Slack

Files.com can post notifications to Slack when actions occur in certain folders in your Files.com account. This lets anyone in a particular Slack channel know when files in the target folder are uploaded, downloaded, changed, copied, or moved.

Overview of Slack Integrations

Automatically sending messages to Slack from Files.com requires a Slack workspace administrator to create a custom app in your Slack workspace.

The custom app accepts incoming webhooks for a Slack channel that receives alerts. Each app can support multiple incoming webhooks, and each Slack channel's incoming webhook is unique.

Once the custom Slack app is configured for your Slack workspace, you can add a Slack Notification within your Files.com site.

When configuring notifications for Slack, provide the incoming webhook URL for the channel where messages should appear. Each Slack Notification sends to one configured URL, and a Slack incoming webhook URL is tied to one channel.

What Is Included in Slack Messages from Files.com

With immediate delivery, Slack messages describe each file or folder operation, with the available username and file size.

Creation messages identify the resulting file or folder path. This includes uploads and new files produced by TransformScript, document or image conversion, ad hoc GPG encryption or decryption, and ZIP extraction. For changes, downloads, and deletes, the message identifies the affected file. When a folder is created or deleted, no size is included for the folder itself, but each file in the folder is also reported with its size.

For copies and moves, the message includes the original path and the new path along with the username of the person who did it. File copies and moves include the size of the file. Moving a file or folder to a new name without changing the parent path shows up in Slack messages as Rename.

When a site-wide API key is used for the activity, no username is included because no user is associated with the activity.

When an Automation or Sync performs the activity, a temporary username representing the Automation or Sync is shown in the message.

Timing of Slack Messages from Files.com

Slack Notifications default to immediate delivery, sending a separate message within seconds of Files.com recording each matching operation. You can instead choose Subfolder Summaries to combine matching file operations after a period of inactivity. For changes made directly on remote storage, notification timing follows detection by a Remote Metadata Index scan.

Subfolder Summaries

When a vendor or client uploads many files at once, a separate message for every operation can make the channel difficult to follow. Set Message delivery to Subfolder summary to receive counts grouped by the watched folder's first-level subfolders. A message such as Uploads/ACME: 10 uploaded, 2 deleted includes activity in deeper folders such as Uploads/ACME/Photo ID. Files directly in Uploads contribute to a separate summary named Uploads.

The notification's folder scope and selected actions determine which file operations contribute. Folder operations are excluded. Counts represent operations rather than distinct files, so repeated operations on one file can contribute more than once. Uploads and updates both count as uploaded. Summaries do not list filenames.

Send after inactivity accepts 15–300 seconds and defaults to 60 seconds. Each subfolder's summary sends after that period without new matching file activity; new matching activity restarts its inactivity period. A shorter period alerts the team sooner but can split an upload into more messages. A longer period groups activity across longer pauses and delays the alert. Continuous activity is summarized after a maximum of 10 minutes of collection, with later activity starting another summary.

For an Inbox that separates submissions into subfolders, this keeps each submission folder's activity together in the channel. The inactivity period does not confirm that a submission is complete: a pause during uploading, activity beyond the 10-minute cap, or later uploads can produce additional summaries for the same submission.

Configure a Slack App for Incoming Webhooks

A Slack workspace administrator must create the new custom Slack app in the Slack workspace.

After authentication, visit https://api.slack.com/apps. Add a new custom app and select From scratch to create a completely blank app with no enabled features. Supply an App Name, which will be displayed in the Slack messages that are generated by the integration.

After you create the app, access its basic setup, including credentials and display options at https://api.slack.com/apps/YOUR_APP_ID. Replace YOUR_APP_ID with the App ID shown on the page about your app. Customize the App icon, if desired.

Enable the Incoming Webhooks Feature for your app. Visit https://api.slack.com/apps/YOUR_APP_ID/incoming-webhooks? to activate incoming webhooks for your app. Add a new Webhook for each Slack channel where your app will post messages. An incoming webhook can post to only 1 channel. Note each Webhook URL and which Slack channel it maps to because it's needed for configuring the Slack Notification in your Files.com site.

Once you have the incoming webhook URL for the channel you want to notify, configuration on the Slack workspace is complete. No other features need to be enabled or configured for the custom app.

Treat your incoming webhook URL like secret information. Anyone who learns the URL can post messages to your Slack channel.

Test Your Incoming Webhook for Slack

You can verify that your incoming webhook is correctly configured using cURL to send a test message directly to the webhook. Replace YOUR_WEBHOOK_URL in the code below with your incoming webhook URL. If a message "Hello, World!" appears in your Slack channel, the setup is correct in your Slack workspace.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' 
 --data '{"text":"Hello, World!"}' YOUR_WEBHOOK_URL

Add the Slack Integration in Files.com

Now that you have an incoming webhook URL in your Slack workspace, you can complete the setup in your Files.com site. You must have administrator permissions for the folder to manage its Slack Notifications.

Create a new Slack Notification and supply the complete Webhook URL for the Slack channel that should receive messages. The URL must meet the webhook URL requirements below.

You must choose which folder's activity will generate messages for the Slack Notification.

By default, activity in the folder and its subfolders is included; you can change this to only activity directly in the selected folder. On a Remote Server Mount, remote creations and deletions also generate matching notifications when Remote Metadata Index detects them in scans after its initial baseline.

Messages will be sent regardless of the type of file activity by default. You can instead choose which types of activities generate messages. You can choose any combination of Create, Read, Update, Delete, Move or Copy.

Choose Immediately or Subfolder summary in Message delivery. Immediate delivery is the default; summary mode also uses the Send after inactivity setting described above. Changing delivery settings, selected actions, or folder scope discards pending summaries.

Webhook URL Requirements

Files.com sends webhook requests from its servers, so the destination must be reachable over the public internet. Use an HTTP or HTTPS URL that resolves to an allowed public IP address and uses port 80, 443, or a port above 1024. Private, loopback, and link-local addresses are not permitted, even if the URL works from your own computer or network.

Files.com validates the destination before saving the configuration. Malformed URLs, disallowed ports or addresses, and hostnames that cannot resolve prevent saving. These checks apply through the web interface, API, CLI, and SDKs in every Workspace. If an update fails validation, the previously saved configuration remains intact.

URL validation does not send a test HTTP request or require a successful response from the receiver. Files.com checks the destination again when sending each message. If the address no longer meets these rules, Files.com does not send the message to it.

The URL does not have to be issued by Slack. Files.com can send Slack-formatted messages to another permitted destination, so choose a destination you approve to receive the included file activity details.

A successful save does not establish that messages will appear in your Slack channel. To confirm delivery, perform one of the selected file actions in the configured folder and check for its message in the intended channel.

Slack Notification Rate Limits

The rate limit for Slack apps using incoming webhooks is generally 1 message per second per channel. Slack is primarily a communication tool for humans, so Slack allows infrequent bursts that exceed the rate limit.

A Slack Notification tied to a busy folder can exceed Slack's rate limits with immediate delivery. Subfolder Summaries reduce message volume without listing every filename, but Slack's limits still apply, including when many subfolders have activity at once. Narrow the selected actions or folder scope when the channel does not need all of that activity.

Common Failure Patterns

When a Slack Notification stops sending messages to your Slack channel, there are common things to check.

Send a test message directly to the webhook URL. If the message appears, Slack accepted that request. This helps isolate problems with the Slack app, but delivery from Files.com still depends on the notification settings and destination checks.

If the test message did not appear, check for configuration issues in Slack:

• Verify the Slack channel is not archived. Slack's incoming webhooks cannot post messages to an archived Slack channel.
• Verify that the custom Slack app still exists in your Slack workspace. This requires a Slack workspace administrator to access the listing of custom apps at https://api.slack.com/apps.
• Check that the webhook URL used for your Slack Notification is still defined in your custom Slack app.

If the test message appears in your Slack channel, check the settings on your Slack Notification. Confirm the folder scope (just the folder vs the folder tree) and the list of selected file operations match what you expect. Check that the History listing for your folder shows activity that would have triggered the Slack Notification.