In the Slack integration, any team member who has access to the chat channel can act as a live chat agent. Below we cover how agent assignment works, how to manage channels, and how Social Intents creates per-chat channels for organized conversations.
How Agents Work in Slack
Social Intents identifies agents by matching Slack user profiles to your account. When a team member responds to a chat in Slack:
- Social Intents looks up the Slack user by their user ID
- The user's email, display name, and profile photo are pulled from their Slack profile
- The agent's name and photo appear in the visitor's chat window
There is no separate agent provisioning step. If someone is in the Slack channel and responds to a chat, they are an agent.
The Default Channel
During setup, you select a default channel. This channel serves as the notification hub where all new chat invitations are posted. When a visitor starts a chat, a message appears in this channel with the visitor's name, the page they are on, and their initial message.
Common choices for the default channel:
#live-chat- A dedicated channel that all agents monitor#support- If your support team already uses this channel#sales- If the primary chat audience is sales leads
Changing the Default Channel
To change which channel receives chat notifications:
- Go to Chat Widgets, select your widget, and open the Settings tab (General section)
- In Route chats to Slack channel, select the new channel from the dropdown. Only channels the @livechat bot has been added to appear; click Refresh channels after adding it to a new channel
- Click Save changes
The same card has Reconnect Slack, which points this widget at a different Slack workspace without affecting your other widgets.
Conversation Routing: Channels vs. Threads
Social Intents gives you two ways to organize chat conversations in Slack. You can choose the mode that best fits your team's workflow.
Per-Chat Channels (Default)
By default, when a visitor starts a conversation, Social Intents automatically creates a new Slack channel dedicated to that single chat session. The channel name is based on the visitor's name (truncated to 21 characters if necessary).
This provides several benefits:
- Conversation isolation - Each chat is in its own channel, so multiple simultaneous conversations do not get mixed together
- Multiple agents - Several team members can join the per-chat channel and collaborate on the response
- Clean history - The full conversation transcript is contained in one place
- Automatic cleanup - When the chat ends, the channel is archived
Threaded Mode
Threaded Mode keeps all conversations as threaded replies in your inbound notification channel. Instead of creating a new channel for each chat, Social Intents posts a parent message to your notification channel and all visitor and agent messages are exchanged inside that thread.
Benefits of Threaded Mode:
- Fewer channels - Your Slack workspace stays clean without dozens of per-chat channels
- Centralized view - All conversations are visible in one channel as threads
- Faster for high volume - Teams handling many chats can scan threads quickly without switching channels
- No channel limits - Avoids hitting Slack workspace channel limits on busy teams
How to Enable Threaded Mode
- Go to Settings > Channels and expand Slack settings
- Under Conversation layout, select Threaded mode: keep each chat in a single thread in your inbound channel
- Click Save channel settings
The conversation layout applies to every widget connected to Slack. A third option, One channel per WhatsApp contact, gives each WhatsApp contact a permanent channel while website chats still get a channel per chat. See WhatsApp with Slack.
Which Should I Use?
| Use Case | Recommended Mode |
|---|---|
| Small team, low chat volume | Per-Chat Channels |
| Need multi-agent collaboration per chat | Per-Chat Channels |
| High chat volume, many concurrent chats | Threaded Mode |
| Want a clean Slack workspace | Threaded Mode |
| Slack workspace nearing channel limits | Threaded Mode |
Agent Features in Slack
Slash Commands
Social Intents provides slash commands that agents can use within chat channels:
| Command | What It Does |
|---|---|
/end | Closes the chat. In per-chat channel mode, archives the channel. In Threaded Mode, posts a closure message in the thread |
/transcript | Sends the full chat transcript to the visitor |
/chatbot | Invokes the AI chatbot to generate a response |
Agent Profile Information
Social Intents can show the agent's Slack profile photo and display name in the visitor's chat window. Configure this under Settings > Channels > Slack settings, which applies to every Slack-connected widget:
- Show agent Slack display names to visitors - Use the agent's Slack display name
- Show agent Slack profile photos to visitors - Show the agent's Slack photo in the chat widget
- Notify with @here when a new chat starts - Alert everyone active in the channel
- Send offline messages to Slack - Post offline form submissions to Slack too
File Sharing
Agents can share files through the chat. Social Intents supports file uploads up to 25 MB. Certain file types are blocked for security: executables (.exe), archives (.zip), scripts (.js, .py, .bat), and other potentially dangerous formats.
Multiple Widgets, Multiple Channels
You can create multiple widgets, each connected to different Slack channels:
- Widget A (marketing site) routes to
#sales-chat - Widget B (support portal) routes to
#support-chat - Widget C (product app) routes to
#product-help
Each widget maintains its own default channel, AI chatbot settings, and appearance configuration. To route chats from one widget to several channels by topic, add departments under the widget's Pre-chat form > Groups / departments (each department can send to its own channel), or use escalation routing.
WhatsApp Conversations in Slack
WhatsApp chats routed to a Slack-connected widget appear in Slack like website chats, and agents reply the same way. Replies to a WhatsApp broadcast show a one-time context line naming the broadcast and when it was sent. See WhatsApp with Slack.
Best Practices
- Use a dedicated channel - Do not use
#generalfor chat notifications. Create a channel specifically for live chat so notifications do not get lost in other discussions - Enable channel notifications - Make sure agents have notifications enabled for the default chat channel so they do not miss incoming chats
- Limit channel access - Only add team members who should handle chats. This prevents people from accidentally joining visitor conversations
- Use the /end command - Close chats properly with
/endto keep your channel list clean. Archived channels can be reopened if needed
Frequently Asked Questions
Do agents need Social Intents accounts?
No. Agents respond through Slack using their existing Slack accounts. The widget owner manages settings through the Social Intents dashboard.
What happens to the per-chat channel after the conversation ends?
In per-chat channel mode, the channel is archived. It remains in your Slack workspace and can be searched or unarchived if you need to reference the conversation later. In Threaded Mode, no channel is created, so the thread simply stays in your notification channel as a historical record.
Can I prevent certain Slack users from joining chats?
Use a private Slack channel as your default chat channel. Only members of that private channel will see incoming chat notifications.