A lot of the decisions and commitments in a working week never touch email. They get made in a Slack thread. If Slack is not connected, all of that is invisible to Brief.
Connecting Slack does three things. Brief reads the conversations you are part of, so what was decided in Slack shows up in your briefings next to everything else. You can DM Brief from Slack and ask it about your work. And you can have your daily briefing delivered to Slack as a DM.
Connect Slack
- In Brief, open Settings, Connections.
- Under Connect another account, choose Slack.
- Approve the request in Slack. You come back to the Connections page when it is done.
Connecting also adds the Brief app to your Slack workspace, which is what lets you talk to Brief there and get your brief as a direct message. The app is new with the updated Slack connector, so if you connected Slack to Brief before it arrived, connect it again the same way to get the app. If your workspace requires an admin to approve new apps, Slack asks for that approval first.
To open the app in Slack, go to Browse Apps, search for Brief, and select it. Watch the setup in a one-minute video.
What Brief reads
Brief reads the channels, direct messages and threads you take part in, plus your Slack Lists. It reads them the same way it reads your mail: to find the decisions, commitments and open questions in them and connect them to the people and meetings they belong to.
Ask Brief in Slack
Open the Brief app in Slack and go to its Messages tab. Ask anything you would ask in the app, such as what is waiting on you or what you should know before your next meeting.
Each thread is one conversation. Reply in the thread to follow up, and start a new message for a new topic.
Get your daily briefing in Slack
The Brief app's Home tab has a Daily briefing section:
- Send to Slack turns delivery on or off. When it is on, Brief sends your daily briefing as a DM.
- Time sets the time of day it is sent.
- Days sets which days of the week it comes.
The briefing in Slack does not replace the email. Each has its own settings, so you can keep both or turn the email off under Settings, Briefing & Actions. Reply in the briefing's thread to ask Brief about anything in it.
To get today's briefing again at any point, type /dailybrief.
Disconnecting
Remove the Slack account from Settings, Connections. Brief stops reading Slack and stops sending briefings there.