Turn Slack requests into a task list

“Could someone look at the printer?” “Can we get the September numbers?” Requests get made in Slack and scroll away. Some get done twice and some never. In this recipe the agent collects the requests from your channels into a tasks database, each with a link back to the message it came from, so the team has one list of who is doing what.

What you need

• XataWorks, open, with the agent answering. If it is not yet, Getting started covers the one decision to make first.
• A Slack account in the workspace the requests are made in.
• To share the list with your team: XataWorks Pro.

1. Start from the Projects & Tasks template

Choose File ▸ New ▸ Database, pick Projects & Tasks, untick Include sample records, name it (for example Team_Tasks) and choose Create. It holds Projects, Tasks and the Team. Each task has a status, priority, due date and assignee, and a Mark done script. Ask the agent to add your team, and a project for the requests, such as Requests.

2. Open Slack beside the chat

Ask the agent to open app.slack.com in the chat’s browser panel, and sign in there as you normally would. Slack is one of the sites XataWorks already understands, so the agent can read channels, search messages and fetch a link to any message.

3. Collect the requests

Read #office and #ops from the past week. For every request someone made of the team, add a task to the Requests project: a short title, who asked, the due date if they gave one, and a link to the message in the notes. Skip anything that was already answered as done.

Reading Slack asks the first time for each action. These actions only read, so allowing the site’s read-only actions covers the rest. Adding tasks asks once, as a change to the database.

4. Work the list

What’s open, oldest first? Give the printer one to Sam, high priority. Mark the September numbers done.

Share the database from its own page (Sharing ▸ Sharing…) with your team at Can edit, so each person can update their own tasks from their phone or computer.

5. Make it a weekly habit

Every Monday at 9:00, repeat step 3 in this chat for the week just gone.

Or set it up yourself from the chat header’s ⋮ menu with Schedule a prompt, Weekly and Monday. It runs on Monday at that time whichever day you set it up, and keeps its time when the clocks change. If the computer is off or asleep at 9:00 one Monday, that week’s run is skipped rather than made late, and it runs again the next Monday. The schedule shows as a badge in the chat header, and any approval it needs waits for you.

Where this recipe stops

• Slack stays as it was. Every step here only reads Slack. Posting a reply or a reaction is a separate action, and XataWorks asks before the agent takes it.
• Judgement is the agent’s, review is yours. What counts as a request is the agent’s reading of the messages. Glance down the new tasks each week, and follow the link when one looks wrong.
• Slack has to be open in this chat. The agent reaches Slack through a tab in its own chat, signed in as you, and sees only what you can see.

Read more

• Databases: templates, scripts and sharing a database.
• Page tools: what a site’s actions are.
• Work that continues: scheduled prompts.