Slack chat

Slack chat module allows your visitors to send instant messages from your website to your Slack account. Your visitors can use an embedded chat widget on your site to chat with you, and you will receive their messages and respond to them in Slack.

Following are the installation instructions for Slack chat module.

Installation

• Install Node.js integration module.
• Install and enable this module.
• This module comes with a Node.js extension that you will need to install on your Node.js server. The extension is located in the slack_chat_extension subdirectory. See the README.txt file in that subdirectory for instructions on how to install the extension.
• You will need to create an app in Slack that Drupal can use to access your Slack account. You can read some background information about Slack apps here: https://api.slack.com/slack-apps
  Note: Slack has an "App Directory" where apps can be submitted to make it available to others. However, you will be creating an app just for your own team, and you will not need to submit it to the "App Directory".
  • Log in to your Slack account in the browser.
  • Go to https://api.slack.com/apps/new
  • Fill in the App Name field. You can name your app however you like. This name will appear when the bot sends you messages about incoming chats.
  • Select your team in the Team field.
  • Enter an arbitrary description for the app in the "Short Description" and "Describe what your app does on Slack" field. For example, enter "This app enables my Drupal site to communicate with my team."
  • In the "Redirect URI(s)" field, enter the following URL: https://example.com/slack-chat/authorize, where "example.com" should be replaced with the domain of your site. Be sure the use https or http as appropriate depending on your setup. If your site lives in a subdirectory, enter that too (e.g. https://example.com/mydirectory/slack-chat/authorize).
  • Click the "Create App" button. Once your app is created, you will be taken to the app's configuration page.
  • Switch to the "Bot Users" tab, and click "Add a bot to this app" button. Name your bot, and click "Add bot user".
  • Switch to the "App Credentials" tab. You will find your app's Client ID and Client Secret here. Take note of these because you will need to enter these on your Drupal site.
• On your Drupal site, go to Configuration>Slack chat (/admin/config/system/slack-chat). Enter the Client ID and Client Secret you copied from your Slack app, and click Save at the bottom.
• The next step is to authorize this app to access your Slack channels and send you messages. To do so, click the "Authorize app" button on the Slack chat configuration page. You will be taken to the Slack website where you will need to confirm the authorization. Once you are taken back to your Drupal site, you should see a message saying that the authorization was successful.
• Now that Drupal has access to your Slack account, you should see a list of your Slack channels in the "Channel for notifications" field. Select the one in which you wish to receive notifications about incoming chats, and save the configuration.
• Visit Drupal's status page at Reports>Status report (/admin/reports/status) and ensure that there are no errors.

Usage

• There are three places where your visitors can chat: in a floating chat widget that appears in the corner of the page, in the Slack chat block, or on the /slack-chat page.
  If you wish to use the floating chat widget, go to the Slack chat configuration page, and enable the floating widget. Also specify which pages you would like the widget to be visible on.
  If you wish to use the block, go to the block configuration page, and place the block in the desired region.
  If you wish to use the page, place a link to /slack-chat somewhere on your site so that visitors can navigate to that page.
• Visitors can start a chat by entering their name and clicking the "Start chat" button in the chat window. Once they do, Slack chat module will create a channel in your Slack account where you can chat with this visitor. The channel's name will consist of the visitor's first name, and an optional prefix you can configure. A message will also be sent to the Slack channel you selected to notify you of new chats. To start chatting with your visitor, join the Slack channel created for the visitor, and chat with them there. All messages in that channel will be visible to the visitor. Once you have finished chatting, archive the channel in Slack. This will notify the visitor that the chat has ended, and they won't be able to send messages anymore. If the visitor decides to end the chat first, the corresponding Slack channel will be automatically archived.
• Additional options available on the configuration page:
• Channel for notifications: Whenever a new chat is started by a visitor, a messages will be sent to this channel to notify you. You (the Slack user who authorized the app) need to be in this channel in order to see the notifications.
• Channel prefix: This prefix will be prepended to channels created for visitors.
• Enable floating chat widget: If checked, the chat widget will be shown on the selected pages.
• Show floating chat on the following pages: Use this field to configure which pages should display the chat widget. This setting only applies to the floating chat widget. Enter one path per line, and use relative paths, e.g. "node/1". Use an asterisk to match an arbitrary string in the path, e.g. "node/*" will match all paths starting with "node/".
• Chat title: The title to show in the floating chat widget and the block. When the floating widget is collapsed, this title will be visible.
• Chat welcome message: A welcome message that displays at the top of the chat once the visitor has started the chat.
• Chat ended message: A message that will appear when the chat has ended.