AppSheet and Slack Integration for Project Management

[BestSolarNow]

I saw someone post this in a Reddit forum and it sums up what I am looking to do for an AppSheet/Slack integration. I'm trying to figure out the best way to make an open message conversation for each of the projects in our project management section of the app that has all our jobs. 

Lets say I built a project management app in Google AppSheet and my vision is to run it on the left half of the screen and slack on the right side of the screen, Slack being used to channelize internal communication for each project. Google AppSheet is setup to call Slack Webhooks. Here is my list of requirements so far and relevant info I've found.

1. From each project in my app, I can click a button and call a Webhook to create a slack channel for that project. I will use project name and project create date for the slack channel name. https://api.slack.com/methods/conversations.create

2. When a user in AppSheet chooses a project that has a Slack channel associated, my slack client changes to that channel. https://api.slack.com/reference/deep-linking#client

3. Being able to send messages and view messages through the AppSheet app for the associated project. 

When I research Slack incoming Webhook, https://api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks, I'm finding that they are for a specific channel.

[Jonathon]

Webhooks are outgoing - e.g. slack would send a webhook to other external services on a schedule or under certain conditions.

For what you are trying to do, you will have to use the slack API (which, I think, is only accessible via a custom slack app).

The API gives an endpoint for other services (AppSheet) to send data, amongst other things.

[BestSolarNow]

Okay so you are saying I would have to use slacks own API to create a chat feature in AppSheet?

Just confused on how that would look. Not sure I how someone has done this before. 

[Jonathon]

Correct.

For what you described, you would use an AppSheet automation bot to send the request to Slack. Or, if AppSheet isn't capable of building the request directly (could be the case depending on the services authentication requirements), you could use the new Google App Script integration.

Its probably easier for you to prototype this using a tool like Postman and then port it to AppSheet after. AppSheet obfuscates a lot of the useful response / error messages.

[hanndean]

I’ve been exploring project management integrations myself lately, though I’m coming at it from a slightly different angle—looking into tools like AppSheet alongside frameworks like TOGAF® for enterprise architecture. (By the way, if you’re curious about TOGAF®, I came across a useful course here: https://www.advisedskills.com/ . I think your idea of linking AppSheet with Slack is super creative and would really streamline project-specific communication. I especially like the concept of auto-generating Slack channels for projects—this keeps things organized and avoids the typical mess of scattered communication. One thing I’m curious about is how you plan to manage message syncing.