Introduction
One of the common problems a lot of Slack users face is making changes across many channels. This is most acutely felt by users who have Slack Connect Channels with many customers and partners. At ClearFeed, we have worked with a number of users who face such challenges and built features that help with some of these (as an example - the ability to make announcements across many channels at once)
However - many users do not want to sign up for a commercial tool just for one feature. Many also do not want to install third-party Slack Apps into their workspaces because of security constraints. It is also hard for a vendor like us to be able to provide all such features rapidly via our commercial product - sometimes it's just faster and easier to ship utilities standalone.
For all of the above reasons - we are today releasing some free apps and open source software, initially via Streamlit apps, that can perform bulk operations across many Slack channels. This is our first release, and we expect to iterate rapidly (based on user feedback and interest) and add more capabilities with time. This page will be kept up-to-date with the list of all the tools made available under this umbrella effort. To get help, or provide feedback, please join our Community Workspace and post in the channel #bulk-channels.
List of Utilities
The following Apps are available Streamlit right now:
The following are under development and will be published soon:
- Posting a common message across many Slack Channels
- Updating bookmarks and pins across many Slack Channels
- Exporting list of Slack Channels and their metadata
In order to run these apps, just follow the usage instructions on the Streamlit app to supply the Slack auth token and fill out the input parameters - and hit the Run button.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Streamlit?
It provides an easy way of providing free Python applications with good user interfaces that are very useful for non-technical users. And the underlying framework and Python language popular and accessible for the developer crowd. The app is hosted in Streamlit Community Cloud which is now owned by Snowflake
Do I have to install your Slack App to run these automations?
No! You just have to provide a Slack authorization token which can be done by defining your own Slack app. The App provide detailed instructions for doing so. No third party Slack app is involved, your Slack workspace data is not exposed to ClearFeed or any other company (other than Streamlit Community Cloud).
Is it safe to enter Slack authorization tokens to the App?
The input Slack token is not persisted to disk anywhere and are securely transmitted over https, used to make some Slack API calls and then discarded. You can also rotate the tokens in Slack once used. Neither is any data fetched from Slack persisted anywhere. However - please note that ClearFeed provides the software, as-is, without warranty (under the MIT License) and the security of the hosted applications in Streamlit Community Cloud is the responsibility of Streamlit.
Can I modify the code?
Yes of course! The code is Open Source and available on Github. This software released under the MIT License. You can also host these Streamlit apps on your own servers easily and copy and modify the code at will.
Where can I get help on these tools?
There is no commercial support for these tools (for that you might want to consider using ClearFeed) - but you can connect with the community and get free help on our Community Slack workspace in #bulk-channel. You can also contact us at support@clearfeed.ai.
Is this connected to ClearFeed's commercial offering?
No! There's no link between the two. While most of the features in the free utilities listed here maybe available in our commercial offering as well - the two are completely independent efforts (which no shared code as well).
Why not build free Slack Apps?
We might! Getting approval for Slack marketplace apps can be a long process and they can also be more complex to build. Hence we are starting with external apps which we can build faster and release more quickly.
