Salesforce drives automation for workplace program Slack

Salesforce has recently announced that their low-code automation tool, Flow, and programming language, Apex, will soon work on the workplace messaging program Slack. The move to push automation on Slack will help workers avoid rote tasks, by making it easier for developers to automate tasks across Slack and its other products. Overall, aiming to bolster productivity by eliminating boring repetitive work.

Salesforce bought Slack back in 2020, and since then has been looking to integrate the collaboration tool with its other products. The tools available in beta next month will allow companies familiar with Salesforce’s development tools to trigger actions in Slack automatically. Salesforce's goal is to differentiate Slack from competitors like Microsoft teams.

Salesforce executives explained automation allows employees to focus on the important parts of their work, pushing productivity and satisfaction. This boost in employee satisfaction is needed to help retain staff at a time when individuals are increasingly willing to change jobs. 

Patrick Stokes, SalesForce’s vice president, commented in a press conference: "If you think about doing your own job, you probably hate having to constantly log into different systems in order to complete a task". He believes "automation is where a ton of innovation is happening”, as more than 1 trillion automation occurs per month on his company's platform. 

With the acquisition of their low-code automation tool, Flow, companies can use Salesforce data to trigger actions in Slack. For instance, if a deal progresses to a new stage in Salesforce, an automated workflow could create a new channel in Slack. The automated workflow could then add the sales team members working on the deal to the channel and invite a member of the legal staff to start a review. Furthermore, another workflow could send a notification after a meeting with a client, initiating the sales team to consider the next steps. As easy as that. 

Slack executive, Rob Seaman said, "people spend a significant amount of their day in Slack, so that's where users' attention is." Using Salesforce’s automation, they can reduce the need for users to leave the program, "by bringing the information to them."

On the other hand, the Apex integration will let Salesforce developers build Slack apps using a developer language they already know and understand. Seaman explains, "they can now take those apps and make them Slack apps" without the need for any other middleware. 

The new tools will help Salesforce demonstrate Slack’s value as a Workplace messaging program. Many exciting Salesforce customers have access to Teams as part of their Microsoft 365 subscription and are hesitant to buy Slack as well. Hopefully, this tight integration with Salesforce products will make for a compelling and convincing case.

If you are interested in learning more about the world of automation, we have a range of articles for you to browse through here. If you want to learn more about how we can help your business to implement automation systems, contact us today on 01926 411 544.