Connect Slack app for incident management

Welcome to Opsgenie’s incident management app for Slack. With this app, you can use Slack to communicate better during incidents. Watch how the Slack app works.

To connect Slack with Opsgenie, you'll first select a workspace to manage incident communication.

After selecting your workspace, you can begin creating Slack channels on that workspace, add incident responders to your channels, update incident priorities, take incident actions, and help your team step in faster during incidents.

Here is a summary of what you'll be able to do after connecting your Opsgenie with the Slack app for Incident Management:

• Create Slack channels for your incidents

• Auto-invite the incident responders to the channel

• View incident details from the Slack channel

• Take actions on the incident from the Slack channel

• Add your Slack messages to the incident timeline in Opsgenie

Connecting Slack workspace

1. Go to Settings and find Slack under the Integrations tab.

2. When on the Slack page, spot Slack for incident management title and click Connect Slack workspace.

3. You can connect multiple workspaces at once, so if you have more than one workspaces on your Slack app, select the correct workspace. If you have only one, we'll automatically select the existing one.

4. Review the permissions requested for the app.

5. Enable connection by clicking Allow. Some workspaces might need permission to enable the connection. If that's the case, you can send a message to the App Managers.

Creating and adding Slack channels to an incident

1. After connecting a workspace, you can create Slack channels from within the incident. To do that, go to the detail of an incident.

2. Spot the Details tab, click Create Slack channel button available under Communications panel.

3. On the modal, you can see that we've automatically filled the channel name with the incident tiny ID. You can edit this or leave it as is. If you have more than one workspaces connected, you'll be asked to select one.

4. Add a channel description and click Create. Your Slack channel will be created in your connected Slack workspace and we'll add a link to the detail of the incident. We'll also automatically add incident responders to that channel so you can start communicating immediately.

User mapping between Slack and Opsgenie

Once a Slack channel is on and active, you can perform several incident features through that channel. For example, you can change the incident priority or take action. To do that, Opsgenie uses the emails to match the users in Opsgenie and Slack. So, when a user performs an action on the incident detail through the Slack channel, Opsgenie first confirms the user's rights and permissions to perform the action on Opsgenie.

If you are using separate email addresses for Slack and Opsgenie, you can type /connect and select the Connect Slack user shortcut available in Slack to map your Slack user with your Opsgenie user. Once this shortcut is executed, you will be asked to authenticate in Opsgenie to connect with the correct account and then you will be taken to a page in which you will need to confirm the action.

Performing incident actions on Slack

When you create the Slack channel, you'll get a summary message on your channel. Through this message you can add a responder or stakeholder, resolve or close the incident or change the priority of the incident.
If you wish to add a specific message to your incident timeline, just hover over the message and click "Add to incident timeline" button from the ellipsis.

Removing a Slack channel

1. Go to the detail of the incident. Hover over the Slack channel title under the Communications panel. Click on the close button to remove the channel.

2. You'll be asked to confirm the action. Click OK to confirm.

When you remove a Slack channel, you don't delete it from the Slack app. You're only breaking its connection with the incident. However, you can't connect an existing channel with an incident. Therefore, once you remove a channel, you can't re-connect. But you can always create another one and continue communication from the new channel.

Removing a Slack workspace

1. Go to Settings and find Slack under the Integrations tab.

2. Spot Slack for incident management title. You'll see your added Slack workspaces. Hover over the workspace you want to delete, and click close button.

3. You'll be asked to confirm the action. Click OK to confirm.

When you remove a Slack workspace, you don't delete it from the Slack app. You're only breaking its connection with Opsgenie. You can always re-connect if you change your mind later.