Slack Apps v2: Next-Gen Platform
As attendees of the Slack Frontier’s conference, we were thrilled to witness the unveiling of the next-generation platform for automating and integrating everything with Slack. As developers, we were particularly excited about the new modular architecture that offers building blocks like functions, triggers, and workflows that are remixable, reusable, and hook into everything flowing in and out of Slack.
A Versatile and Usable Platform
The platform offers a faster and more intuitive developer experience, thanks to new tools like the Slack CLI and TypeScript SDK that simplify and clarify the most tedious parts of building on top of Slack. Moreover, the platform provides secure deployment, data storage, and authentication powered by Slack-managed serverless infrastructure. A fast, Deno-based TypeScript runtime also keeps developers focused on their code and users.
One of the key strengths of the platform is its flexible user experience, making it easy to share what has been built anywhere in Slack. With the ability to add a link trigger, workflows become portable, enabling sharing in a message, adding to bookmarks, putting them in a canvas, and more.
Simplifying Custom Integrations
At Connectify Solutions, we understand how difficult building custom integrations can be, and ensuring that they are enterprise-ready from day one and keeping them fresh whenever new Slack features are released, regardless of experience level or interest. The sheer amount of options and support that this new platform offers makes the development experience fluid and expansive, enabling us to explore new ways to integrate our support structure directly in Slack.
The Future of Workflow Builder
We are excited about the future of Workflow Builder, which will soon be a supercharged no-code tool that puts the power of automating Slack and integrating everyday tools directly into the hands of users. The functions and workflows created will become infinitely remixable as users discover new ways to combine triggers, inputs, and outputs with functions for the software they use most.
The platform is also designed to make workflows instantly extensible to the Slack surfaces of today and tomorrow. Developers can focus on business logic, and the platform ensures that functions and workflows just work in any new experience introduced in Slack. For example, canvas is a new persistent surface where teams can create, curate, and share essential information like text, files, link unfurls, and more in a single view. From day one, workflows can be embedded too, making it easy to discover and use them in a relevant context, like adding an IT request workflow to an onboarding canvas.
Pricing
These changes to the platform are designed to simplify and streamline development through new capabilities, like reusing custom functions and running the app on managed infrastructure. To reflect that added value, the next-generation platform will have a paid component. Only those workflows built with certain advanced functionality will be subject to additional costs. Running workflows with only built-in Slack functions will be free, while running workflows with custom-coded functions will be chargeable once users exceed a usage threshold. Pricing is based on the number of times someone in a workspace “runs” a premium workflow.
Contact Connectify Solutions
We at Connectify Solutions are excited to see what our developers and clients can create with this new platform. If you have any questions or want to learn more about how we can help your business integrate and automate with Slack, please contact us at https://connectify.solutions.