Planning Your Slack Channels and Notifications

Slack notifications put new demand and product progress where your teams already work. Sent everywhere, they become noise. This guide covers setup, every notification type and filter, splitting channels by audience and signal, a starter layout, and keeping feedback private.

Connect Slack and add a channel

The UserVoice app connects your Slack workspace once. After that, each channel gets its own configuration: which forums and categories it hears about, and which events it posts.

1. In Settings, open Integrations and choose Slack.
2. Select Add to workspace and approve the UserVoice app in Slack. If your workspace requires approval for new apps, a Slack admin approves it.
3. Under your workspace, select Add channel. The Send events to Slack form opens.
4. Under Channel, search for the channel. Use the refresh button if a new channel is missing.
5. Under Include events from, choose the forums and categories this channel covers.
6. Under Events, check the notification types this channel posts, then select Save.

• Who sets it up: admins with access to Settings, not view-only admins or contributors.
• Private channels: invite the UserVoice app to the channel in Slack first, and be a member yourself to choose it. Public channels need no invite.
• One configuration per channel. A channel that's already set up doesn't appear in the list again. Edit its configuration instead.

What it looks like

The notification types

Nine events can post to a channel. Check only what the channel's audience acts on. Volume is our estimate.

• No double posts. An idea created from the browser extension or Zendesk posts once, as New feedback.
• Bulk changes post one summary. Updating or merging many ideas at once posts a single message with the count.
• Reactions need words. A thumbs up or down with no comment doesn't post.

What a message shows

Each message has a first line with the event and who it's from, a quote, and an idea line with voters, accounts, revenue, and both statuses. Feedback adds the customer's account and the teammate who captured it.

UserVoice matches the person acting by their Slack email. If it doesn't match a UserVoice user, they see a permission message.

Filter by forum and category

Each channel listens to the forums and categories you choose under Include events from, and to the events you check. Those are the only two filters.

• Filter by product area with categories. If each product area is a category, each area's channel can follow just its categories.
• There's no filter for labels, statuses, accounts, or segments. To follow a set of ideas across areas, use a grid view or an idea list in the admin console instead.
• New forums aren't added automatically. When you create a forum, add it to the channels that should hear about it.
• NPS ignores the forum filter. A channel with New NPS® checked gets every response.

Split channels by audience and signal

Start from who reads the channel and what they do with it. Then pick the forums and events that serve that job.

• By audience. Each team acts on different events, as the table shows.
• By product area. One channel per area, so each product manager sees only their own demand.
• By signal type. New ideas, feedback, and comments need action. Status changes need awareness. Keep them apart.

A starter layout

Three kinds of channel cover most companies. Add more only when a team asks for its own.

• A small company can start with #uv-feedback (New ideas, New feedback, New comments, and Internal status updates) and #uv-shipped. Add an area channel when one product manager can't keep up.
• A large company can point triage at (No Category) in each forum, and add #uv-eng-[area] and #uv-shipped-[product] channels. Launch with a few channels and add more as teams ask.
• Keep public status updates out of triage. A status change is news, not work.

Keep channels useful

A channel works when the people in it act on what it posts, and everyone else stays out. Channels drift as teams, forums, and people change, so review them.

• Discuss in a thread, so the conversation stays with the idea and the channel stays scannable.
• Name channels the same way: one prefix, such as uv-, then the audience or area. Put the events and areas in the channel description.
• Use a channel for a team and personal alerts for yourself. Email notifications and Slack direct messages for mentions and assignments are set in My Notifications.

Keep feedback private

Channel notifications are written for your team. Treat every channel that gets them as internal.

• Share idea links with care. When someone pastes an admin console idea link in Slack, the preview shows the idea's accounts, revenue, and internal status. A portal link shows only what customers see. Paste portal links in shared channels.
• Use a private channel for sensitive areas, such as ideas tied to pricing, security, or unannounced work, and invite only the people who need them.
• Tell customers in your own words. Copy the public update text, not the Slack message, when you pass news to a customer.