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Slack Enterprise: How to Connect and Collect 

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In this article: 

 

Slack Enterprise Overview

Slack is a team communication and collaboration tool. Onna integrates with Slack's Discovery API to extract all related data and metadata from entire Slack workspaces, specific user accounts, specific channels, and/or private/multiparty chats. The Discovery API does need to be enabled on your Slack Enterprise Grid Account if it hasn't been already.

 

Connector Features
Authorized Connection Required? Yes Is identity mapping supported? Yes
Audit logs available? Yes Admin Access? Yes
Supports a full archive? Yes Custodian based collections? Yes
In-place preservations supported?Yes Resumable sync supported? Yes
Supports Onna preservation? Yes Syncs future users automatically? Yes

Sync modes supported:

  • One-time sync
  • Auto-sync and archive
 Is file versioning supported? Yes
 
Types of Data Collected Metadata Collected
  • All or selected workspaces
  • All or selected channels, both private and public
  • Messages posted on channels
  • Direct messages (DMS)
  • Multi-person instant messages (mpim)
  • Edited and deleted messages (only available if 'Keep Everything' is selected as a setting in Slack Enterprise)
  • Files posted on channels, DMs and mpims
  • Recorded Slack audio and video clips
  • Posts created in the files section, channels, DMs and mpims
  • Snippets created in the files section, channels, DMs and mpims
  • Files sent in DMs and mpims
  • All Slack Emoji reactions (On initial sync), DMs and mpims
 In addition to standard metadata (file name, file size, etc) Onna also collects the following Slack specific metadata: 
  • Workspace ID-The text identifier field used to identify the workspace
  • Workspace name-The name of a workspace in Slack
  • Conversation ID- Text identifier field used to identify the conversation
  • Conversation name- Categorizes the kind of conversation. For Slack this includes channels, groups (private channels), or DMs (direct messages). For Teams, channels or chat.
  • Conversation type-For conversations with a channel name, the channel name, otherwise a descriptor for the type of conversation.

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Slack Enterprise Requirements

Before setting up a new sync using the Slack Enterprise connector you will need to have access to authorized connection credentials in Onna. To learn more about how to set up and share an authorized connection visit the article, Creating and Managing Authorized Connections in Onna.

In order to set up an authorized connection for Slack Enterprise you will need the following information: 

  1.  Slack Org Owner Account.
    The credentials for the account are needed to establish an authorized connection. It is recommended to use a service account to establish the connection. 
  2. Slack Discovery API
    The Slack Discovery API must be enabled on the account. To enable the Slack Discovery API an Org Owner needs to email exports@slack.com to say they'd like to enable the Discovery APIs for their organization.

    Slack will promptly enable the org after verifying the email address matches an Org Owner. If Slack fails to respond, you  can use the below URL to verify the status of the Discovery API: https://my.slack.com/services/export

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How to Connect and Collect Using Slack Enterprise

Once you have the authorized connection credentials necessary you can set up a new sync by following the steps below:

Step 1

Navigate to the workspace where you want to set up your sync.

Inside that workspace click on the ‘+’ icon in the upper right corner of the screen to ‘Add source’. 

 

 

Step 2

You will now see a list of all sources enabled for your organization. Find and select the ‘Slack Enterprise’ source.

 

 

Step 3

You’ll now define the basic information for your new sync, including: 

a. The name of your sync (We will autofill this field with the name of your source, but you can change it) 

b. They sync mode you’d like to use

c. The start date for your sync (Note: If you’re choosing a one-time sync you’ll enter an start and end date for your sync)

d. Optional: If you need to, you can switch the authorized connection credentials you want to use to set up the sync by clicking switch account

e. Once you’ve selected the right account select the blue ‘Continue as...’ button

Step 4

Next, you will select the content you want to include in the sync. To do so you will: 

a. Decide whether or not you want to perform a custodian collection. If you want to perform a custodian based collection, toggle to ‘On’. However, if you’re creating an archive, you want this toggled to ‘off’

b. Select the type of direct messages you’d like to include in your sync. 

c. Select the type of channels you’d like to include in your sync. 

d. Click the blue ‘Next’ button. 

Step 5

You’ll now add the users you’d like to include in your sync. You can do this by either: 

a. Manually adding users' email addresses. Or, 

b. Loading users via a list or from a CSV by clicking ‘Load users’.

 

 

Step 6

If you select users from a list you will be directed to a screen where you can

a. Select the users you want to include or click ‘Select all’ to include all users. 

b. Then, click the blue ‘Next’ button 

 

 

Step 7a

Your next step is to define the workspaces you want to include in your sync. 

a. Select the workspaces you want to include in your sync

b. Loading large numbers of Multi-workspace channels can take a significant amount of time across large enterprise accounts. For Multi-workspace channels you have the option to not load, load all, or load only those channels for selected workspaces:

Do Not Load - This option will not load any organization or multi-workspace channels

Load All - This will load all organization and multi-workspace channels independent of the workspaces selected

Load only those for selected workspaces- This option will load all organization-wide channels, but filter the multi-workspace channels to include only those from the selected workspaces. In order to filter these channels, a number of requests need to be made, which causes this option to take the longest.

Step 7b

You’ll now scroll down to the bottom of the ‘Workspaces’ screen. At the bottom you will: 

a. Check the box next to ‘Collect channels shared with external partners’ to add external channels to your sync or leave unchecked to exclude them. 

b. Check the box next to ‘Sync future workspaces’ to sync workspaces added to your Slack account in the future or leave unchecked to to exclude future channels from your sync. 

c. Click the blue ‘Next’ button.

Step 8

Your next step is to select the channels you want to include in your sync. 

a. Select the channels from the list or click ‘Select all’ to include all channels. 

b. To sync future channels that are added, make sure the option to ‘Sync future channels’ is checked. 

c. Click the blue ‘Done’ button

Step 9

Your sync is now in progress and visible inside the workspace you added it to. Learn more about How to Monitor Your Source Sync Status 

 

 

 

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