Invite the Productlane bot to a customer Slack Connect channel and its messages become threads you can manage, reply to, and link to Linear.
Slack needs the Pro plan or above, and a workspace admin to connect it.
Where to find it
Settings > Integrations > Slack.
Set it up
New to Productlane? Sign in or start a free trial at https://productlane.com/login, then open Settings > Integrations > Slack.
Click Connect and authorize Productlane in Slack.
Invite the Productlane bot to each customer Slack Connect channel you want synced.
Under Options, pick a Notifications channel, choose how long messages group into one thread under Message grouping, mute any channel that should not create threads, or require a tag on a message before it creates one.
Turn on Thread auto-replies to have the bot answer in Slack threads based on your office hours. To let the AI agent answer in Slack, turn on Slack under Deploy in the Productlane Agent settings.
Set up your own alerts under Personal Slack notifications.
Open Welcome messages at the end of Options to greet people who join your shared channels or your Slack workspace. The Channel welcome card has a switch and a message editor, and its Insert variable menu adds
{name},{channel}, or{workspace}.
Everything saves as you change it.
What syncs
Messages and threads in Slack Connect channels where the bot is present sync into Productlane. Replies you send from Productlane appear in Slack, replies in Slack come back, and threads can be linked to Linear issues.
Emoji reactions
Reactions sync both ways. A reaction on a Slack message shows on that message in the Productlane thread, whether a customer or a teammate added it. When a teammate reacts to a message in Productlane, the same reaction appears on it in Slack. Removing a reaction on one side removes it on the other.
When the Linear issue linked to a Slack thread is completed, Productlane adds a ✅ reaction to the customer's message in Slack.
Sending reactions to Slack needs the
reactions:writepermission. Workspaces connected before it was added keep their old permissions until you reconnect Slack.
Linear Asks
If your team runs Linear Asks in the same Slack channels Productlane syncs, Productlane links each Ask to its Slack thread. The thread timeline shows when Linear Asks created the issue and what the Linear Asks bot posted in Slack.
Choose what happens when the Ask's issue is done with the Linear Asks setting under Options:
Mark done (default) marks the thread done when the issue is completed or canceled.
Mark done and send close-loop reply also sends the close-loop follow-up to the customer.
Only link links the Ask to the thread.
How messages group into threads
The Message grouping setting under Options decides how a channel's top-level messages, meaning ones that are not already a reply inside a Slack thread, turn into threads.
You can also require a tag on a message before it opens a thread. Turn this on for a channel and Productlane only turns a message into a thread, or adds it to one, when it carries that tag; everything else stays as channel chatter Productlane leaves alone. This works alongside Message grouping, so a channel can keep a grouping window and still wait for the tag before acting.
Off, manual push only: no thread opens from channel chatter on its own. A message only starts a thread when a teammate pushes it by hand with Create thread anyway.
One per message: every top-level message opens its own thread right away.
30 minutes, 1 hour, or 24 hours (default 30 minutes): a top-level message either joins the channel's current open conversation or starts a new one. Timing decides which, rather than how long the conversation has been running.
A top-level message with nowhere to go opens a conversation that collects that channel's loose chatter.
That conversation stays open for more top-level messages as long as each new one arrives within the chosen window of the last message in the channel. The window counts from that last message, never from when the conversation started. A channel getting a message every 10 minutes stays in one conversation for as long as that pace holds.
The first Slack reply to any message in that window claims the conversation for its own thread. Every further reply inside that Slack thread stays attached to it, with no time limit.
A top-level message sent after the window closes starts a fresh conversation, even when the earlier one never got a reply.
Why did my Slack conversation split into two threads? More time passed between one top-level message and the next than your Message grouping window allows, so a second conversation opened. Once a Slack thread has a reply, its replies keep grouping together however much time passes.
When messages grouped into a thread, a row above the first joined message reads "N messages joined this thread, sent within" the grouping window. Click Why? to see which window applied and a Change link to the setting. Click Split to pick the joined messages that belong to a different topic and move them into a new thread. Each Slack reply under a moved message moves with it. The thread's first message and the message your team already answers in stay in the original thread. Both threads show a timeline event naming who moved the messages, with links to each thread. Viewers do not see Split.
Important notifications
Post important threads to their own channel, apart from the channel for new threads. In Settings → Integrations → Slack, pick a channel under Important notifications. When a teammate or a routine marks a thread as Important, Productlane posts the thread card there, once per thread.
Thread link previews
Paste a productlane.com/threads/ link into an internal Slack channel and Slack shows a card for the thread. The card has the thread number, title, status, assignee, customer, and the last message with its time. Linear issue text never appears on the card.
Click the card to open a side panel with recent messages, internal notes, linked issues, Reply, and Open in Productlane. The panel is for workspace members. Anyone else gets a sign-in prompt.
Slack shows a link preview to everyone in the conversation, Slack Connect channels included. Productlane shows no thread content in externally shared channels, in group DMs with external people, or in the message composer before you send.
Productlane only previews a thread when its workspace owns the Slack team that shared the link. Previews need the links:read and links:write Slack scopes. If your workspace connected Slack before these scopes existed, disconnect and reconnect Slack to grant them.
Whether the first message is included
When Productlane creates a thread from a Slack Connect channel, it looks at who posted the top-level message.
A customer posted it: the message comes in as the thread's first message.
A teammate posted it: it stays out, since chatter between teammates is not assumed to be a customer request.
When a teammate's message really is the start of a customer conversation, use Create thread anyway on it.
Filing a Slack thread under a company
A thread from Slack does not need a contact before you can file it under a company. Open the customer selector on the thread and search for the company directly. See Customers.
A teammate who writes in a thread with no contact becomes its contact until a customer writes. The thread shows that teammate instead of "No customer", without copying a company to it. The first customer to write replaces the teammate and brings their company when the thread has none. A Slack user whose email matches a Productlane member counts as a teammate. Existing threads update on their next message.
Notifications stopped arriving in a channel
Work through these in order.
Check the Notifications dropdown under Options. Set to Disable, or pointing at a different channel, sends notifications nowhere or somewhere unexpected.
Check Muted channels on the same page. A muted channel never receives new-thread messages, feature requests included.
Confirm the bot is still in the channel. If it was removed, or the channel was archived, renamed, or deleted, Slack stops delivering quietly. Re-invite it, or pick a new channel.
Confirm the workspace is still connected. A Connected badge sits next to the Slack title. A Connect button instead means the workspace was disconnected, manually or by revoking the Slack app.
Look for the update banner. A "Slack Integration Update Required" banner means the workspace is on the old integration. Disconnect from the banner, then reconnect.
Confirm the plan. Below Pro, the page shows an upgrade prompt and nothing is sent until you upgrade and reconnect.
Check the thread exists. Confirm the message created a thread in your Productlane inbox. If it did not, the problem is in the channel setup above, not in notifications.
If all of that checks out, disconnect and reconnect Slack. That rebuilds the OAuth connection and the channel permissions from scratch.
Good to know
The integration is built around Slack Connect, so invite the bot to customer-facing channels.
The Slack bot is custom branded with your workspace logo and workspace name.
The legacy Slack integration is no longer supported. Disconnect and reconnect to move to the current one.
When Slack access is revoked from the Slack side, the workspace shows a "New threads are no longer posted to Slack" banner, and every admin gets a one-time notification.
When the Slack card shows "Reconnect Slack to turn on the latest Slack features", click Reconnect to grant the permissions added since you connected.
AI replies
Productlane's AI agent can draft and send replies. AI answers can be inaccurate, so review them before relying on them. You decide under Deploy in the Productlane Agent settings whether the agent answers in Slack.
Privacy
How we collect, store and delete data is described in our privacy policy: https://productlane.com/legal/privacy. Questions about security go to [email protected].