Slack

An organization admin installs the Slack app in your workspace. Each member then connects their Slack and On-Call Optimizer accounts to use the rest of the app.

First time setup

Installation

To use any of the features on this page, an organization administrator must install the On-Call Optimizer Slack App in your Slack workspace. You need permission to manage integrations in your organization; without it the Add to Slack button is disabled.

1. Click your organization’s name in the top navigation bar and open the Messaging tab (app.oncall-optimizer.com/messaging).
2. In the App installation card (which shows No app installations found until the app is installed), click Add to Slack.
3. Complete the Slack OAuth flow and grant the requested permissions.

You return to the Messaging tab, where the App installation card shows the Installed badge and the name of your workspace. The app also posts a confirmation message in Slack.

If the card shows Attention required, the app is missing some permissions. Click Reinstall app to fix it.

Connect accounts

The first time each user uses the On-Call Optimizer Slack App, they are asked to connect their On-Call Optimizer account to their Slack account:

1. Open the App Home in Slack. If you need help finding it, use the Slack Web or Slack Desktop link in the Navigation card on the Messaging tab.
2. Click the Connect account link. A page in On-Call Optimizer opens.
3. If required, sign in to On-Call Optimizer.
4. You are taken to the Messaging tab, where the Slack account card shows Linked.

To check the connection later, open On-Call Optimizer’s App Home in Slack (it only works once the accounts are connected), or look at the Slack account card on the Messaging tab.

Disconnecting the workspace

To remove the On-Call Optimizer Slack App from your workspace (requires permission to manage integrations):

1. Open the Messaging tab of your organization.
2. In the Danger zone card, click Disconnect workspace.
3. In the Disconnect Slack workspace dialog, review what will be removed, type the workspace name to confirm, and click Disconnect workspace.

App overview

App Home

App Home shows your upcoming shifts and your current availability.

The App Home is available by clicking the item with the On-Call Optimizer logo and name in the Apps section of the Slack menu sidebar.

If you do not see On-Call Optimizer in your list of apps, use the Slack Web or Slack Desktop link on the Messaging tab of your organization to open the App Home directly. The app then appears in your list.

The View all upcoming shifts link opens your Home calendar in the List view in On-Call Optimizer. View all availability opens your Home calendar.

App messages

The Messages tab in App Home is a direct message channel. Your personal notifications arrive there.

You can also use most of the app commands in that channel, so you aren’t posting them in a public channel.

Inviting the app to a channel

You can invite the On-Call Optimizer Slack App to any channel using the /invite @On-Call Optimizer command, or Integrations > Add App UI within the members dialog for the channel.

After it joins, it posts a welcome message with the next steps. The first is to link one or more schedules with link schedule. Once a schedule is linked, the channel gets a message when an assignment is confirmed or a swap is requested.

Notification messages

Notifications from On-Call Optimizer, in your App Home messages or in a linked channel, contain links back to the application:

• Links about a swap request (e.g. View swap details) open the Home calendar with the swap request shown in a side panel. If you have been asked to cover a shift, the panel shows the form to respond to the request. See Swaps.
• Links about an assignment open the assignment page of the schedule.

The footer of each channel notification shows the notification’s name, which you can use with the notification enable|disable command.

App commands

You can run these commands in any channel the app is in, by mentioning it (@On-Call Optimizer help). In the Messages tab of App Home you don’t need the mention. On-Call Optimizer ignores channel messages that aren’t sent to it this way.

list schedules

list [all] schedules works in any channel and returns the On-Call Optimizer schedules linked to that channel.

With all, it also lists other schedules you could link to the channel.

link schedule <name>

link schedule <name_fragment> links a schedule to the current channel, so the channel receives notifications for that schedule.

The schedule to link can be specified as any fragment of a schedule name (as shown by the list schedules command) that uniquely identifies a single schedule.

notification config

notification config shows the notification settings for each schedule linked to the channel. Enabled notifications are marked ✔. Disabled ones are marked ✘.

The notification name, in CamelCase, follows the ✔ or ✘. Use that name with enable and disable.

notification [enable|disable] <notification_name> [schedule_name_fragment]

With only notification_name, that notification is turned on or off for every linked schedule.

With schedule_name_fragment as well, the change applies only to the schedule whose name matches.

The name is the CamelCase label from notification config, or the name in the footer of a notification message.

time_format [list|show|set <format_name>]

• show replies with the current format in use.
• list replies with a list of the available formats, including their name and an example time.
• set <format_name> updates the configuration of the channel to use the specified format for all future messages.

The available formats are:

help

help lists the commands and links to this page.

Configuration

Time format

Times and dates in messages can use Slack’s own format, or a format you choose.

• To configure the preferred format for personal notifications received via Slack, open your Profile (click your avatar at the top right and choose Profile) and turn on Use my time format preference under Slack time format. This section only appears when your organization has installed the Slack App.
• To configure the preferred format for messages received in a specific channel, use the time_format command.