in another operation which could kick off a different workflow outside slack so I think that would be super interesting but so far I'm pretty impressed with this so that is a that is slack or closed or select work flow builder for today guys I'll catch you next time

Channel: Unboxing NoCode

Views: 5,272

Keywords: #nocode #slack #zapier

Id: 7GUybXVfPpg

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020