Integrating Inbound SMS Messaging with Slack

Prerequisites

  • An AWS account with Admin Privileges
  • An IntelePeer account
  • A Slack account
  • cURL or Postman to test the API Endpoint (Optional)

Create a Slack App

Slack apps provide the packing for any functionality you wish to implement through Slack:

  1. Create a Slack workspace.
  2. Click your workspace name, and from the drop-down menu, select Settings & Administration > Manage apps.

The workspace name is selected and the menu options for Settings & administration followed by Manage apps are highlighted

  1. From the menu options on the top right side of the slack app directory, select Build.
  2. Under Your Apps, click Create an App.
  3. In the Create a Slack App pop-up, enter a name for your app, and from the Development Slack Workspace drop-down list, select your workspace.

A blank Create a Slack App pop-up window

  1. Click Create App. Your application’s Settings Basic Information section appears.
  2. Under the Add Features and Functionality section, click Incoming Webhooks, or from the menu on the left, select Incoming Webhooks.

From the menu on the left side of the page Incoming Webhooks is highlighted and on the Building Apps for Slack page in the middle of the page the Incoming Webhooks option is highlighted

  1. Set Activate Incoming Webhooks to On via the slider.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Add New Webhook to Workspace.
  3. Select the Slack workspace where the messages should go (via the Search for a channel drop-down list) and click Allow to authorize the Slack app to post messages there.

After the app is created select the channel to post the app to from the drop-down list

  1. A new webhook is added to your bot. Near the bottom of the Incoming Webhooks page, locate and note the Webhook URL. You need the URL later when configuring your SmartFlow.

On the Webhook URLs for Your Workspace page the Webhook URL is highlighted, with a Copy button to the right

  1. Navigate to the SmartFlow receiving your inbound message.
  2. Add a new External Web Call.

A sample flow with three actions

  1. Click the action you placed on the board and configure as follows:
    • METHOD: POST
    • URL OF SERVICE: Enter your Slack webhook URL here
    • BODY: {“text”: “$ISMS_1.message”}
  2. SAVE and DEPLOY your updated flow.

Test Your Command

To test your saved and deployed flow, send an SMS message to the number assigned to your SmartFlow.