Salesforce today announced a new set of tools for its developers to build integrations and customize apps on the Slack collaboration platform.
Salesforce acquired Slack last year for €27,7 billion and began integrating the team's messaging app into its portfolio of software-as-a-service tools, aiming to create what he calls the "digital seat." The Salesforce Platform for Slack, announced at the TrailblazerDX developer conference, aims to simplify processes for Salesforce's 11 million developers by connecting workflows between Customer360 and Slack apps.
"The main reason Salesforce is buying Slack is to leverage Slack as Salesforce's cloud collaboration layer," said Irwin Lazar, president and principal analyst at research and consulting firm Merigy. “This requires tight integrations to ensure data flow in and out of Slack, and the ability to collaborate and complete tasks within Slack. Therefore, it is essential that Salesforce quickly enable developers to integrate with Slack.
Metrigy's Workplace Collaboration: 2021-22 survey found that nearly 60% of end-user organizations see apps like Slack as a hub for work, rather than just a messaging app.
With the Apex SDK for Slack, Salesforce developers can use the familiar Apex programming language to customize Slack apps built with the Block Kit UI framework (created four years ago to integrate interactive components such as checkboxes and menus in Slack messages). The Apex SDK provides access to data in Salesforce, such as customer records, without the need for middleware.
"Let's say a developer already has a great app built into Apex; now they can bring it to Slack very easily," said Tamar Yehoshua, product manager at Slack, during a pre-announcement briefing.
Salesforce also connects its low-code Flow platform to Slack. This should allow for the automation of simple manual tasks like creating a new Slack channel or sending an account status update.
“Let's say the status of a transaction changes and you want to collaborate on that transaction in a deal room in Slack. You just need to connect it through Salesforce Flow to automatically create a channel,” Yehoshua said.
"Slack's deeper integrations with the Salesforce platform effectively streamline communications and collaboration by eliminating the need to switch between applications," said Wayne Kurtzman, research director at IDC. "Bring conversations about work to work, maintaining the context needed to make decisions."
Flow in Slack is expected to be available in beta in June and in final release in October. The Apex SDK for Slack is scheduled for a pilot in June, with general availability in February 2023.
During TrailblazerDX, Salesforce also announced public beta versions for several integrations between Slack and Salesforce's Sales, Service, and Marketing Cloud products announced last year.
Copyright © 2022 IDG Communications, Inc.