topic RE: Slack Skill in Digital Exchange

Slack Skill

acatalano — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:04:00 GMT

Hello, anyone is using slack to run process ?

Hola, ¿alguien está usando slack para ejecutar procesos?

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Agustin Rodolfo Catalano
Computing Engineering
Santander Argentina
America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires
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RE: Slack Skill

ewilson — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 15:30:00 GMT

Hi Agustin,

I've used the Slack skill a bit, primarily demos. Did you have a specific question about it?

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Partner Integrations for Digital Exchange
Blue Prism
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RE: Slack Skill

acatalano — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 15:00:00 GMT

Hi Eric,

I use it to send messages from BP to Slack. But I want to run a process. Instead of use control room, i want to use slack to run process

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Agustin Rodolfo Catalano
Computing Engineering
Santander Argentina
America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires
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RE: Slack Skill

ewilson — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 15:12:00 GMT

Ah, I see. There are a few ways that you can kickoff Blue Prism processes other than using Control Room.

Expose a specific process as a SOAP web service.
Use the Process Dispatch Framework (available on the DX).
Use the AutomateC.exe utility that comes with Blue Prism.
Use the direct HTTP communication channel with specific runtime resources.

There's a guide on the DX Developer Portal that discusses some of these options at a high-level and points to more detailed collateral on the Blue Prism portal.

Blue Prism Integration Overview

You can find more information about the Process Dispatch Framework here: https://digitalexchange.blueprism.com/dx/entry/9648/solution/process-dispatch-framework

If you're interested in direct HTTP communication with specific runtime resources you can check the Help files in Blue Prism. Just search for "Resource PC Commands" and "ResourcePC HTTP Interface".

Cheers

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Eric Wilson
Director, Partner Integrations for Digital Exchange
Blue Prism
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RE: Slack Skill

JaquelineSantos — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 15:26:00 GMT

Hello, I'm trying to use an action post message, but this message below is returned in the Response Content, can you tell me how to pass the correct parameters? {"ok":false,"error":"invalid_auth","warning":"missing_charset","response_metadata":{"warnings":["missing_charset"]}}

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Jaqueline Santos
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RE: Slack Skill

JaquelineSantos — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 15:29:00 GMT

Hello Eric,

We are an Rpa factory and we are starting to include the Slack API in our processes, but I have doubts about the parameters. Could you tell which Output parameters I should use in the "Post Message" action?

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Jaqueline Santos
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RE: Slack Skill

charliekovacs — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:49:00 GMT

Hi Jaqueline,

Your error message is indicating a problem with authentication. Slack describes the reason for invalid auth as:

Some aspect of authentication cannot be validated. Either the provided token is invalid or the request originates from an IP address disallowed from making the request.

chat.PostMessage Errors | Slack

The first thing to check is that you have created a credential in Blue Prism (System > Security > Credentials) that is set to the Bearer Token type and contains your Slack token value. The Access Rights also need to be set here for the users/processes/resources to read this credential.

Then, in the Input Parameters for the Post Message action, make sure you supply the name of that credential. This way, the Post Message action will include the correct Slack token for the API call.

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Charlie Kovacs
Sr. Digital Exchange Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, USA
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RE: Slack Skill

JaquelineSantos — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:10:00 GMT

Muito obrigada Charles, quanto a conexão deu certo sua sugestão.
Você poderia me dar mais informações sobre a action Upload file da skill slack, gostaria de saber como tem que ser os parâmetros da collection que recebe o arquivo binário.

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Jaqueline Santos
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RE: Slack Skill

charliekovacs — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 17:28:00 GMT

Hi Jaqueline,

Here is an example of the Upload File action.

1. Create a Collection and add four fields: File (Binary), File Name (Text), Content Type (Text), Field Name (Text)

2. On the Initial Values tab, create a row. This row will contain the file you wish to upload to Slack and should be set up like this:

The File field is where you click "Import" and select the file you want to upload to Slack.
The File Name field is where you enter the exact name of the file you selected, in my case I selected an image from my computer titled image.PNG
The Content Type field must be set to application/octet-stream
Field Name must be set to file

3. Add a second row to this collection which will contain information about which channel/conversation the file in Row 1 should be uploaded to in Slack. To achieve this, first you will need to create a new text file on your computer. This text file will contain the ID of the conversation you want to send the file to.

In my case, I opened Notepad and created a new text file titled conversation.txt on my Desktop.
I entered the ID of the Slack conversation where I want to upload my image file. (If you don't know the conversation/channel ID, you can use the "List Conversations" action to get a list of current Conversation IDs)
You may add several Conversation IDs in this file, separated by commas. In my example, I just have one Conversation ID.

4. Back in the Collection, in your second row, click the "Import" button and select the .txt file you created in the previous step.

Leave File Name and Content Type blank
Set Field Name to channels

Your collection should look like the image above - Row 1 has the file to upload, Row 2 has the file identifying the Slack conversation to upload the file.

5. In the Input Parameters for the Upload File action, set the Files input parameter to the Collection you have created. And set the Token credential name as well.

I just tested the above steps and it was successful for me.

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Charlie Kovacs
Sr. Digital Exchange Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, USA
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RE: Slack Skill

JaquelineSantos — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:25:00 GMT

Perfeito Charles, funcionou perfeitamente!!!
O que ocorria é que eu colocava o cotent type especifico e o Field Name eu estava colocando o ID do canal e não a palavra "channels"
Se eu usar a action Calc (para carregar o arquivo binary) antes da action Upload File, como faço com o campo Field name da Current value? Ele não preenche sozinho para que os parâmetros fiquem OK para a action Upload file executar com sucesso.

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Jaqueline Santos
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RE: Slack Skill

charliekovacs — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 20:51:00 GMT

Hi Jaqueline,

Glad to hear it is working! I have attached an example process that you can download here and import into your Blue Prism environment that may be helpful for you (need to unzip file first). I already have my image file and my conversation.txt file created on my computer so I know the file paths for those (these are the Input File Paths data items). From here, the process will do the rest of the work of putting the Collection together so that the Upload File action is successful. Here is what it looks like:

So, you are on the right track - start by bringing your files in as Binary data items. Then I use the Split Path action from the Utility - File Management object. You will see this action has an output parameter called File Name which will give us the name of the file that we need to include in the File Name field in the Upload File Collection.

From there, I add a row to my Upload File Collection and then a Multi-Calc stage to write all the fields at once. The [File Name] data item is the output of the Split Path action. And Field Name will always just be "file" for this case - here is how it looks for creating Row 1:

I do something similar for row 2, to add the conversations.txt file. And finally, the collection is prepared for the Slack Upload File action.

If you can import my example process into your own environment, you will be able to see how I set up the input and output parameters for each stage to make this work.

Cheers

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Charlie Kovacs
Sr. Digital Exchange Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, USA
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RE: Slack Skill

JaquelineSantos — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:25:00 GMT

Olá Charles, poderia me auxiliar na action Post Message (Blocks). Estou na dúvida de como definir os parâmetros json (slack) no Blue Prism. Seria por meio de uma collection? quais seriam os campos devo criar?

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Jaqueline Santos
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RE: Slack Skill

charliekovacs — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 22:54:00 GMT

Hi Jaqueline,

The Post Message (Blocks) action is useful when you are sending a Slack message that is built with "blocks". Slack has a feature called Block Kit. Instead of plain messages with only text, you can create more complex messages that have things like buttons and menus. Slack refers to these buttons and menus and such as "blocks."

Slack also has a tool called Block Kit Builder. This tool allows you to visually build and design your own Block message (drag and drop). On the left-hand side, it shows what your message will look like in Slack. On the right, it shows the JSON that defines this Block message. I recommend designing your Block message in Block Kit Builder first. Then copy the JSON text (note in the screenshot below, just copy the inside of "blocks" (like what I highlighted in gray, including the square brackets)).

The copied JSON text can then be placed in a Text data item in your Blue Prism process. And then that data item can be your input parameter for Blocks.

If you need to change some text or value in your Blocks message dynamically, you can use a Calculation stage and the Replace() function to make the change. Here I am changing the word "well" to "great":

Last item I will note is the "Text" input parameter for the Post Message (Blocks) action. If you provide some text for this input parameter, it will show it in the notification for the user that receives the Slack message.

If you leave it blank, the notification will look like this:

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Charlie Kovacs
Sr. Digital Exchange Engineer
Blue Prism
Austin, USA
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