Buster

Slack App Directory - Your go-to for finding apps that work with Slack

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Buster
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Maker
Hi! We’ve just launched Slack's App Directory with 150+ apps all designed to make your team more productive: https://slack.com/apps We also launched a new slash command to help you easily find the right apps for you. Try "/apps cats" from your own Slack team to get app results that match "cats" (or any other keyword) sent right into your channel. We're super excited about all of the great things people are building on the Slack platform. Of course, we want your apps to be discovered by other teams on Slack, so we've greatly simplified the process for submitting them to the directory. If you're building things on Slack, read up on these tips and learn how to submit them to the new directory here: https://api.slack.com/slack-apps We'll be adding new apps to the directory every day. If you're not a developer, we're also interested in hearing your feedback on the App Directory in general. What apps do you think are missing, what would you like to see added to the directory in the future, etc. We'll be responding to comments here throughout the day.
Steve Caldwell
@buster So awesome, congrats on the rollout. What do you anticipate the typical timeline being from submission to approved listing on the directory?
Buster
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Maker
@stevecaldwell If your installation instructions are clear, you're asking for a reasonable set of permissions, you have good links to support and privacy, and it's easy to understand how your app works once you install it, it could take as little as a day. Since this is all still new we're often asking for a bit of extra info about apps and that requires some back and forth. But so far it's not taking not more than a week in almost all cases.
Cem Kozinoglu
@buster Buster, this is awesome! Congrats. <3 Slash Team!
Ramesh Padala
@buster we just launched our wellness bot for slack on producthunt - https://www.producthunt.com/post... . Would love your thoughts on it. We believe sitting is becoming the new smoking. Our bot creates healthy habits in users with timely, contextual mini-interventions. Would also like to see if we can get featured as one of the new apps on the app landing page :D
Ben Tossell
As part of the announcement yesterday with The Slack Platform Launch alongside Botkit and The Slack Fund, @SlackHQ mentioned Slack App Directory. Led by @buster :) I said previously that it's a really interesting way Slack is going. I think this is an awesome step for a company to continue innovating while it grows. Full faith in @stewart & the awesome team he has built! We have April Underwood for a LIVE Chat today and she is Head of Platform at Slack. With Facebook shutting down it's lab and speculation that larger companies struggle having smaller startup mentality and freedom to create apps/bots/products that move the needle this is a great sign. More companies, small & large, need to see how they can innovate in house. Take a leaf out of Slack and @betaworks books. @buster - keen to see your thoughts on how you see Slack App Directory growing and continuing to keep Slack front of mind and innovation in terms of capabilities & integration into daily habits of people's lives? Also really looking forward the LIVE Chat with Buster next week so sign up to ask him more :) Slack feels like Apple for me... once you go there, you don't go back (at least, for me).
Buster
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Maker
@bentossell We called this App Directory Lite internally, it's the very minimum we had to do to make it easier for apps to get added and for people to find the best apps. I'd say we're about 1% done relative to where we want to be, and will be doing a lot more with it in the next year. What do *you* think we should do?
Ben Tossell
@buster asking is a great first step ;) Find out what kinds of businesses use Slack (if you don't already), see their pain points in day-to-day, make it easier. See what integrations would make things seamless... even things like (not recommending this as such) /FacebookStatus: Too busy today > updates status.. keeping people in Slack is an amazing hook. Always good to see what the community builds too and how to incorporate
Eric Metelka
@buster @bentossell Links to integration website. The current pages don't have screenshots or pricing info, so right now visiting the website is the best way to gather information as to whether to install or not.
Buster
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Maker
@eric3000 Yeah, for now we do require pretty detailed installation instructions on your website (and link to them with the "visit site to install" button), until we build up those pages a bit more.
Alexander Khanukov
@buster Not sure if you guys do it yet or not, since in my excitement I'll admit I didn't RTFM all the way through: You probably already have a huge developer community, and I see in here alone you've been asked a ton of similar questions, so having some sort of monthly developer conference call - maybe even coinciding with your API release schedule - to collect feedback and key developers in on future capabilities, answer questions, etc., would really be beneficial, at least to me. :) Heck! At bare minimum, make a #slackdev channel that all of us can join to facilitate these discussions and networking. I know I'm starting to develop several integrations already, I'd love to search Slack to make sure someone else isn't developing a similar one already or better yet, team up with another developer, product person, or firm to build an even better product. I can't think of a better platform to use while building onto it. Congrats and thanks for the opportunities! @bentossell
Owen Williams
Wow, this is super exciting! I was already mulling building a custom integration for Slack, but this puts the icing on the cake. I think I'm going to start on it tonight :)
Buster
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Maker
@ow Cool! What are you going to build?
Evan Zhou
DOPE. Makes a lot of sense. Just let a friend know who's working on integrating their wellness company tighter with Slack! @buster any recommendations or favorites so far?
Buster
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Maker
@evanczhou There's quite a variety, so it really depends on the kind of work you do. Personally, I'm particularly interested in the stuff around bots that people are doing. Howdy, Awesome, and Growbot are all doing super interesting things that make work life more pleasant and productive. We're using the Airtable integration to process submissions to our app review flow, and have found their service to be really useful in our own day-to-day workflows. The way Figma has integrated into Slack is also really interesting and creates a very symbiotic relationship between their product and Slack that I hope more people consider. There's a lot more, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind right this moment.
Evan Zhou
@buster awesome thanks!
Thanasis
Well, thats a very nice think to have! Nice job!
Anthony Lee
Brilliant. This is just brilliant.
Luis Borges Quina
At ottspott.co we were waiting for this initiative since we launched beta @ the Dublin WebSummit. Thanks to the Slack teams this is HUGE 😄
Buster
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Maker
@quinaluis Glad you like it! What can we do to make it even more useful to you?
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
This looks incredible. Very useful for finding integrations.
lach hall
So much heart for slack. This is going to fast track bots like nothing else. Interesting to see how / if other message platforms open up their platforms in such a free manner. Slack++
Tobi Hikari
Sounds awesome! I am really looking forward to integrate some apps to the community I built on slack.
Paolo Perazzo
@buster congrats - we have been ready for a while with our integration (https://kyber.me/slack), but we have been told we could not get listed as we didn't have an App ID but just created a command to be manually added. Is that true? I think I saw some apps that had the old process listed in the app store at launch. We are now good to go with App ID, Slack button, but have been waiting 6+ months in your queue to be listed because of the advanced ways we were using the APIs :(. Anything you can do to "accelerate" the approval? Thanks and congrats again - looks great.
Buster
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Maker
@sivola I see you in the queue now, so you'll be hearing from us in the next few days. Now that this is launched, and we have a team of people working on the directory and the app review flow, the days of waiting months to get listed are over!
Paolo Perazzo
@buster fantastic! Do you guys have an alias to ask few questions? In the past we used the zendesk form but maybe you have a more direct (and faster, as more target) alias? Thank you very much - excited to get started!
Buster
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Maker
@sivola developers@slack.com is probably the most direct route of reaching us
Kevin Elliott
App integration is incredible. Tiny Speck has come a long way since Glitch. I miss it dearly, but Slack is such an incredible product that it has somehow transcended such a crowded space in no time. Now, time to get to work on an integration and publish an app in the new app store!
Pedro Marques
Super smart move! Congrats, guys!
Stuart Hall
This is awesome. Super proud of Appbot being listed on launch day!
Justin Mitchell
So how do I get my SMS integration added to this? http://jmitch.com/smsflex
Buster
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Maker
@itsthisjustin I'd recommend moving to our more granular scopes (see api.slack.com/docs/oauth-scopes) writing up some install instructions and a basic description of what it does, and then submit it via the form at the bottom of api.slack.com/slack-apps. And let us know if you have any questions by emailing developers@slack.com.
Justin Mitchell
@buster Currently there is no install process. It just works as a client which also allows me to expand on it and add new features like photo upload. Any reason to move to the new API?
Buster
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Maker
@itsthisjustin It uses OAuth to connect accounts, right? That's our version of an install.
Alexander Khanukov
Another suggestion: other Platform Directories have fallen short in the past because 1. they focused on Community/Open Source (Free) Apps or Plugins over Commercial ones, or at least added friction to this ecosystem (not naming names because we all do really love the product :) ), and/or 2. they didn't provide a real foundational architecture for developers to grow on or with, mainly in terms of hosting and 3rd party integration. Naturally Slack is already the antithesis to the latter and it would be encouraging to see this welcoming, open architecture incorporate many of the developer tools if it hasn't already and build on the ones already integrated, such as Github, app stores, Google dashboards, not to mention reporting suites. Sorry for the incoherent comment. I'm up late from the excitement of this launch and reading all the new documentation!