Use Slack in Cutover to post messages and update colleagues on progress or create awareness of your runbooks. Slack connects people and teams to each other and the information they need, making it easier than ever to collaborate and communicate across departments. If you’re interested in using the full power of Cutover from within your Slack workspace, you can find out more here.
Prerequisites
Slack will need to be added to your Cutover instance within the Global Settings menu. Ensure that you have enabled the appropriate permissions in order to post to the channels you’d like to send messages to. Please see this page for further information.
Permissions
To enable the integration, the Integrations Admin role is needed. Please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) for assistance in setting this up.
Integration features
With the Slack integration, you have the ability to post messages to Slack using your Cutover runbook with Slack’s Web API. Simply create a new task and set the Task Type as “Post Message to Slack”.
Add a Slack connection
Navigate to Settings > Integrations.
Any previously configured integrations will be displayed on the Integrations Connections page.
Note: If you have not previously added integrations, this page will be blank.
To find out more about our integrations, click Learn more at the top of the Integrations Connections page. To create your new predefined integration, click on + Create integration.
The New Integration Connection window displays. Click on the Predefined integration radio button.
The meaning of a predefined integration is displayed. Predefined integrations are restricted to cloud to cloud authorisation and have predefined parameters.
Note: Please see our Developer Portal Integration pages if you would prefer to set up an integration based on your own requirements, authorisation and authentication.
Click in the Integration field to search for an integration. You can type the integration name or scroll to search.
Note: You will first need to create the integration before adding the integration action, as illustrated by the steps listed below.
Enter the following details:
Name: Enter a name for your Slack connection. This name is what you will see within a runbook Edit Task panel when the integration is added
Image URL: This field is automatically populated with the integration image URL
Slack OAuth token: Enter the authorization token generated directly from Slack
When you have finished, click CREATE. The newly created integration will be listed at the bottom of the Integrations Connections page.
Add an integration action
Select your newly added Slack connection to open the Edit Slack panel. Next to Integration Actions, click New.
In the New Slack Action modal, complete the following details:
Action: Select the action you would like the integration to execute. The available action is Post message to channel.
Name: Enter a name for the action. This is what you will be able to search for when you want to add this action to your runbook.
Image URL: Enter the image URL for your action item.
Trigger: Select the trigger for the action. The current available trigger is On Task Start. The integration will trigger when your task has been started.
Visibility: Select what workspace the integration is assigned to in this drop-down menu. In the drop-down, browse the available workspaces in your Cutover instance. By default, this field is set to “Global.”
Plus there are Additional Settings options:
Auto start: The task will automatically start upon the task's predecessor completing, without requiring manual intervention to get it underway. If the trigger is “On Task Start“ then this also means that the integration will fire automatically.
Enable fixed start time: It will be possible to add a fixed start time in a runbook’s editing panel for the task; this means the task can only be started at the day and time that has been set.
Cancelable: It will be possible to cancel a task during its execution.
Notify Webhook on Cancel: On task cancellation, an HTTP request will send an abort/cancel message to the specified URL.
Important: Aborting an integration prevents any further integration actions from being executed but will not stop any process that the integration has initiated when invoking the third-party API.
Finish task on success: The task will finish when the integration’s status is set to success.
Include context in Request: The outbound payload request will contain information about the runbook and task.
Execute in Rehearsal: The task can be executed when the runbook is in rehearsal mode.
Note: The Slack action item automatically includes custom fields, which are displayed under ‘Integration action custom fields’, as illustrated via the image below:
When you have finished, click CREATE.
Edit a Slack integration and action
Click on your Slack connection on the Integration Connections page to edit it. The Edit Slack panel will appear.
The integration name and image URL can be edited as needed. In addition to editing the integration details, you can edit any action within the integration itself by clicking the small cog icon next to the trigger details:
Clicking the cog will reveal an edit form for the integration action where all default and custom settings are stored:
When you have finished editing, you can click Save or Discard to abandon any changes that have been made.
Use your integration
After your integration has been created, head over to an existing runbook or create a new runbook. Next, add a task—when adding a new task type, scroll and select the Slack integration you’ve created from the drop-down menu.
Next, enter your desired message and specify the channel you’d like your message to be posted to.
When the task is started, the status of the message being sent is updated in real time in Cutover and in Slack. Those statuses are:
Message sending: Your message is in the process of posting to Slack.
Message sent: Your message has successfully been posted to Slack.
Connection failed: Slack and Cutover are no longer connected. This could be due to varying reasons, for example:
Your OAuth token is invalid
The channel you’ve selected doesn’t exist or you don’t have access to the channel you’ve selected
No message or channel has been defined within the integration message custom fields
When successfully sent, your message will post to the channel you’ve selected, as illustrated below:
