Connecting Bold BI to Slack data source

The Bold BI dashboard designer supports connecting to Slack web services through the REST API.

Choose Slack data source

To configure the Slack data source, follow the below steps:

  1. Click on the Data Sources button in the configuration panel to add a new data connection.

    Data source icon

  2. Click CREATE NEW to launch a new connection from the connection panel.

  3. Select the Slack connection in the connection panel.

    Choose data source

NOTE: You can also create a data source from the home page by clicking on the Data Sources menu on the left menu panel and selecting Create Data Source from the data sources page.

Choose data source from server

Create Slack data source

Once you click on the data source, the NEW DATA SOURCE configuration panel will open. Follow the below steps to create Slack data source.

  1. Enter a name and description (optional) for the data source.
  2. Choose The Extract Engine.
  3. Click on the API Endpoints down drop box and choose the required endpoint.
  4. Enter a valid REST API endpoint in the URL textbox. Refer to the Slack API documentation for more details.
  5. Click on Custom Url to enter the URL manually.
  6. Select the GET method for the REST API in the Method combo box.
  7. Select a time interval for Refresh Settings using the drop-down menu to periodically trigger the REST API request to keep the data in sync with our dashboard.
  8. Select JSON data type in the Data Format combo box.
  9. The authentication type will automatically be set to Slack since OAuth is used for authenticating with the Slack account.

Data source preview

Extract Engine

You can connect to the data source using one of the following extract methods:

  • Bold BI Extract: Data will be extracted and managed directly within Bold BI.

  • Data Hub: Data extraction is handled through the Data Hub. An equivalent pipeline is created, utilizing the Data Hub’s Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) capabilities to filter, optimize, or transform the data, and to generate new tables.

  • To view the equivalent pipeline created for data extraction, navigate to the Query Designer page and click on View Pipeline.

    Refresh Setting

  • When the data refresh is configured for data sources that uses the Data Hub Extract Engine, the refresh will be managed within the Data Hub.

You can also edit the connection information set here using the Edit Connection option.

Additional information

Refresh Settings The period of time before the next refresh call is triggered. This will automatically trigger a call to the API configured in the data source to keep the data up to date.

Sample queries

User conversations

https://slack.com/api/users.conversations

Channels Groups

https://slack.com/api/channels.list

Preview and data import

  • Click Preview & Connect to connect with the configurations that have been set.

  • The Choose Schema(s) dialog opens. The schema represents the key fields of JSON data retrieved from Slack Rest API request. This dialog displays a list of schemas in a treeview and its corresponding values in grid for preview. Select required schema(s) from treeview to use in designer and click Connect.

    Preview

  • Now, the data design view page with the selected table schema opens. Drag and drop the table. Query Editor

  • Click Save to save the data source with a relevant name.

Connected accounts for OAuth data sources

If you have already logged into the account and authenticated with the web data source, the account information will be listed here. You can select one of the accounts or connect to a new account by clicking the Connect New Account button.

OAuth

You can edit, delete and re-authorize this account from the Connected Accounts page.

Manage Accounts

Data Transformation

Editing a Data Connection

Dashboard Designer Walkthrough