The Slack Alert action lets you automatically send messages to specific Slack channels as part of your automations.
It's a powerful way to keep your team in the loop—whether you're notifying sales about a new lead, alerting support about a ticket update, or sharing real-time updates from your system.
Messages can be customized using Slack’s Block Kit, allowing you to format content with headers, sections, and links for better clarity and engagement.
Once set up, the action runs as part of your automation and posts directly to the selected channel, helping you streamline communication without switching tools.
User Permissions: Make sure the Slack integration is active before setting up this action on your automation builder. You can learn how to do it from here.
How to Set Up the Slack Alert Action
Name: Enter a clear and descriptive name to help you identify this specific Slack alert action.
Channel: Specify the Slack channel where you want the alert to be sent. Make sure to use the exact channel name (e.g., #sales-updates).
Message Blocks: In this field, you’ll define the content and format of the message using Slack’s Block Kit syntax. This allows for more structured and interactive messages.
Inside the text input, you'll notice a small "i" icon in the top-right corner—clicking it will provide additional guidance and a link to Slack’s official documentation for formatting message blocks.
Example
Here's an example that uses one of the sample message blocks provided in Slack's official documentation.
[
{
"type": "header",
"text": {
"type": "plain_text",
"text": "New request"
}
},
{
"type": "section",
"fields": [
{
"type": "mrkdwn",
"text": "*Type:*\nPaid Time Off"
},
{
"type": "mrkdwn",
"text": "*Created by:*\n<example.com|Fred Enriquez>"
}
]
},
{
"type": "section",
"fields": [
{
"type": "mrkdwn",
"text": "*When:*\nAug 10 - Aug 13"
}
]
},
{
"type": "section",
"text": {
"type": "mrkdwn",
"text": "<https://example.com|View request>"
}
}
]
You can copy and paste the example message block into your own automation. As long as it's set up correctly, the automation should run without issues.
If, for example, your automation is triggered by updating the Contact Stage field of a record in the Contact app, you can verify it by viewing the Automation History:
- Go to the Detail Page of the record that triggered the automation.
- Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner.
- Select Automation History.
This will open a new window showing all automations related to that record. Locate the automation containing the Slack Alert action and expand it to confirm whether the message was sent successfully.
Finally, you can also verify that the message block was successfully sent by checking the designated Slack channel. If everything is working correctly, you should see a message that looks similar to this, using the example above:
If you want to know more about other actions for the automation builder, check this article.