Connecting to Slack from App Connect Enterprise as a Service

How to generate an access token for Slack

The Slack process to generate an access token involves the following steps. Some steps can be completed in several ways, but were tested with the methods described.

1. In your web browser, sign in to your Slack account: https://slack.com/signin
2. In the web browser, open the Your Apps page https://api.slack.com/apps
3. Create an app to get a client ID and client secret. If you already have a suitable app, you can use the client ID and client secret from that app.
   To create a new app, complete the following steps:

   1. Click Create an App
   2. Specify the following parameters:
      • App Name: Type a name to help you identify and manage the app.
      • Development Slack Workspace: Select a workspace that the app is to be associated with.
   3. Click Create App

      This opens the Basic information tab for the app

   4. Define the redirect URL to be used by the authorization process:
      1. Click the OAuth & Permissions menu option
      2. Click Add New Redirect URL
      3. Specify the URL https://www.google.com
      4. Click Add, and then click Save URLs

   Click the Basic Information menu option to return to the Basic information tab, then scroll down to the App Credentials section, from where you can copy the client ID and client secret.

4. Use the client ID to get an authorization code (to authorize what App Connect can do with your Slack account)
   Tip:

   • An authorization code expires 10 minutes after it has been obtained, so be prepared to complete the last step within 10 minutes.
   1. Copy the following link, and then replace <client_id> with the client ID from the previous step.

      https://slack.com/oauth/authorize?response_type=code&state=123456789&client_id=<client_id>&redirect_uri=https://www.google.com&access_type=offline&scope=identify,channels:read,users:read,users:read.email,chat:write:bot,im:read,mpim:read,files:write:user,files:read,groups:read,usergroups:read,chat:write:user,im:write,mpim:write,search:read

   2. Copy the link with your client ID and then open that link in a web browser tab/window.

      If you see a panel to authorise the app, click Allow

      This changes the address of the browser tab/window to the following:

      https://www.google.com/?code=<Code>&state=123456789

      where <Code> is the authorization code.
5. Use the client ID, client secret, and authorization code to get the access token
   Tip:

   • An authorization code expires 10 minutes after it has been obtained, so be prepared to complete this step within 10 minutes of completing the last step.
   • An authorization code can be used only once, so if you encounter a problem in this step (for example, an "internal_error" from Slack) you can repeat the previous step to get an new authorization code.

   To get an access token, you submit a POST request with the client ID, client secret, and authorization code to https://slack.com/api/oauth.access. The following example makes use of curl, but instead you can use your preferred REST client with the following parameters:

   Parameter	Description
   POST	https://slack.com/api/oauth.access
   Form Fields	Value
   grant_type	authorization_code
   client_id	Obtained in step 1
   client_secret	Obtained in step 1
   redirect_uri	https://www.google.com
   code	Code value copied from address bar at step 3

   Curl command syntax:

   curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -d "grant_type=authorization_code&code=<code>&redirect_uri=https://www.google.com&client_id=<client_id>&client_secret=<client_secret>" https://slack.com/api/oauth.access

   1. Copy and edit the example curl command, replacing the variables <code>, <client_ID>, and <client_secret> with your own values obtained in previous steps.
   2. Run the curl command. The response includes the access_token value.
      Example response:

      {"ok":true,"access_token":"yoyp-118877537665-...-81505cf4d20985f7ec5992f2bb352855","scope":"identify,channels:read,files:read,groups:read,im:read,mpim:read,search:read,users:read,users:read.email,usergroups:read,chat:write:user,chat:write:bot,files:write:user,im:write,mpim:write","user_id":"U41AA1W4A","team_id":"T2GRTFRUT","enterprise_id":null,"team_name":"AC Content"}

   Copy the access_token value for use in App Connect when connecting to Slack