Slack Scheduler

A node.js based proof-of-concept (POC) built for Slack and intended to mimic the workflows used by the Third Bridge Scheduler v3 application.

Screenshots

Specialist Commands Preview

Project Commands Preview

Includes

Express
Node SDK Events API
Node SDK Web Client
Node SDK Interactive Messages API
Use of Slack Block Kit

User Features

Command	Variables	Description
/scheduler-specialist	[specialist name]	Get Scheduler details for the given Specialist
/scheduler-project	[project code]	Get Scheduler details for the given Project
@Schedulebot	no parameters	Introduction to what Schedulebot can do

Prerequisites

A Slack workspace that you have access to as a development space
Ngrok for API between local environment and Slack API

Setup

Create a Slack Application & Bot

Navigate to Create New App in the Your Apps section at the Slack Developer Site

You will be prompted to enter a Slack Workspace that you have access to as a development space. This workspace represents your dev environment; your bot will be deployed here for testing and experimenting.

Next, we need to create a Bot User for our App.

Create a Bot User

Go to App Home
Complete the fields for Bot Name (ScheduleBot) and Default Name
Ensure Always Show My Bot as Online is enabled
Select OAuth & Permissions on the side menu.

Set OAuth Permission Scopes

Install your Bot User into the Slack Workspace with correct permission scopes

app_mentions:read
chat:write
commands
users:read

Set up Ngrok and Event Subscriptions/Interactions

Create a URL with ngrok for Node server to accept external events from Slack API
- The ngok server can be started with: ngrok http 3000
- Take note of the [Ngrok URL] generated - you will need to refer to this later
Ensure Event Subscriptions in Slack API are enabled
- Go to Event Subscriptions
- Turn on Enable Events
- Add [Ngrok URL] + /api/slack/events (e.g: http://219907c44632.ngrok.io/api/slack/events)

Inside the Event Subscriptions section, you should now have a verified Request URL. Next, we need to register to which events we want our bot to have access.

Click Into Subscribe to bot events
Click Add Bot User Event
Search and add app_mention and app_home_opened
Save your changes

Set up Slack Commands

Create two commands with the following detail:

Command	Usage Hint	Short Description
/scheduler-specialist	[specialist name]	Get Scheduler details for the given Specialist
/scheduler-project	[project code]	Get Scheduler details for the given Project
@Schedulebot	no parameters	Introduction to what Schedulebot can do

The Request URL will be the Ngrok URL we created earlier + /api/specialist and /api/project

Troubleshooting

To make sure you own the URL you provide when registering it with Slack, Slack sends a challenge request. To accept the challenge, your server must respond with a specific reply.

Luckily, instead of building this functionality into our server, we can use a command-line utility built into the @slack/events-api package. To use it, we need our signing secret, which is available in the Basic Information section of the developer configuration. We also need the name of our events path.

$ ./node_modules/.bin/slack-verify --secret <signing_secret> [--path=/api/slack/events] [--port=3000]\

When successfully run, you should see The verification server is now listening at the URL: http://:::3000/slack/events.

This command starts a server that correctly accepts the Slack Events API challenge.

soon as you enter this URL, Slack sends the challenge message. Our running verification server should correctly accept the challenge.

Once this URL is verified, we can stop the ./node_modules/.bin/slack-verify server.

deanham / slack_scheduler Goto Github PK

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