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Setting Up Slack Integration

Connect a Slack workspace to your Intercom workspace so messages from designated Slack channels become Intercom conversations and replies

Written by Tarek Khalil

What this integration does

Octopods’s Slack Community Support integration is for teams who run a community space in Slack — for example, a customer or developer community channel — and want every new Slack conversation to land in Intercom alongside their other support traffic.

When the integration is on:

  • Messages posted in the Slack channels you connect are pulled into your Intercom inbox as conversations.

  • Replies from Intercom post back into the Slack channel as a threaded reply, so the community member sees the response without leaving Slack.

  • Each new Slack thread becomes its own Intercom conversation, keeping the channel-level history searchable.

A note on Backreply

When you start the Slack setup in Octopods, the channel picker also surfaces Backreply as an option. Backreply is a separate Octopods sibling product that mirrors Intercom conversations into Slack for collaboration — it lives at app.backreply.com and is configured there, not inside Octopods. The walkthrough below covers the Slack Community Support option only, which is the Slack integration that lives inside Octopods.

Before you start

You need:

  • A Slack workspace where you have permission to install apps. Slack workspaces with admin approval requirements will require an admin to approve the installation.

  • The list of Slack channels you want to sync into Intercom.

  • Admin access to the Octopods workspace.

Step 1: Start the Slack channel setup

  1. Open the workspace you want to connect Slack to.

  2. Click the option to add a new channel.

  3. In the Add a Channel modal, select Slack under Popular Channels.

  4. The Slack picker opens with the prompt “Which Slack integration are you looking for?” and two options: Backreply and Slack Community Support.

Step 2: Pick Slack Community Support

Click Slack Community Support to start the Octopods setup.

(If you click Backreply instead, Octopods sends you to the Backreply sign-in flow at app.backreply.com — that product is configured outside Octopods.)

Step 3: Authorize with Slack

  1. A Slack window opens asking you to install the Octopods app into your Slack workspace.

  2. Review the permissions — Octopods needs to read messages from designated channels, post messages on behalf of users, and view basic profile information.

  3. Click Allow.

If your Slack workspace enforces admin approval, the admin will need to approve the install before you can continue. The status in Octopods will show as pending until that approval lands.

Step 4: Pick the Slack channels to sync

  1. Pick the Slack channels whose messages should flow into Intercom as conversations.

  2. Invite the Octopods bot user to each of those channels inside Slack (type /invite @Octopods in the channel). Without the invite, the bot can’t see messages.

  3. Save.

Community members in those channels become Intercom contacts automatically, so you get a searchable history of their participation across conversations.

Step 5: Confirm it’s working

  1. Post a message in one of the Slack channels you connected.

  2. A new conversation appears in Intercom for the Slack user.

  3. Reply from Intercom.

  4. The reply posts back into the original Slack channel as a threaded reply from the Octopods bot.

Common issues

  • “Octopods bot can’t see messages” — invite the bot to the Slack channel with /invite @Octopods.

  • Admin approval required — your Slack workspace is enforcing app approval. Ask a Slack workspace admin to approve the Octopods app install.

  • “Token revoked” — re-authorize through the channel’s reconnect action. Slack revokes tokens when the installing user leaves the workspace.

What’s next

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