Set up Slack

If you want to have your dashboard subscriptions or alerts sent to Slack channels (or people on Slack), an admin must first integrate your Metabase with Slack.

Create your Slack App

For Metabase to post to your Slack channels, you’ll need to create a Slack App and make it available to Metabase.

From any Metabase page, go to Admin settings > Settings > Notification channels > Slack.

Click on Open Slack Apps. Metabase will open a new browser tab and send you over to the Slack website to create the Slack app.

On the Slack website, click Create an App.

Pick a workspace to develop your app

Select the workspace you want to create your app.

The app manifest

When you click on Open Slack App, Metabase will pass along the app manifest, which Slack will use to set up your app.

You may get a warning that says:

This app is created from a 3rd party manifest Always verify URLs and permissions below.

This warning is expected (Metabase is the third party here). You can click on Configure to see the app manifest Metabase sent along in the URL. Here is the manifest in YAML format:

_metadata:
  major_version: 1
  minor_version: 1
display_information:
  name: Metabase
  description: Bringing the power of Metabase to your Slack #channels!
  background_color: "#509EE3"
features:
  bot_user:
    display_name: Metabase
oauth_config:
  scopes:
    bot:
      - users:read
      - channels:read
      - channels:join
      - files:write
      - chat:write
      - chat:write.customize
      - chat:write.public
      - groups:read

The manifest just take cares of some settings for your app and helps speed things along.

Click the Next button. Then hit Create to set up your Slack app.

Install your app to your workspace

On the Slack site for your newly created app, in the Settings > Basic Information tab, under Install your app, click on Install to workspace. On the next screen, click Allow to give Metabase access to your Slack workspace.

The Bot User OAuth Token

On the Slack site page for your Slack app, on the left in the Features section, click on OAuth and Permissions in the Slack Apps sidebar and then copy the Bot User OAuth Token. Return to the Slack settings page in your Metabase and paste this token in the Metabase field with the same name.

Create a channel in your Slack to store image files

In your Slack workspace, create a public channel named whatever you want — we think something like “metabase” does just fine — then enter that channel’s name in the Public channel to store image files field in Metabase. We’ll upload charts and tables here before sending out dashboard subscriptions. This allows your Metabase to post to your Slack workspace without having to deal with unnecessary permissions. Make sure the channel you create is the same channel that you enter in this field in Metabase (omit the “#” prefix).

If you rename the channel in Slack, you’ll need to update the Public channel to store image files in Metabase to that new name. This channel does not have to be the same as the channel where you send dashboard subscriptions. It’s only used for storing image files.

Save your changes in Metabase

In Metabase, click on the Save changes button and that’s it! Metabase will automatically run a quick test to check that the API token and your dedicated Slack channel are working properly. If something goes wrong, it’ll give you an error message.

Sending alerts and subscriptions to private Slack channels

In order to send subscriptions and alerts to private Slack channels, you must first add the Metabase app to the private channel.

In Slack, go to the private channel and mention the Metabase app. For example, if you called your Slack app “Metabase”, you’d just type @Metabase. Slack will ask you if you want to invite your app to your channel, which you should.

Metabase not listing your private channel?

It can take a little time for metabase to see all the channels the app has been invited to. New channels may not appear in listings for up to 10 minutes after inviting the app to the channel.

In order for metabase to see private channels, the app must have the groups:read oauth scope. Although this scope should be granted when setting up the app through metabase, older installations might not have this scope. If you think this might be the case visit the app settings in slack:

• Click on the metabase app in the app listing.
• Click on OAuth & Permissions in the sidebar.
• Under Scopes add the groups:read scope.
• The app will the need to be reinstalled to the workspace by clicking the Reinstall button under OAuth Tokens.

Further reading

• Alerts
• Dashboard subscriptions
• Notification permissions
• Setting up email
• Usage analytics