Add Bob to Slack. Hand him a first job.

1. Add Bob to Slack

Press Add Bob to Slack and approve him on Slack’s own page. The person who installs Bob becomes the first admin of your HeyBob workspace. The security page lists the permissions Slack asks you to approve and why he needs each one.

2. Answer his first question

Bob sends the person who installed him a direct message. He says hello, says he is reading up on your company, and promises to post what he finds in that same thread. Then he asks which channels he should join.

• Pick channels from the list, or choose Just the ones I’m invited to.
• The list holds your public channels only. He joins just the ones you pick.
• For a private channel, open it, type /invite, and pick Bob from the list.

Whenever he is added to a channel, he introduces himself to the team and asks how you work there. Answer him. What he learns about the channel is saved as a note for that channel.

3. Give him a first job

In a channel he is in, type @HeyBob and say what you want. In a direct message, just write. If you ask inside a thread, he answers in that thread. A new message in a channel gets his answer in the channel, with you tagged.

He can start before you connect anything. In his first hello, Bob offers three things that need no setup:

• Ask him for a deck or a doc on anything.
• Tell him to post a standup nudge in the channel every weekday at 7:30.
• Ask him what a task cost, right after he finishes it.

Once he is working in a thread, whoever asked for the latest job there can reply without mentioning him again. Anyone else in the thread needs to @mention him.

4. Connect an app when a job needs one

Ask for the work. If Bob needs an app he does not have yet, he offers a Connect button. Sign in once and he picks the job back up. If it has been over an hour since Bob asked you to connect, say retry. How connecting apps works.

Good to know in the first week

• Your checklist. Open Bob’s Home tab in Slack. It lists five steps: connect an app, give Bob a first task, tell him something worth remembering, invite him to a channel, and put something on a schedule. It goes away once you have done them all.
• Free credits. Every new workspace starts with free credits, and Bob tells you how many in his first message. How credits work.
• Edits do not rerun. If you edit a message after sending it, Bob tells you he does not rerun from edits. Send it again as a new message.
• Adding to a job in progress. If you send more while he works, he folds it into the job. If someone else writes in your thread while he is busy, he asks them to send it again after he replies.
• Stopping a job. The person who asked can say stop in the thread. They, or any admin, can press Stop on his progress message.
• Guests. People from other companies in a shared channel get a polite no. Bob works for your team.