Create interactive surfaces with Slackbot

Use Slackbot to quickly and easily create detailed, interactive reports and dashboards called surfaces. Describe what you’d like to create, and let Slackbot do the work of searching your workspace (and any sources you’ve connected to Slack) and building a report with all of the relevant data and information. 

What to expect

• You can share surfaces with others in channels or direct messages (DMs). Anyone who can view a surface can add comments. 
• Along with presenting your data, surfaces will include a section with additional insights, key themes and trends, or recommended action items. What you’ll see there will be tailored to the surface’s content and how it’s being used. 

Create a surface

Describe what you’d like to create, and be sure to mention any data sources Slackbot should reference.

1. From your desktop, click   Slackbot at the top of the screen. 
2. Ask Slackbot to build a report or dashboard. It’ll use any relevant information in Slack you have access to, as well as data from connected sources (for example, MCP servers or enterprise search data sources). For example, “I need an interactive report showing Q2 customer support ticket volume broken down by week.”
3. Review what Slackbot creates. Share the surface if it’s good to go, or send a followup message with any changes you’d like to make.

Share a surface

Share your surfaces in channels, DMs, or anywhere else in Slack. To make a surface easy to find, add it as a tab in any conversation.

1. Open your surface. 
2. Click the  three dots icon in the top-right corner.
3. Click   Copy link, then share the link or add it as a tab in any conversation.

FAQs

What can I use surfaces for?

Almost anything — surfaces are a blank slate for sharing information in a visually interesting and interactive way. Try connecting your project management tool (like Jira or Linear) to Slack, then asking Slackbot to group all of the issues for a particular project by priority or assignee.

If you work in Sales and have connected Slack with Salesforce, try “Build me a dashboard of my sales pipeline by deal stage and my top opportunities.” Slackbot can generate a surface with a visualization of your pipeline and sortable list of opportunities.

Are surfaces a new type of file in Slack?

Yes, they are. You’ll soon be able to find them in Slack alongside all of your other files, and they’ll be retained according to the file retention settings in place for your workspace or Enterprise org. 

Can I set up a surface to update automatically?

Surfaces are static files and don’t currently pull in new data or reflect any changes. You can create a new surface using the same prompt to get the latest data.

Where can I find all of the surfaces I've created?

You'll soon be able to search for surfaces by their title or view them in the   Files browser. In the meantime, you can open your Slackbot history to search for any previous conversations where you created a surface. We also recommend keeping a list of links to your surfaces so you can find them again easily. 

Can I share surfaces in Slack Connect conversations?

Not right now, but stay tuned as we hope to add support for this functionality in the future.

Who can use this feature?

• All members with access to Slackbot
• Available on the new version of Business+ and Enterprise+ plans
• Available on the Business+ and Enterprise Grid plans with the legacy Slack AI add-on