Using Message Metadata to spur automations

Messages are how people communicate with people, message metadata is how apps communicate with apps.

Message metadata opens up the path to automate tasks with meaningful data for your workflows.

This guide will showcase a couple of use cases that utilize message metadata for automation:

• An onboarding app
• A feedback collection app

These two examples are merely scratching the surface of how message metadata can supercharge your apps!

You can kick-off a 2 step, 5 step or even a 20 step workflow with your app being the first domino to fall.

Read on to learn more ways to add modular automation metadata to your app's workflows.

Using metadata as a trigger

Onboarding app

An onboarding app is kicked off when a new person is added to a team channel or user group within Slack. This app utilizes the power of message metadata and sends along a new_teammate event:

POST /api/chat.postMessage
Host: slack.com
Authorization: Bearer xoxb-6050345600-60510457-…
Content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
{
    "channel": "C23456",
    "text": "New teammate @Billy just joined",
    "metadata": {
        "event_type": "new_teammate",
        "event_payload": {
            "id": "TK-2132",
            "summary": "New teammate has been added to the channel",
            "description": "@Billy is a new teammate and needs to be added to the neccesary channels",
            "priority": "HIGH",
            "resource_ type": "TASK"
        }
    }
}

This event payload can inform an app to trigger the following events:

• @Billy being automatically added to other team channels
• a message containing the description field contents being sent to a manager
• a notification to other teammates to send a welcome message
• a personalized Slack message to @Billy with suggested channels to join
• and many more!

Sending and receiving message metadata is as simple as subscribing your app to message_metadata_* events. This allows your app to listen for an event within the metadata parameter such as event_type and the additional keys that give more details on an event. Message metadata can be returned anywhere messages can be retrieved.

Feedback app

Another example of using message metadata from an external source could be a feedback app listening with a webhook. Let's say you have a website where users can post feedback. You have your app set to listen for feedback posts. When a post does occur, your app posts a message in #feedback-channel with metadata attached:

POST /api/chat.postMessage
Host: slack.com
Authorization: Bearer xoxb-6050345600-60510457-…
Content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
{
    "channel": "C23456",
    "text": "New feedback received",
    "metadata": {
        "event_type": "feedback_received",
        "event_payload": {
            "id": "TK-2132",
            "summary": "User submitted feedback",
            "description": "Someone submitted feedback on this page",
            "feedback_message":"This page is awesome, thanks for writing it!",
            "page_url": "http://api.slack.com/metadata",
            "priority": "LOW",
            "page_owner": "@haile",
            "resource_ type": "TASK"
        }
    }
}

You can then have a Slack app that:

• reacts to the feedback submissions
• randomly assigns the task to a user in the channel.
• direct messages the page_owner found in the event_payload The number of actions being triggered is up to you and your app's utilization of message metadata. This type of automation allows your app to work in tangent with your team, opening up new doors for work to get done.

Next Steps

Ready to listen for message metadata? Subscribe your app to the following events as well request the the message_metadata:read scope.

These events allow you to be updated on the goings on of the message metadata being consumed by your app. Or be a trend setter and publish your own unique metadata for others to consume. Either way your Slack app is now able to communicate with other apps within the Slack ecosystem.