Slack has announced new features, making it easier to build automation workflows, including connecting to third-party systems.

Slack’s new feature allow users to create workflows that automatically engage when events occur in third-party apps.

For example, customers can now build a Slack workflow that automatically starts when an event occurs in a third-party app like PagerDuty, Asana, BitBucket, and more. In addition, customers can now access a more intuitive user experience when creating workflows in Slack and access more than 50 new plug-and-play templates that span common productivity use cases. Developers also now have access to more coding languages and tools so they can create custom workflows and share them with their teams.

The company says these new automation tools will help companies and business leaders improve productivity, a growing pain point for many.

Seventy-one percent of business leaders are under pressure from management to squeeze more productivity out of their teams, but a similar 70% of IT leaders are concerned that increasing business demands will curb innovation. What’s more, 77% of users say that being able to automate routine tasks would greatly improve their productivity. Companies need automation solutions that boost productivity without burdening IT — and no-code, user-friendly automation is an essential tool for achieving this goal.

Slack’s Workflow Builder, its no-code automation tool, now includes the following new abilities:

• Start automations from actions in third-party apps. Previously, a Slack workflow could only start from an action that took place in Slack and Salesforce. Now, an action in a third-party app like PagerDuty, Asana, Bitbucket, and more can automatically start a workflow directly in Slack. For example, if an organization has a critical outage, a logged ticket in PagerDuty can start a workflow in Slack that will create an incident channel, add team members, set up a canvas, and share all of the relevant information from PagerDuty. Team members get the context they need to resolve the issue efficiently in their flow of work.
• Easily build workflows with a new plug-and-play design and access more than 50 new pre-built templates. A new user experience in Workflow Builder allows users to easily create a workflow by completing a prompt, similar to filling in the blanks in a sentence. And with 50 new out-of-the-box workflow templates, users can quickly build automations for common business tasks like starting a project, collecting survey data, and creating IT tickets.
• Make customizing workflows easier with new developer tools. When users need to build a specialized workflow, they can use Slack’s open APIs and developer tools to create custom steps. New tools in Slack’s developer platform make it easier to build custom steps. Developers can now create and manage custom steps on the Slack app settings page in a new, intuitive user experience. In addition, developers can enhance existing custom-built Slack apps with a custom step so that it can be used in Workflow Builder, allowing end users to connect Slack apps to time-saving workflows. Finally, Slack now supports more programming languages to develop these custom steps, including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, and Java.

“At Slack, one of our product principles is ‘don’t make me think,’” said Rob Seaman, Chief Product Officer. “We’re applying that to the historically technical and time-consuming area of automation so that it’s an intuitive and delightful productivity driver — for everyone. These new features make the Slack platform even more powerful for every customer, giving both developers and end users the tools they need to easily automate any business process across their work apps, directly in the place they’re already working. As Slack continues to become the destination for getting work done, we’ll continue to make it as seamless as possible for users to create automated workflows and take productivity into their own hands.”