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 in Workspace settings > Connections (/<workspace>/settings/connections), on the Chat card, see Connections. The steps are in Answer decisions from Slack.

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.

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.
In kanman, open Workspace settings > Connections (/<workspace>/settings/connections) and, on the Microsoft Teams row of the Chat card, 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.
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. The Microsoft Teams row on Workspace settings > Connections then shows Linked, since when, and how many places kanman knows. 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.

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:

Open the team, then Settings, Chat and mentions, or ask kanman “Show me the channels” in the team’s chat.
Under Channels, click Add a place and pick a channel, group chat or direct message. For Slack, click Show Slack channels first.
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.
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 from Slack). If decisions and reports still go to a Slack channel that is not one of the team’s places, the page says so and offers to add it.

A message in a place that no team has added gets a short reply that a team admin can add the conversation under Chat and mentions in the team settings. 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: Approve the plan?”), 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.

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

Decisions can be answered from chat, as described in Answer decisions from Slack. In Microsoft Teams, turn on the Decisions chip of a channel under Channels in Chat and mentions; 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: Approve plan (Paula)”), and Open the decision shows the answer in kanman, marked via Microsoft Teams.

kanman’s brief, notes and summary

On a team where kanman handles the questions itself, the decisions channel gets the team’s day the way the app shows it: the brief as one message with a button per option (updated in place when someone answers, in the channel, the app or an agent), kanman’s notes about each goal as replies under one message per goal and day, and the evening summary as one message. Questions that are in the brief do not come as separate decision messages. Only members who may change the team can answer; in a shared channel, people from another company cannot. See The same account wherever you work.

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 settings show the latest messages under What kanman said. kanman writes in the team language set under Chat and mentions.