Send a Slack automation DM

A send_slack_message automation action can now message a specific person in Slack instead of posting to a channel. Rather than naming a fixed recipient, the action targets a role — the assigned agent, the people a comment mentions, or one named person — so a single rule reaches a different person on every conversation.

For this to work, each agent who should receive these DMs first connects their own Slack account from Preferences. This article covers both sides: connecting your Slack account, and configuring the automation action to send a direct message.

This is separate from the tenant-wide Slack integration described in What is the Slack integration. That integration connects a Slack workspace at the tenant level and posts to channels; this article is about routing automation messages to individuals.

Before you start

• Your tenant’s Slack workspace must already be connected (see Connect Slack to Atender).
• You need a Slack account in that workspace to receive direct messages.
• Configuring the automation action itself requires permission to manage automations.

Connect your Slack account

Each agent connects their own Slack account individually — this isn’t something an admin can do on someone else’s behalf, because the connection is verified against the Slack account doing the connecting.

1. Open Preferences and find the Slack Direct Messages card.
2. Click Connect my Slack account. Atender looks you up in Slack by your Atender account email. If Slack finds a matching, authenticated account, you’re connected immediately — no further steps needed.
3. If your Slack account uses a different email address than your Atender account, the lookup won’t find you. Switch to entering your Slack member ID manually instead.
4. Paste your Slack member ID and request a code. Slack sends a six-digit verification code as a direct message to that member ID.
5. Enter the code back in Atender to confirm. Only the owner of that Slack account can retrieve the code, so pasting someone else’s member ID doesn’t connect their account to yours.

Your member ID is only stored once the code is verified — entering an ID alone doesn’t connect anything.

A few things to know about the code step:

• You get five attempts to enter the correct code before you need to request a new one.
• If you need a new code, you have to wait about a minute after the last one was sent before Atender will send another.

Disconnect your Slack account

To stop receiving automation DMs, disconnect your account from the same Slack Direct Messages card in Preferences. This clears your stored Slack member ID. Reconnect at any time by repeating the steps above.

Configure a Slack DM in an automation

Once at least one agent has connected their Slack account, an automation rule can direct-message them.

1. Open the automation rule (or create a new one) and add a Send a Slack message action.
2. Under Send to, choose:
   A Slack channel — the existing behavior, unchanged. The action posts to the Slack channel configured in the tenant’s Slack integration.
   A direct message — the action messages a person instead of a channel.
3. If you chose A direct message, set Direct message to:
   The assigned agent — messages whoever is currently assigned to the conversation.
   The people the comment mentions — messages everyone the triggering comment @-mentions.
   A specific person — pick one named agent from the list. This is useful when you want a fixed recipient regardless of assignment, such as a team lead.
4. Write the Message. Alongside the usual merge tags, a direct message action also has:
   {{recipient.name}}, {{recipient.firstName}}, {{recipient.email}} — the person the message is being sent to. These resolve per person: if the rule messages three mentioned users, each of them sees their own name.
   {{comment.content}}, {{comment.author}} — the note that triggered the rule.

The {{recipient.*}} tags only appear in the merge tag picker when A direct message is selected — a channel post isn’t rendered per person, so those tags have nothing to resolve to there.

5. Save the rule.

A rule with no destination set behaves exactly as before and posts to the configured Slack channel — this is purely additive.

Verify it worked

Trigger the condition the rule listens for (for example, assign a conversation to an agent who has connected Slack, or add a comment that mentions someone). The targeted agent should receive a direct message from the Atender Slack app with the rendered message text.

If nothing arrives, see Troubleshooting below.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: An agent isn’t receiving automation DMs at all. Fix: Confirm that agent has connected their Slack account in Preferences → Slack Direct Messages. A rule can only reach people who have completed that connection — it silently skips anyone who hasn’t.

• Symptom: The verification code never arrives. Fix: Double-check the Slack member ID you entered. If you’ve requested a code recently, wait about a minute before requesting another — Atender rejects new code requests sent too soon after the last one.

• Symptom: “Invalid code” after several tries. Fix: Codes accept five guesses before they’re locked out. Request a fresh code and re-enter it carefully rather than continuing to guess.

• Symptom: {{recipient.*}} tags show up blank or literal. Fix: These tags only render inside a Direct message action. If the action’s Send to is set to A Slack channel, switch it to A direct message, or use a different merge tag.

• Symptom: Assigning a conversation to a new agent still DMs the previous agent. Fix: This should not happen — the assigned-agent recipient is resolved from the current assignment at send time. If you still see this, contact support with the rule and event details.

See also

• What is the Slack integration
• Connect Slack to Atender