Setup the Slack Premium Integration

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With Showcase IDX, you can use a Premium integration to send leads and their search activity to Slack.

A couple key things to note before we walk through Slack and how to set up the integration

If you don't see the Integrations tab, that means you are not an Admin on the account. Only Admins can add integrations. Contact your account Admin to help with your integration setup

The Slack integration is a Premium feature. If your green button doesn't say "Add", it will say "Upgrade" instead. You would need to upgrade your account in order to use the Slack integration.

What is Slack?

Slack is a messaging program designed specifically for the workplace. Developed by American software company Slack Technologies and now owned by Salesforce, Slack offers many IRC-style features, including persistent chat rooms organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging.

Set Up the Slack Integration

Setting up the integration is super easy and only takes a few steps. 

  1. In your IDX Control Panel, navigate to the Integration tab. Scroll the page until you find the line that says Slack and click the green "Add" button.

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  2. The next part takes place within Slack. It's a good idea to have a specific channel in mind before proceeding. Visit the Slack Help Centerto learn how to create a channel. For these instructions, we're using a private channel called #slack-integration, as shown below.

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  3. In your Slack account, click on your workspace name, then "Administration" and then choose "Manage Apps".

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  4. On the page in your browser that pulls up, enter "Incoming WebHooks" into the search bar. Select the option that matches. 

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  5. Click "Add to Slack" on the application page.

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  6. Now we'll choose the channel to post our events to. Use the dropdown to find your preferred channel or type in the channel name to find it quickly, then click the green "Add Incoming WebHooks integration" button.

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  7. This will post an update to your slack channel that an integration has been added. This is good!

  8. Copy the WebHook URL from the page but don't close the page yet.

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  9. Hop over to your IDX Control Panel and paste the URL in the input box labeled "Web Hook".

    Next, name your integration. It doesn't really matter what you name it.

    Select an integration level. There are three options to choose from:

    1. Account Level: all events for leads from all websites and users
    2. Website Level: all events for leads for a specific website on the account
    3. User Level: all events for leads for a specific user on the account

    Lastly, select the types of events you would like notifications for in the channel. Then click the blue "Save" button.

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  10. Clicking "Save" will send a test ping to your slack channel. This confirms that your integration is working.

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  11. If you go back to the page where you copied the WebHook URL from, you can further customize the settings of the integration. There are options to include message attachments, customize the bot appearance, etc. You'll want to consult the Slack Help Center for support with these items. 

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And that's it! If your IDX is installed on your website, you can run some tests to see how the integration works!

Slack Events

There are several types of events that can post to Slack. Each event shares information that helps you know more about the leads that register on your website.

  • This event triggers every time a lead registers on your website. The name of the lead will be a hyperlink to their lead profile page in your IDX Control Panel.

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  • This event triggers every time a lead sends a message on your website (like through a contact form, market value form, ask a question form or schedule a tour form on a listing page). There are three hyperlinks for a message event: Lead name (lead profile page), message text (links to the message in the IDX Control Panel) and the address (links to your website).

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  • This event triggers every time a lead views a listing. The name of the lead is a hyperlink to the lead profile page, and the address of the property is a hyperlink that links to your website.

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  • This event triggers every time a lead saves a listing. The name of the lead is a hyperlink to the lead profile page, and the address of the property is a hyperlink that links to your website.

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  • This event triggers every time a lead hides a listing. The name of the lead is a hyperlink to the lead profile page, and the address of the property is a hyperlink that links to your website.

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  • This event triggers every time a lead subscribes to a search. The name of the lead is a hyperlink to the lead profile page, and the name of the search is a hyperlink that links to that search on your website.

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  • This event triggers every time a lead reacts to a listing. The name of the lead is a hyperlink to the lead profile page, and the name of the search is a hyperlink that links to that search on your website. We also post the emoji that accompanies the reaction. This example shows that the lead loved the listing.
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  • There are two types of comment events: Private comment and Agent Visible comment. In both cases, the lead's name is hyperlinked to their lead profile page and the address that they left a comment on is hyperlinked to the website.

    Private comments are comments that leads can make that can be shared with members of their search party (See Friends & Family) The lead doesn't want the agent to know what the comment on the listing is, but the agent can still know that they left a comment.

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    Agent Visible comments are comments that send a notification to the assigned agent. The lead wants the agent to know what the comment is and the agent could reply back.

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Slack Integration Example

Many agents and Showcase IDX web partners have had success using Slack in their workflow automations, to capture the activities of leads to send those activities to an application of their choice through Zapier.

Slack sort of works like a middleware service (similar to Zapier). The Slack integration provides much more detail about a lead's activity than any other integration. (See Slack Events above)

It doesn't have to be complicated. You can feed all lead activities into just 1 slack channel and have each slack event perform a different task in your application of choice. This may require some advanced technical knowledge in building custom zaps, but can make a world of a difference with task automation.

An example of a task would be whenever a lead requests a showing, a call center gets the forwarded request. The agent received a notification then follows up instantly to schedule the showing. 

The options are limitless, and the setup of the integration will be entirely dependent on your company setup and how you like to work.

While it's not officially supported, some partners have used the Slack integration in this exact way to pull information into a custom CRM they have built. Slack's easy ability to integrate with and our integration with them, it can be used in place of a direct API with us which could take weeks or even months to build out. 

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