New shortcut trigger (real-time)

The New shortcut trigger is a powerful way to kickstart your workflows. Launch a workflow from a global shortcut, or turn any Slack message into a task or a ticket using a message shortcut. This trigger works for both Global & Message shortcuts. To use this trigger, you'll need to create shortcuts in your Enterprise bot.

Shortcuts trigger New shortcut trigger

Shortcuts example Shortcut example

Message shortcut gif Message shortcut in action

Similar to the Post command trigger, command input fields can be defined if you need user input for follow-up actions. If command input fields are specified, shortcuts will launch a dialog to get user input.

How global shortcuts work

Shortcuts can be triggered from the shortcuts menu or the search bar.

Select the shortcuts menu or search for your shortcut in the search bar at the top of your Slack UI.

Accessing shortcuts from Slack

How message shortcuts work

Message shortcuts can be triggered on any message in any channel, direct message, or multi-party message that your Enterprise bot is a member of.

Hover on a message and select the horizontal ellipsis menu to bring up a list of actions. Message shortcuts that you've created can be found at the bottom of the list.

If you don't see your message shortcut, select More message shortcuts from the same menu to view all message menus in your Slack team.

Message shortcut list Accessing message shortcuts from Slack

What's unique about message shortcuts is that the content of the message (which the message shortcut was performed on) can be used in follow-up actions. Combined with the dialog (for collecting structured user input), you can transform any conversation into tasks, tickets, and more.

Requirements: Enterprise bot

To use shortcuts, you first need to create a Enterprise bot. If you haven't done so already, head over to our Enterprise bot documentation to learn how to do it.

The message shortcut must be added and configured under an Enterprise bot in Slack before they can be used in Workato.

Creating shortcuts in Slack Shortcuts created under Interactive Components

If you already have an Enterprise bot, proceed on to learn how to use shortcuts with your Enterprise bot.

Configuring a shortcut trigger

In this section, we will go through how to configure a shortcut trigger.

Shortcuts trigger fields

The table below shows the input schema for the shortcuts trigger.

Field	Explanation	What goes in here
Shortcut type	Global or message	Triggers when Global or Message shortcuts are invoked in Slack. Global shortcuts have team & user context. Message shortcuts have team, channel, and message context. You can also copy the original message text into a command input value.
Shortcut name	Name of the shortcut	The name of the shortcut should be descriptive of its function, for example, Create Jira ticket. The shortcut name also doubles as a Callback ID, which is used in configuring the corresponding shortcut in Slack. Shortcut names should be unique across all recipes.
Command input fields	Fields you need from the user	Often, you need your bot to obtain more information from users before it can carry out subsequent recipe actions. If you've defined any command input fields, the Enterprise bot will automatically launch a dialog for users to key in each input field. Define up to 10 command input fields.
Dialog title	Title of the dialog that is launched	Define the title of the dialog that launches when collecting user input for command input fields. Maximum of 24 characters.

Callback ID

When shortcuts are triggered from Slack, the Callback ID is used to match the trigger event with the correct recipe.

Callback ID generated from Shortcuts name

Callback ID is generated from the shortcut's name — so make sure that the name you choose is unique.

Callback ID is required to configure your shortcuts in Slack. More on this in a later section.

Dialog for command input fields

If you've defined any command input fields, a dialog is automatically launched to collect values for each of them from the user. Up to 10 command input fields can be defined for each shortcut trigger.

Adding command input fields Message action dialog in Slack, with 5 different fields

Each time you add a command input field, you can control how it shows up in the dialog.

Adding command input fields Adding a command input field

Display text field in dialog

Under Dialog control type, choose text to display a text field.

Text field config Text control type in command input field

Example text field in a Slack dialog

Text fields are capped at 150 characters. If you're copying original messages into this input field, the original field cannot be longer than 150 characters. To avoid this issue, choose text area as your control type.

Display textarea field in dialog

Under Dialog control type, choose text area to display a text area field. Text area fields are capped at 3,000 characters. This control type is useful when copying original messages that are up to 3,000 characters long into this input field.

Text area field config Text area control type in command input field

Example text area field in a Slack dialog

Under Dialog control type, choose select to display a select menu with menu options. This enables a new setting called Select menu options type.

Select control type

You can choose from 3 different types of select menus. Each differs by the menu options displayed:

Channels displays the list of all public channels in your Slack workspace.

Channel menu options Example of a channels menu in a Slack dialog

When a channel is selected, the channel ID is returned, for example, CA83MDSK0.

Users displays the list of all users (including bots) in your Slack workspace.
Example of a users menu in a Slack dialog
When a user is selected, the user ID is returned, for example, UBTDVPFMM.
Custom allows you to define a list of comma-separated menu options in the Options field. The menu option themselves cannot contain commas.
Custom menu config
Example of a custom menu in a Slack dialog

Copy original text into dialog field

You can also choose to copy the original message into a defined command input field so that it shows up in the dialog. You can do so by selecting a command input field from the picklist in the Copy original text into dialog field.

Copy original field config Copying original message into the 'description' command input field

Copy original field example Original text copied onto 'description' field in dialog

Note that only fields of type string are selectable.

After configuring your shortcut trigger, you'll need to create the shortcut in Slack.

Creating shortcuts on your Enterprise bot in Slack

Head to https://api.slack.com/apps and go to your Enterprise bot.

Select your Enterprise bot

Under Interactive components, select Create New Shortcut.

Select Create New Shortcut

On the next page, choose Global.

Choose Global Select Global

In the shortcuts configuration, choose a descriptive name for your shortcut, a short description of its function, followed by the Callback ID.

Shortcuts config

As mentioned above, the Callback ID used here must be identical to the Callback ID in the shortcuts trigger.

Callback ID generated from shortcut name

Click Create to finish setting up the shortcut on Slack. You can test it out by using the shortcut from the shortcut menu in the Slack UI.

Troubleshooting

Reinstall your bot if you are unable to see your shortcut in the shortcut menu.

Shortcut does not do anything after clicking

Make sure your shortcut recipe has been started, and that the callback ID is unique across your Workato workspace.

Last updated:

New shortcut trigger (real-time)

How global shortcuts work

How message shortcuts work

Requirements: Enterprise bot