Answer decisions from Slack | kanman documentation

kanman asks a person whenever a decision is not its to make. Those questions land in Decisions in the app. With Slack connected, each one is also posted to the team’s channel, with the options as buttons, so a tech lead can answer between two meetings.

What kanman posts

Message	When	Example
Decision with buttons	A decision for the team is waiting	“I need a decision: Path infra/alarms.tf is not allowed by policy Balanced.” Buttons: Allow once, Reject, plus Open in kanman
Weekly report	The team report of the week is ready	Stories shipped, runs, merge rate, cost per merged pull request, top blockers

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. See Policies, presets and authority levels for which decisions belong to which level.

Connect Slack

You need to be a workspace admin in kanman and allowed to install apps in Slack.

Open Settings > Slack and click Connect Slack.
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.
Back in kanman, under Team channels on the same page, pick a channel for each team and turn on Decisions and Weekly report as you like.
Invite the kanman app to each of those channels in Slack, for example with /invite @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.

Answer a decision

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 to the decision in the app (/decisions/<key>)

Click a button. The decision is recorded right away, the message is replaced by the outcome (“Allow once by Dana”) and the run continues. To add a note, for example why you reject something, answer in the app instead; the note helps kanman learn.

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 with a short command such as @kanman approve or @kanman reject dec-4h2k. Commands work in English and German, for example @kanman freigeben or @kanman ablehnen.

Screenshot coming soon Slack message from kanman with a decision, the recommendation and the buttons Allow once and Reject

Turn a thread into stories

When a requirement is being discussed in a thread in a team’s channel, mention kanman in it:

@kanman turn this thread into stories

kanman takes the thread as an intake request for the channel’s team, decides whether it is a work request, and replies with a link to the drafted stories. You review and approve them in the app, as with any other intake. Status questions ("@kanman what is the state of SBX-12?") get a short answer in the thread instead; nothing is written to the repository.

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 decisions stay in Decisions either way.
Decisions do not expire. Open ones stay in Decisions until someone answers.

In-app notifications

The Decisions badge in the navigation always shows the number of open decisions. New weekly team reports appear at the top of Decisions until you open them. See Teams.