Slack integration for Grafana Incident (legacy)

Grafana Incident integrates with your Slack workspace so you and your team can declare, collaborate on, and manage incident-worthy events without leaving Slack. Automatically create incident-specific channels, track the timeline of events, interact with your incident via the Slack bot, and more.

Before you begin

The Grafana Incident Slack app uses org-wide deployment and requires permission to access your Slack workspace to deploy the Slack bot.

To install the Grafana Incident Slack app:

• You must be a Slack workspace owner or admin
• Allow Grafana Incident to access your Slack workspace

Note: Slack has not yet reviewed this app but it is safe to install.

Install Slack integration for Grafana Incident

1. Click Incidents in the left-side menu.
2. Click Integrations.
3. Click the Slack tile and then Install Integration.
4. Once redirected to Slack, enter your workspace URL and click Continue.
5. Enter your Slack credentials and verify the Slack workspace is correct.
6. Follow the Slack prompts to allow Grafana Incident to access your Slack workspace and specify a default channel for Grafana Incident to post to, for example, #incidents.

Once you’re redirected back to Grafana Incident, your Slack and Grafana Cloud accounts are automatically linked.

Customize Slack channel prefixes

Prefixes determine the name of automatically created incident channels. For example, if the channel prefix is incident, the channel name will be #incident-date-title.

Customizing Slack channel prefixes is optional but helps keep incident channels organized and searchable.

To customize Slack channel prefixes:

1. Click Incidents in the left-side menu.
2. Click Settings.
3. Navigate to Prefixes at the bottom of the Settings page.
4. Click + Add Prefix and provide a name and description.
5. Edit any existing prefixes and click Update.

Once your prefixes are defined, you can specify which prefix to use when you declare an incident in Grafana Incident.

Note: Incident channels are set as public channels by default. Private channel creation isn’t supported in the current version.

Available Slack commands

It can be easy for things to get lost in the chaos of incident response; the /incident Slack commands allow teams to focus on what’s important and reduce administrative tasks.

Use the /incident Slack commands to run and participate in incidents without leaving Slack. Minimize the number of windows you and your team are switching between, delegate a task with one command and remove the need to update a stakeholder.

Tip: Use the 🤖 robot emoji Slack reaction to add important messages to the incident timeline.

Manage Slack attachments

When you react to a Slack message containing a file with the 🤖 emoji, the file is securely copied to Grafana Cloud storage, safeguarding your incident timeline from data loss, even if they are deleted from Slack. Here’s how it works:

• File retention: You can control attachment retention in your incident timeline. Removing the 🤖 reaction promptly deletes attached files from Grafana Cloud storage.
• Incident web app: Deleting an item from the timeline within the Incident web app also removes the associated file from Grafana Cloud storage.
• File size limit: Files in Grafana Incident are limited to 100MB. Be mindful of this limit when sharing files via Slack messages to ensure successful preservation.

If a file is too big to persist, it will still be accessible via a link to the source file in Slack.

Permissions scope and purpose

The Grafana Incident Slack app only requests permissions that are essential for its proper functioning and integration with Grafana Incident and Slack. By granting access to the app, you are providing authorizations to your Grafana Incident and Slack accounts, as detailed below:

Workspace access

Access public channels

View messages and conversations