Slack - Amazon Kendra
Supported featuresPrerequisitesConnection instructionsLearn more

Slack

Slack is an enterprise communications app that lets users send messages and attachments through various public and private channels. You can use Amazon Kendra to index your Slack public and private channels, bot and archive messages, files and attachments, direct and group messages. You can also choose specific content to filter.

You can connect Amazon Kendra to your Slack data source using the Amazon Kendra console and the SlackConfiguration API.

For troubleshooting your Amazon Kendra Slack data source connector, see Troubleshooting data sources.

Supported features

Amazon Kendra Slack data source connector supports the following features:

  • Change log

  • Field mappings

  • User context filtering

  • Inclusion/exclusion filters

  • Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Prerequisites

Before you can use Amazon Kendra to index your Slack data source, make these changes in your Slack and AWS accounts.

In Slack, make sure you have:

  • Created a Slack Bot User OAuth token or Slack User OAuth token. You can choose either token to connect Amazon Kendra to your Slack data source.

    Note

    If you use the bot token as part of your Slack credentials, you cannot index direct messages and group messages and you must add the bot token to the channel you want to index.

  • Noted your Slack workspace team ID from your Slack workspace main page URL. For example, https://app.slack.com/client/T0123456789/... where T0123456789 is the team ID.

  • Added the following [Oauth scopes/ read] permissions:

    • channels:history

    • channels:read

    • groups:history

    • groups:read

    • im:history

    • mpim:history

    • mpim:read

    • team:read

    • users.profile:read

    • users:read

    • emoji:read

    • files:read

    • usergroups:read

  • Checked each document is unique in Slack and across other data sources you plan to use for the same index. Each data source that you want to use for an index must not contain the same document across the data sources. Document IDs are global to an index and must be unique per index.

In your AWS account, make sure you have:

  • Created an Amazon Kendra index and, if using the API, noted the index ID.

  • Created an IAM role for your data source and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the IAM role.

  • Stored your Slack authentication credentials in an AWS Secrets Manager secret and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the secret.

    Note

    Be sure to regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security.

If you don’t have an existing IAM role or secret, you can use the console to create a new IAM role and Secrets Manager secret when you connect your Slack data source to Amazon Kendra. If you are using the API, you must provide the ARN of an existing IAM role and Secrets Manager secret, and an index ID.

Connection instructions

To connect Amazon Kendra to your Slack data source, you must provide the necessary details of your Slack data source so that Amazon Kendra can access your data. If you have not yet configured Slack for Amazon Kendra see Prerequisites.

Console

To connect Amazon Kendra to Slack

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Kendra console.

  2. From the left navigation pane, choose Indexes and then choose the index you want to use from the list of indexes.

    Note

    You can choose to configure or edit your User access control settings under Index settings.

  3. On the Getting started page, choose Add data source.

  4. On the Add data source page, choose Slack connector, and then choose Add data source.

  5. On the Specify data source details page, enter the following information:

    1. In Name and description, for Data source name—Enter a name for your data source. You can include hyphens but not spaces.

    2. (Optional) Description—Enter an optional description for your data source.

    3. In Language, for Default language—A language to filter your documents for the index. Unless you specify otherwise, the language defaults to English. Language specified in metadata overrides selected language.

    4. In Tags, for Add new tag—Tags to search and filter your resources or track your AWS costs.

    5. Choose Next.

  6. On the Define access and security page, enter the following information:

    1. Slack workspace team ID—The team ID of your Slack workspace.

    2. AWS Secrets Manager secret—Choose an existing secret or create a new Secrets Manager secret to store your Slack authentication credentials. If you choose to create a new secret an AWS Secrets Manager secret window opens.

      1. Enter following information in the Create an AWS Secrets Manager secret window:

        1. Secret name—A name for your secret. The prefix ‘AmazonKendra-Slack-’ is automatically added to your secret name.

        2. For Slack token—Enter the authentication credential values you created in your Slack account.

      2. Choose Save.

    3. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—You can choose to use a VPC. If so, you must add Subnets and VPC security groups.

    4. IAM role—Choose an existing IAM role or create a new IAM role to access your repository credentials and index content.

      Note

      IAM roles used for indexes cannot be used for data sources. If you are unsure if an existing role is used for an index or FAQ, choose Create a new role to avoid errors.

    5. Choose Next.

  7. On the Configure sync settings page, enter the following information:

    1. Select type of content to crawl—The Slack entities or content types you want to crawl.

    2. Change log—Select to update your index instead of syncing all your files.

    3. Regex patterns—Regular expression patterns to include or exclude certain files. You can add up to 100 patterns.

    4. Select crawl start date—What date Amazon Kendra will start crawling your data from.

    5. In Sync run schedule, for Frequency—How often Amazon Kendra will sync with your data source.

    6. Choose Next.

  8. On the Set field mappings page, enter the following information:

    1. For Slack field mappings—Select from the Amazon Kendra generated default data source fields you want to map to your index.

    2. Add field—To add custom data source fields to create an index field name to map to and the field data type.

    3. Choose Next.

  9. On the Review and create page, check that the information you have entered is correct and then select Add data source. You can also choose to edit your information from this page. Your data source will appear on the Data sources page once it is added successfully.

API

To connect Amazon Kendra to Slack

You must specify the following using SlackConfiguration API:

  • Slack workspace team ID—The Slack team ID you copied from your Slack main page URL.

  • List of entities to index—Whether Amazon Kendra should index your public and private channels, and your group and direct messages.

  • Crawl date—The date to start crawling your data from your Slack workspace team. The date must follow this format: yyyy-mm-dd.

  • Secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN)—Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a Secrets Manager secret that contains the authentication credentials for your Slack account. The secret is stored in a JSON structure with the following keys:

    {
    "slackToken": "token"
}
    Note

    Be sure to regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security.

  • IAM role—Specify RoleArn when you call CreateDataSource to provide an IAM role with permissions to access your Secrets Manager secret and to call the required public APIs for the Slack connector and Amazon Kendra. For more information, see IAM roles for Slack data sources.

You can also add the following optional features:

  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—Specify VpcConfiguration as part of the data source configuration. See Configuring Amazon Kendra to use a VPC.

  • Change log—Whether Amazon Kendra should use the Slack data source change log mechanism to determine if a document must be added, updated, or deleted in the index.

    Note

    Use the change log if you don’t want Amazon Kendra to scan all of the documents. If your change log is large, it might take Amazon Kendra less time to scan the documents in the Slack data source than to process the change log. If you are syncing your Slack data source with your index for the first time, all documents are scanned.

  • Inclusion and exclusion filters—Specify whether to include or exclude certain public and private channels, group and private messages, and bot and archived messages. If you use a bot token as part of your Slack authentication credentials, you must add the bot token to the channel you want to index. You cannot index direct messages and group messages using a bot token.

    Note

    Most data sources use regular expression patterns, which are inclusion or exclusion patterns referred to as filters. If you specify an inclusion filter, only content that matches the inclusion filter is indexed. Any document that doesn’t match the inclusion filter isn’t indexed. If you specify an inclusion and exclusion filter, documents that match the exclusion filter are not indexed, even if they match the inclusion filter.

  • Field mappings—Choose to map your Slack data source fields to your Amazon Kendra index fields. For more information, see Mapping data source fields.

  • User context filtering—Amazon Kendra crawls the Access Control List (ACL) for your data source by default. The ACL information is used to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. For more information, see User context filtering for Slack data sources.

Learn more

To learn more about integrating Amazon Kendra with your Slack data source, see: