If flipping between apps and multitasking feels like your job description, know that teams worldwide face similar hurdles. This constant switching affects all industries, turning straightforward project management and team communication into a complicated shuffle.

But what if Slack and Linear were combined—could this integration be the solution for better teamwork? Let’s explore what this could mean for you, whether you’re at the helm or in the ranks, by first understanding how it intends to smoothen our workflow maze.

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What Are the Different Ways of Integrating Linear and Slack?

The easiest way to integrate Linear and Slack is to use the Linear App in Slack and configure Linear to send notifications to Slack. Those looking for functionalities beyond what Linear itself offers can look at tools like Zapier (which provides advanced automations) and ClearFeed (which allows Slack to be used as a helpdesk in conjunction with Linear).

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How to Integrate Linear and Slack Using the Linear Slack App?

The default way of integrating Linear and Slack is through Linear’s native Slack App.

Integrating Linear with Slack is pretty straightforward. Go to your Slack Workspace and search for Linear app in the Slack app directory. Selecting the Linear app will take you to the official website, where you can enable/disable the Slack integration.

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What Are the Key Features of Linear’s Slack Integration?

Key Features of Linear’s Slack Integration include the following:

1. Creating Issues from Slack: Users can turn their Slack messages into Linear tasks by using the "More actions" menu. They can even include attachments and details from the original message.

2. Seamless Two-Way Sync: Linear allows you to establish a two-way sync between Slack threads and Linear issues. Update and comment on Linear issues without leaving Slack, and this allows users working on Slack to work seamlessly with people working on Linear.

An example of a comment made on Slack being updated in Linear app

3. Linking threads to Issues: Users can also mention a Linear issue within an existing Slack thread to begin the syncing process. Plus, when an issue linked to a thread is finished or closed, Slack updates the conversation to let everyone know.
4. Group Notifications: You can also choose to send updates about your team or project to specific Slack channels so everyone stays in the loop. To enable this feature, head over to your Teams settings in your Linear account, click on Notifications, select the Slack channel where you want to receive the notifications and select the updates you want to receive automatically.

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What Are the Limitations of Linear’s Slack Integration?

While Linear’s Slack app is fantastic at allowing users to collaborate seamlessly across Slack and Linear, users may miss advanced functionality like:

1. Ability to automatically convert new Slack messages to Linear issues. Linear’s app only allows messages and threads to be linked to issues on manual action.
2. Ability to automatically respond to new Slack messages outside of business hours.
3. Ability to automatically respond to new Slack messages with automated answers.

In order to address these gaps, users may want to look at advanced integrations like Zapier and ClearFeed. Check out how ClearFeed helps businesses set up automated responses during OOO hours and enables them to automate answering to common customer questions.

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What Are Some Key Features of Zapier’s Slack-Linear Integration?

Integrating Slack with Linear via Zapier allows you to automate workflows between these two platforms without needing to write any code. Here are some specific actions you can perform with this integration:

1. Automatically create Linear issues from Slack: Set up an automation to generate issues in Linear whenever reactions are added to messages or when new messages are posted in specific Slack channels. This process helps turn discussions and instant feedback in Slack into actionable tasks within your project management tool.

2. Automate issue creation for key messages: If certain messages in Slack are crucial, you can automate creating Linear issues from these messages to ensure important conversations are promptly addressed.
3. Fine-grained control over notifications in Slack: Zapier offers fine-grained controls over Slack notifications from Linear (beyond Linear’s native offering). Whenever there's an update in Linear—like a status change or a new comment—an automatic message can be sent to a designated Slack channel. 

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How to Integrate Slack and Linear Using Zapier?

Here's how to set up Slack-Linear integration using Zapier:

1. First, log into your Zapier account and look for the Linear app. Choose 'New Issue' as the event.

2. Next, connect your Linear account and fill in the required details to get the trigger ready.

3. Test this trigger to check if the setup is right.
4. After that, link your Slack account and decide what automated action you want in Slack.

5. Hit Continue, save your settings and do one more test to make sure everything's working perfectly.

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How to Integrate Slack and Linear Using ClearFeed?

Want to run a helpdesk on Slack while managing issues on Linear? Then ClearFeed is the right solution for you. ClearFeed is a conversational support platform designed for customer and employee support on Slack. It integrates closely with issue management systems like LinkedIn - while tracking all requests raised on Slack.

Here are some key features of ClearFeed that take Slack Linear integration to the next level:

1. One Click Issue filing: You can turn Slack messages and threads into Linear issues - just use the 🔒emoji. ClearFeed will extract all messages in the thread, create a title and summary using AI - and file the ticket - all with zero manual overhead.

2. Automatic Issue filing: ClearFeed can be configured to file Linear issues on incoming messages on Slack automatically. It will even combine consecutive related messages into the same issue where appropriate.
3. Automatic Issue Assignment: ClearFeed has assignment policies like assigning to the first responder on Slack. It can reflect these assignments to the created Linear Issues - to reduce the overhead of managing issues.
4. Integration with PagerDuty and Opsgenie: Many engineering and operations teams store their on-call schedules in external systems like PagerDuty. ClearFeed can tap into such external systems and use them to automate issue assignments and notifications.

5. Collaborate privately on issues in Slack: Support and Operations personnel handling problem reports on Slack may want to have private discussions inside Slack itself. ClearFeed makes this a pleasure with Triage Channels. Exchange private comments on issue threads from the safety of ClearFeed-managed Triage Channels.
6. GPT-powered Automated Responses: Support desks are rife with repeated or similar issues. A lot of questions can be answered from documentation or from prior conversations. ClearFeed’s GPT-Powered Answers can index Documentation, Confluence, Notion, and prior Slack chats to answer common questions in Slack automatically.

5. Close all issues reported in Slack: Face it; not every report in Slack needs to be converted to an issue in Linear. But Support teams will want to make sure all requests raised in Slack are responded to and brought to closure regardless. ClearFeed tracks the status of every thread in a Slack channel, raises alerts when responses are pending, and allows users to list unresolved issues.

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In short, Engineering and Operations teams can run a well-oiled helpdesk on Slack using Linear. Learn more about ClearFeed’s Linear-Slack integration here. If you want to find out how using ClearFeed with Linear and Slack can make talking to each other simpler, schedule a demo session with us!