Connecting to Slack as a knowledge source for employee service (ES) agents

For employee service (ES) AI agents, you can connect Slack as a knowledge source using a personal OAuth token. The connection supports permission-based access, so users only see content in Slack channels that they have permission to see.


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Employee Service Suite

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Summary: ◀▼
You can connect Slack as a knowledge source for employee service AI agents using a personal OAuth token, enabling access to files and messages based on Slack channel permissions. This setup requires a Slack admin to create a custom manifest app and supports restricted or open access types, ensuring users see only authorized content. The connection syncs channel data and updates regularly for accurate AI agent responses.






Location: Admin Center > AI > AI agents > Sources


For employee service (ES) AI agents, you can connect Slack as a knowledge source using a
personal OAuth token. The connection supports permission-based access, so users only see
content in Slack channels that they have permission to see.
You must be a Knowledge admin to create and manage knowledge connections. As part of creating
the connection, you'll need a Slack admin to create a custom manifest app in Slack.
The connection allows these resource types to be surfaced in ES AI agents, according to the
applied permissions:
Files
Messages


This article contains the following topics:

Understanding the Slack connection and how
Slack permissions work within employee service AI agents
Connecting to Slack for employee
service AI agents

Related article:
Creating, deploying and editing employee service AI agents
(EAP)




Understanding the Slack connection and how Slack permissions work within employee service AI agents

Connecting Slack channels as knowledge sources initially requires a custom app to be
created by a Slack admin who also has a Zendesk admin role.
Slack knowledge source connections use a personal OAuth token. Slack supports
permission-based links, where channel members can see only the resources in the channels
they belong to when Slack is set as a data source for an ES AI agent.
When connecting Slack to ES AI agents, make sure you understand the intended audience for
the information and select the most suitable access type (either restricted access or open
to everyone) when creating the connection. For example, a private channel should not be
connected as open to everyone. In most cases, the restricted access connection is best to
ensure permissions are applied at the source, according to the channel’s visibility.
You create a connection using a personal OAuth token. This allows you to sync channels you
have access to whether or not you are a member. This option is available in open to everyone
and restricted access connections. However, Slack rate limits can mean that syncing may take
some time.
The Slack connection requires the following bot scopes:

users:read
team:read
im:read
mpim:read
channels:read
groups:read

The connection requires the following user scopes:

files:read
users:read.email
users.profile:read
users:read team:read
usergroups:read
channels:read
groups:read
im:read
mpim:read
channels:history
groups:history
im:history
mpim:history
emoji:read




Connecting to Slack for employee service AI agents

Before you start, you need a Slack admin to install the Slack for Zendesk Support integration.
After that, you can connect Slack as a knowledge source. As part of creating the
connection, you'll need a Slack admin (if you are not one yourself) to create a custom
manifest app in Slack, then you can use the app credentials to connect to Slack as a
knowledge source for ES AI agents.
To connect to Slack as a knowledge source for ES AI agents


In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select AI agents > Sources.
Click Add source.
Enter a unique connection name.
Select a user access type:

Restricted access: This connection enforces user permissions. This means
that when users ask questions, they see only information from the connected source
that they already have access to.

Open to everyone: This connection does not enforce user-level permissions
for the connected source. Any user with access to an ES AI agent using the
connection can see all content available through that connected source. If a user
clicks on a source, but doesn’t have permission, access is denied.

See Understanding knowledge source permissions in
employee service AI agents.

Click Next.
Click Copy to retrieve the required code, then ask your Slack admin to create an manifest app in
Slack. You'll need the following app credentials from your Slack admin to
enter in the relevant fields for the source connection:

Client ID
Client Secret
Team ID


Click Next.
On the connection screen, click Allow.
Select the public or private channels to sync:

By prefix: All channels matching the prefix automatically sync
each time the ES AI agent is invited to the channel. For example, entering the
prefix "feature" matches all channels that start with the word "feature."

By channel ID: The ES AI agent must first be invited to the
channel, then you can enter the channel ID to include it in the connection. To
locate the Slack channel ID, open the channel, click the channel name, then click
the copy icon next to the channel ID at the bottom.


Click Next.
Select the services to sync, then click Next.
Select a date range, then click Done. The initial connection sync begins. It
might take some time to sync all content, depending on the volume. After the initial
sync, the integration captures file updates once every 15 minutes.
At this
point, you can add the knowledge source to one or more AI agents by clicking Add to
AI agent. Or, you can wait to create and deploy an ES AI agent with this
knowledge source at a later time (see Creating, deploying and editing employee service AI agents
(EAP)).





Creating the custom manifest app in Slack

Connecting Slack as a knowledge source requires a custom manifest app in Slack that
allows you to create, configure, and reuse Slack app configurations. Manifests are YAML or
JSON configurations bundles for Slack apps. With a manifest, you can use a UI or an API to
create an app with a pre-defined configuration, or adjust the configuration of existing
apps.
To create the custom manifest app in Slack


As a Slack admin, following the instructions in App
manifests in the Slack documentation to create the app.


Give the Client ID, Client Secret, and Team ID that result from creating the app to the
Knowledge admin to complete the connection to Slack as a knowledge source.



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