Slack integration

Power Scripts enables you to connect Jira with Slack and send automated messages from Jira to your Slack channels. This setup lets you notify team members about Jira ticket activities such as new tickets, updates, comments, or status changes without manual intervention.

SIL scripts define the message content and specify when messages are sent. The connection supports Slack's formatting options including text styling, attachments, and color-coding to make your notifications more readable and organized.

Prerequisites

Before setting up the integration, ensure you have:

Administrator permissions in your Jira instance.
Access to create and manage Slack apps in your workspace. You can contact your Slack administrator to request permissions.
Basic understanding of Jira workflows and transitions.
Familiarity with JSON structures. This is helpful, but not required.

Procedure

To configure your Slack integration follow these steps:

Step 1: Obtain a Slack API token

Navigate to the page. Visit the Slack API website to create a new Slack app for your workspace, or access an existing Slack app.
Configure the app to have the necessary permissions:
1. chat:write (permission to post messages);
2. channels:read (permission to access channel information).
Generate and copy the API token.
Save this token securely as you'll need it for the Power Scripts configuration.

For security reasons, in cloud environments, the Slack access token is only visible at the time of creation and cannot be viewed again later. Make sure to store it securely elsewhere in case you need it again.

Step 2: Create a Slack integration in Power Scripts

In your Jira Cloud instance, go to Apps > Manage apps > Power Scripts > Configurations.
Click the Integrations tab and select the Slack sub-tab.
Click Add Slack integration and fill in the necessary fields:
- Name: Create a unique name for this integration.
- Access token: Enter the Slack access token you obtained in Step 1 of this procedure.
Click Save.
The integration displays as a new entry on the Slack Configurations page. You can modify or remove a configuration at any time by clicking the Edit or Delete icons.

You can read more about internal integrations in Slack's API documentation.

Prepare for implementation

Before creating SIL scripts that send messages to Slack, you need to:

Identify the target Slack channels for your notifications.
Learn the structure of Slack messages and attachments.
Understand how to reference Jira issue data in your messages.

How to find your Slack channel ID

To send messages to a specific Slack channel, you need the channel's ID.

Open Slack in your browser and navigate to the channel you want to use.
Look at the URL in your browser's address bar. It looks something like:
https://app.slack.com/client/T12345678/C12345678
The channel ID is the part after the team ID; it starts with C followed by alphanumeric characters.

About message structure

SIL provides predefined structures for creating Slack messages:

Structure name	Field	Type

Structure name	Field	Type
JSlackMessage	channel	string	`JSlackMessage.channel`: The Slack channel ID where the message will be posted.
	text	string	`JSlackMessage.text`: The main message text.
	attachments	JSlackAttachment[]	`JSlackMessage.attachments`: An array of formatted attachments.
JSlackAttachment	pretext	string	`JSlackAttachment.pretext`: Text that appears above the attachment.
	fallback	string	`JSlackAttachment.fallback`: Plain text for notifications when attachments aren't supported.
	title	string	`JSlackAttachment.title`: Bold heading for the attachment.
	title_link	string	`JSlackAttachment.title_link`: URL that the title links to.
	text	string	`JSlackAttachment.text`: Main content of the attachment (supports Slack markdown).
	color	string	`JSlackAttachment.color`: Hex color code for the left border of the attachment

Implementation example

The following example demonstrates how to use the Slack integration with Jira through SIL scripts. It shows how to create a Slack message with multiple attachments, different colors, and various text formatting styles. The first attachment demonstrates pretext and bold/strikethrough formatting, while the second attachment showcases code formatting with a different color scheme. This approach is useful for creating visually distinct sections in your notifications or for highlighting different types of information within a single message.

JSlackAttachment att1;
att1.pretext = "Optional text that appears above the attachment block";
att1.title = "This is an example of attachment ...";
att1.text = "*Bold* ~strike~ text";
att1.color = "#4286f4";
 
JSlackAttachment att2;
att2.title = "This is an example of attachment with code.";
att2.text = "`var i = 0; doSomethingWith(i);`";
att2.color = "#f45641";
 
JSlackMessage message;
message.channel = "C9S2LC24T";
message.text = "Test slack message with attachment...";
message.attachments = {att1, att2};
 
return sendIntegrationMessage("SLACK", message);