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The Slack connector enables you to integrate your Slack workspace with Glean, allowing you to search Slack messages, files, and user data directly from Glean. The connector supports both single-workspace and Slack Enterprise Grid environments. You can search across public channels, private channels, and direct messages, with all results permissions-enforced according to your Slack access.

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Key capabilities

  • Search: Glean queries indexed Slack data and returns message results.
  • Identity crawls: Periodic full and incremental identity crawls provide user, channel, and related metadata used by Gleanbot/actions and to enrich search responses.
  • Enterprise Grid support: Organization-wide deployment across multiple workspaces.
  • Gleanbot and Actions: Bot user for posting messages, receiving mentions, and handling slash commands.
  • Webhooks: Real-time event handling for identity events and triggering Gleanbot.

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Modes (Select during setup)

  • Single Workspace: One datasource instance authorized for a single workspace. Recommended for customers with a single Slack workspace.
  • Slack Enterprise: One datasource instance authorized for the Slack Enterprise Grid organization; covers all workspaces. Recommended for enterprise customers with multiple workspaces and slack enterprise license.

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Supported objects/entities

  • Public channels (messages and threads)
  • Private channels (messages and threads, if authorized)
  • Direct messages (DMs) and group DMs (if authorized)
  • Channel and user metadata (for search enrichment and Gleanbot features)

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Prerequisites

  • Slack Admin or Owner privileges are recommended to authorize the app, complete org-level installation (Enterprise), and manage app visibility. For more information, see Find owners and admins.
  • Slack workspace domain, e.g., if your Slack URL is yourdomain.slack.com, the domain is yourdomain.
  • Slack workspace ID. Your Slack Workspace ID (starts with T…) and, for Enterprise Grid, your Enterprise ID (starts with E…).
Each user must individually authorize the app to access their private messages and DMs.

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Decide your mode

You can select single workspace or Enterprise (org-level) based on your Slack plan and target scope.
  • Slack (Single workspace)
  • Slack Enterprise

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Set up Slack

  1. In Glean Admin console > Data source > select Slack for single workspace or select Slack Enterprise for the Enterprise (org-level) Slack.
  2. Click Setup.

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Gather account details

  1. Open Slack on web.
  2. Look for your workspace name in the top left. Click your workspace name and find the Slack URL in the menu, ending in .slack.com. The domain is the portion before .slack.com, e.g. if the URL is yourdomain.slack.com, the domain would be yourdomain. Enter the domain in Glean.
  3. The URL you’re on should be of the form app.slack.com/client/T12345678. Copy this last part of the URL and paste it into Glean as the workspace ID. Note the workspace ID will start with T. For the Enterperise Slack, you should see your domain listed in the form domain.enterprise.slack.com. The URL you’re on should be of the form app.slack.com/client/E12345678/C12345678. Copy the enterprise part of the URL and paste it into Glean as the enterprise ID.

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Create an app

  1. Visit the Slack API site and click Create New App.
  2. Choose From an app manifest.
  3. Select the same workspace you chose on the previous screen and click Next.
  4. Replace existing YAML comment with the manifest from your setup page and click Next. Visit your Glean setup page to find the correct manifest for your deployment.
  5. Click Create.

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Generate a token

  1. Click the Basic Information tab and scroll down until you see App-Level Tokens.
  2. Click Generate Token and Scopes.
  3. Name the token Glean.
  4. Click Add Scope and add the scope authorizations:read.
  5. Click Generate and paste the token into Glean.

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Add an icon

  1. Click the Basic Information tab.
  2. Download this logo.
  3. Click Choose File and select the logo you just downloaded above.

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Enable Event Subscriptions

  1. Click on the Event Subscriptions tab.
  2. Check if the Enable Events toggle is on. If not, turn it on and Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

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Connect to Glean

  1. Click the Collaborators tab and add at least one additional administrator from your company.
  2. Copy and paste the following fields from Basic Information into Glean: Client ID, Client Secret, Signing Secret.
  3. Go to OAuth & Permissions from the left navigation and click Install to Workspace.
  4. Click Save in Glean to save the entered information, then click the link to finish authorizing access to Slack.