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The Slack connector is what makes DeskMate available as a bot in your Slack workspace. Unlike the data connectors (Xero, M365, etc), Slack isn’t a system DeskMate reads business data from — it’s where your team talks to DeskMate. For installing DeskMate as a Slack app, see Use DeskMate in Slack. This page covers the underlying connector configuration.

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What this connector stores

When you install the Slack app in your workspace and the bot signs in:
  • Bot token — used to post messages, fetch user profiles, send DMs
  • Workspace ID — Slack’s internal ID for your workspace
  • Bot user ID — used to suppress message loops where the bot would otherwise reply to its own messages
You don’t enter any of these manually. They’re captured automatically when you install the Slack app.

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User identity

DeskMate maps each Slack user to their corresponding DeskMate user so that per-user analytics and per-user LLM provider preferences work consistently across Slack, Teams, and the web app. The mapping is done by looking up the Slack user’s email (via users.info) and matching it to a DeskMate user with the same email. If no match is found, DeskMate creates a placeholder user on first message.

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Permissions Slack requests

Slack scopeWhy DeskMate needs it
app_mentions:readSee when someone @mentions DeskMate in a channel
chat:writePost replies as the bot
im:read, im:write, im:historyDirect-message conversations
users:read, users:read.emailMap Slack user → DeskMate user
files:readRead attachments users send to the bot
channels:historyRead messages where the bot is added (channel context for skills)
We never request channels:join, chat:write.customize, or any admin scope. DeskMate cannot impersonate users or send messages as anyone other than itself.

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Troubleshooting

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Bot doesn’t respond when @mentioned

Most common cause: the bot hasn’t been added to the channel. In Slack, type /invite @DeskMate in the channel.

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Bot responds in DM but not in channels

The app_mentions:read permission is missing — likely because the workspace was installed with an old manifest. Reinstall using the latest install link from your DeskMate account manager.

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Replies appear from the wrong user

Check that your DeskMate workspace’s Slack connector is in fact connected to the Slack workspace you’re posting in, not a different one. The bot token is workspace-scoped; if a previous install was to a different workspace, the token won’t work in the new one. Disconnect and reinstall.

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Disconnecting

In Workspace → Connectors, click Disconnect on the Slack tile. To remove the bot from Slack entirely, a Slack admin should go to Manage Apps → DeskMate → Remove app.