Public Mode for Glean in Slack channels
Beta: This page contains beta features and may change.
Public Mode allows Glean to share answers directly in Slack channel threads. When enabled, Glean's responses—whether triggered by a direct mention or detected proactively—are visible to all members of the channel. This ensures that high-value information is accessible to the entire team, reducing repetitive questions and centralizing knowledge.
Before you begin
To use Public Mode in Slack channels, your organization must:
- Set up the Slack connector and install the Glean app in your Slack workspace. See Slack connector.
- Enable Gleanbot to respond in Slack channels. For setup instructions, see Enable Gleanbot to respond in Slack channels.
Enable Public Mode for Glean Assistant in Slack
This section describes how to enable Public Mode for Glean Assistant in Slack. If you are configuring Glean Agent in Slack, see Publishing to Slack.
In both cases, public replies use only broadly shared content. For Agents, this content must also be included in the Agent's configured knowledge sources.
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In the Glean Admin Console, go to Setup > Data Sources.
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Select your Slack instance and open the Glean in Slack tab.
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Under Allow public replies in channels, turn the setting on. This allows Glean Assistant to post responses that are visible to everyone in the channel.
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When you turn on Allow public replies in channels, Reply to questions without being @mentioned is enabled automatically.
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If you want Public Mode responses only when Glean Assistant is directly mentioned, turn off Reply to questions without being @mentioned.
noteIf Allow public replies in channels is off, Reply to questions without being @mentioned is disabled.
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Under Rollout configuration, All channels where Glean is active is selected by default. If needed, restrict Public Mode to specific channels.
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Click Save Changes in BETA features section to apply your settings.
How Public Mode works
Public Mode follows the same detection, response, and feedback flow described in Enable Gleanbot to respond in Slack channels.
However, Public Mode uses a specific visibility and corpus for replies:
- Replies are visible to all members in the Slack channel thread.
- Replies are triggered by a direct
@Gleanmention or, if enabled, automatically when Glean detects a question. - Glean generates public replies using only broadly shared content from your organization's public corpus.
What content Public Mode can use
Public Mode uses broadly shared content. For indexed content, this means content that anyone in the organization can search for via Glean, or content that is publicly accessible. It does not use link-only, restricted, or private content for public replies.
Public Mode also restricts some other capabilities. MCP and most federated sources are disabled in this mode, so skills that depend on restricted actions or federated sources may be less effective. The only federated search currently supported is Slack, and only for messages in public channels.
Datasources that can contribute to public replies
The following table describes how different datasources can contribute to public replies.
| Datasource | Content that can be used for public replies |
|---|---|
| Slack | Messages from public channels |
| Slack Enterprise Grid | Same as Slack public channels |
| Google Drive | Files shared as Anyone in your organization can find and open, or Anyone on the internet can find and open |
| Confluence | Pages available to an organization-wide access group, or pages with anonymous access |
| SharePoint | Content shared with Everyone or Everyone except external users |
| OneDrive | Content shared through the SharePoint permission model with Everyone except external users |
| Jira | Issues visible to logged-in users across the organization, or issues on a public Jira instance |
| Salesforce | Knowledge articles with no data category restrictions or with Customer Support Portal enabled, content documents shared with All Internal Users, or Public Knowledge Base articles |
| ServiceNow | Articles or catalog items available to all instance users |
| GitHub | Internal repositories visible to all organization members, and public repositories. For pull requests on public repositories, anonymous access may depend on configuration. |
| GitLab | Public projects |
| Azure (Microsoft 365) | Same organization-wide content model as SharePoint and OneDrive |
| Custom datasource | Content explicitly indexed by your organization as organization-wide or public |
| Web crawler | Public website pages, and organization-wide pages when configured that way |
| Microsoft Teams | Messages from public channels in public teams, when public-team membership is not required for visibility |
| Notion | Workspace content is organization-wide visible by default. Pages can also be shared publicly to the web. |
| Google Groups | Groups shared with anyone in the organization, or anyone on the internet |
| Google Sites | Sites shared with everyone in the organization, or published publicly |
| Quip | Company-shared or public threads, when domain access or anonymous access is enabled |
| Monday.com | Open workspaces, and main boards within open workspaces |
| Yammer | Public communities and posts visible across the organization |
| Bitbucket | Content in repositories with public issue trackers |
| Simpplr | Public sites visible to all organization users |
| WordPress | Published pages and posts without password protection |
| Trello | Public workspaces, public boards, and cards on public boards |
| Highspot | Content visible to all users through identity settings, or all content when identity permissions are disabled |
| Brightspot | REST API pages with no permission settings are organization-wide visible, and non-REST CMS pages are publicly accessible |
| LumApps | Open or read-only communities visible to all users |
| Guru | Cards with public link sharing enabled |
| S3 | All indexed S3 content |
| Facebook Workplace | Posts in open groups, and group-level metadata for both open and closed groups |
| Lattice | Non-private goals and feedback marked with public visibility |
| Lessonly | Lessons marked public |
| 15Five | High Five recognition posts |
| Zendesk | Articles available to all logged-in users, or public help center articles |
| Freshservice | Content visible to all logged-in users, when that visibility option is enabled. Link-based access does not qualify for public replies. |
| Linear | Non-private teams and projects visible across the organization |
| Stack Overflow | All Q&A posts — no per-post permissions are applied, and all content is accessible to everyone in the team |
| Intercom | Published help center articles |
| Databricks | Content shared with the built-in account users group |
| Workday | All content when greenlisting is disabled. When greenlisting is enabled, only greenlisted articles qualify. |
| Windchill | Content marked by an admin as publicly accessible or organization-wide visible |
| Public Jira | All issues on a public Jira instance |
| Public GitHub | Same as public GitHub repositories |
| GitHub Enterprise | Same as GitHub internal or public visibility |
| Shortcut | All Shortcut content, including stories and epics |
| Announcements | Announcements with an All Users audience that have started their display period |
| Answers | Answers with no audience restriction, or with an All Users audience |
| Artifacts | Artifacts with an All Users viewer audience |
| Assistant | Assistant chats with an All Users audience |
| Files | All uploaded files |
| Prism | Dashboards with an All Users viewer audience |
| Workflows | Workflows with an All Users viewer audience |
| Dropbox | Documents with 'People with the link' sharing (edit or view) |
| Miro | Boards and content with organization access enabled |
Datasources not currently considered for Public Mode
Public Mode does not consider data sources that are likely to contain sensitive data, or that have restricted permissions for org-wide visibility.
View list of excluded datasources
- Asana
- Outlook
- BambooHR
- Greenhouse
- Egnyte
- Figma
- Tableau
- Airtable
- Coda
- Gong
- Google Chat
- Google Cloud Storage
- Looker
- PagerDuty
- Pingboard
- Docebo
- Contentful
- Lucid
- Seismic
- Zoom
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Outlook Calendar
- HubSpot
- Lever
- Freshdesk
- NetSuite
- Affinity
- Azure DevOps
- Procore
- Ironclad
- Gainsight
- Panopto
- Sigma
- Scribe
- VeevaVault
- Dynamics 365
- Clari Copilot
- Aha
- Collections
- Box
- Smartsheet
This list is not exhaustive. What qualifies depends on how content is shared in each datasource.
Find more information in private sources
If a user feels an answer could be improved by data only they have access to (such as private documents or restricted Jira tickets), they can select Find more information.
- Glean generates a private response visible only to that user. For more information, see Ephemeral messages .
- This private response focuses only on new updates found in restricted sources to avoid duplicating the public answer.
- The user can manually post the private answer into the thread if they believe it would benefit the rest of the channel.
- Find more information can use actions and MCP tools that are restricted in Public Mode.
Example scenarios
| Question | Included in public replies | Not included in public replies |
|---|---|---|
| What is the status of the migration project? | Docs about the migration, Jira issues tracking the work, and relevant public Slack channel discussions. | Salesforce comments or notes on at-risk deals, private Slack channels discussing the migration impact on specific customers. |
| Where can I find our updated leave policy? | HR policy docs in Google Drive or Confluence shared org-wide, intranet pages visible to everyone, and HR announcements. | Draft policy docs in restricted folders, 1:1 emails or DMs between HR and employees. |
| What are the Q3 OKRs for the engineering team? | Public OKR docs in Confluence/Notion, org-wide goal tracking tools, and announcements shared with all employees. | Private manager notes about performance, individual review packets, or restricted leadership docs. |
| How is the ACME renewal deal progressing? | Publicly shared renewal playbooks or process docs, general pipeline dashboards that are visible org-wide. | Deal-specific Salesforce opportunity comments, emails with the customer, and private Slack channels discussing negotiation details. |
These examples are illustrative. Actual sources included or excluded depend on the datasources you have connected and how content is shared and permissioned in your organization.