Work with kanman in Slack and Microsoft Teams

kanman can be a member of your team’s conversations in Slack and Microsoft Teams: in channels, group chats and direct messages. People ask it what is going on, turn requests into story drafts and answer decisions without leaving the chat. Everything that changes something follows the same team rules as in the app.

Conversations are off for every team until a team admin turns them on. See Channel modes and guardrails for the switch and for how much kanman may say on its own.

Connect Slack

Slack is connected once per workspace, by an owner or admin, in Workspace settings > Connections (/<workspace>/settings/connections/slack), see Connections.

You need to be allowed to install apps in Slack. Slack and Microsoft Teams are part of the Team plan.

1. Open Workspace settings > Connections, open Slack, choose Sign in and save, then click Authorize. Only owners and admins can do this.
2. Choose the Slack workspace and confirm the permissions. kanman asks to read mentions of itself, post messages, read messages and channel names in channels it is invited to, look up members by email, and send direct messages.
3. Back in kanman, open each team’s Team > Connections > Chats. Add the team’s channel under Channels and turn on its Decisions and Weekly report chips as you like.
4. Invite the kanman app to each of those channels in Slack, for example with /invite @kanman.

Slack’s page then shows Authorized as your Slack workspace. Test connection checks that kanman still reaches it; when Slack stops accepting kanman, the page says so and offers Reconnect. A team posts only in the channels it added; a team without one gets its decisions and reports in kanman.

Members are matched by email address. A person who answers in Slack must be a member of the kanman workspace with the same email; otherwise kanman replies, only to them, that it could not match their account and did nothing.

In Slack, kanman only sees channels it is a member of. Invite it to every channel it should take part in, for example with /invite @kanman. Then:

• mention it in a channel or thread (@kanman what is blocked right now?), or
• send it a direct message.

Connect Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is linked once per workspace, in two steps: your Teams admin makes the kanman app available, and a kanman owner or admin links the organization with a code.

1. Ask your Microsoft Teams admin to add the kanman app to your organization, from the app package kanman provides or from your organization’s app catalog.
2. In kanman, open Workspace settings > Connections (/<workspace>/settings/connections/microsoft_teams) and click Link. A panel opens with the steps and a link code; Copy puts the code on your clipboard. Only owners and admins can do this. The code is valid for 30 minutes.
3. In Microsoft Teams, send link CODE to kanman, with your code instead of CODE. You can send it in a direct message or mention kanman with it in a channel.

kanman confirms in the chat that the conversation now belongs to your workspace. Microsoft Teams’ page under Workspace settings > Connections then shows the connection as working. From then on, kanman remembers every team, channel, group chat and direct message it is added to. If a code has expired, open the panel again with Link again for a new one.

Does your organization want kanman to use a bot in your own Microsoft tenant instead? See Connect Microsoft Teams with your own bot.

Choose where each team talks

Connecting a chat app does not put kanman into any team’s conversations yet. Each team picks its own places:

1. Open the team, then Team, Connections, and open the line Chats, or ask kanman “Show me the channels” in the team’s chat.
2. Under Channels, click Add a place and pick a channel, group chat or direct message. For Slack, click Show Slack channels first.
3. Set the Listening mode for the place. Each mode in the list says in one line what kanman does in it. Mentions only is the default. See Listening modes.
4. Pick what kanman posts there with the chips under Posts here: for a Slack channel Decisions (with approve and reject buttons) and Weekly report, for a Microsoft Teams channel Decisions as cards.

In Slack, invite kanman to the channel before you add it. In Microsoft Teams, add kanman to the team or chat; the place then appears in the list. To take kanman out of a place again, remove it from the list.

So one place is both where kanman listens and answers and where it posts decisions and the weekly report (see Answer decisions).

A message in a place that no team has added gets a short reply that a team admin can add the conversation under Connections > Chats on the Team tab. kanman only acts for members of your kanman workspace; people are matched by the email address of their chat account.

What kanman does in chat

Answer questions about the team

Ask kanman what is in progress, why a run is parked, what is blocked or what an open decision is about. It answers briefly and links to the story, run or decision in the app. When the team has team context switched on, it also answers from your team’s documents and names its sources.

Ask What needs me?, for example in a direct message between two meetings, and kanman lists what waits for you in the team, story by story (“1 decision waits for you in Payments: PAY-42 Export invoices: Which sandbox account?”), with an Open button for each decision. The button opens the decision in kanman, where you answer it. When nothing waits, kanman says so and what is running.

Your direct messages with kanman also appear in your conversation in the app, marked via Slack or via Teams. When kanman answers “What needs me?” there, the decisions come along as cards, so you can answer them right in the app as well. You can turn this off under Your settings > Notifications.

Turn requests into story drafts

Describe a change you want, or ask kanman to turn a thread into stories. kanman runs intake on it and replies in the thread with the drafts and a link to review them. Stories from chat always stay drafts until a person who is allowed to turn chat into stories approves them, in the thread or on the draft review page the link opens beside the conversation in kanman. Who that is, is set in the team’s guardrails.

@kanman turn this thread into stories

Refine drafts in the thread

Reply in the thread to add details, correct a criterion or answer a question kanman asked. kanman adds what you said to the draft and confirms it in the thread.

Discuss priorities

Ask kanman which order it suggests for the backlog. It proposes an order with a short reason for each story. If you ask it to change the order, the team’s authority settings decide what happens: either kanman reorders the backlog and posts a short note, with an undo on the board, or it opens a decision with its recommendation.

Answer decisions

What kanman posts

Decisions are posted for every team whose channel has Decisions turned on, the report for every channel with Weekly report turned on. Actions kanman takes on its own are not posted; they are in the audit log.

In Slack

Each decision message shows:

• the question in one sentence and kanman’s reasoning
• kanman’s recommendation (“My recommendation: …”), and its button is highlighted
• the options as buttons; options that end or reject something are marked in red
• Open in kanman, a link that opens the team’s chat in the app, with the question pinned

Click a button. The decision is recorded right away, the message is replaced by the outcome (“Use the sandbox account by Dana”) and kanman continues. To add a note, for example why you chose an option, answer in the app or in the thread instead.

The answer counts exactly like an answer in the app: it is recorded in the audit log with your name, the option and the channel it came from (Slack). If someone answers in the app first, the Slack message is updated and its buttons disappear.

You can also answer in the decision’s thread: mention kanman and write your answer in your own words, for example @kanman use the sandbox account.

In Microsoft Teams

In Microsoft Teams, turn on the Decisions chip of a channel under Channels in Team > Connections > Chats; kanman then posts each decision for the team as a card: the story by key and title, what kanman asks, which option it recommends, and the options as buttons. An answer counts exactly like an answer in the app. Afterwards the card shows everyone in the channel which option was chosen and by whom (“Decided: Use the sandbox account (Paula)”), and Open the decision shows the answer in kanman, marked via Microsoft Teams.

Keep the channel useful

• Use one channel per team, so people only see decisions they can answer.
• Turn off Decisions for a channel if a team prefers to answer only in the app; the questions stay pinned in the app either way.
• Decisions do not expire. Open ones stay pinned in the app until someone answers.

Attribution, audit and language

Everything kanman posts is posted as kanman, the same single identity you see in the app. Every message is recorded in the audit log, together with the action it led to, and the Team tab shows the latest messages under What kanman said. kanman writes in the team’s language.

Related pages

• Connect Microsoft Teams with your own bot
• Channel modes and guardrails
• Team context and connectors
• Stories