Chatbot News

Top 11 Bots for Slack Integrations in 2021

Slack is a growing platform for productivity and entertainment bots. Learn about 11 popular types of Slack bots you can add to your Slack channels today to share statistics, create polls, set meetings, connect with new colleagues, have some fun with GIFs, and more.

Slack took the office world by storm following its 2013 launch. Now that the collaboration tool is firmly entrenched, available integrations and apps—including bots and chatbots—are growing exponentially. Slack integrations can be used for many things, from serious output to collaborative processes and lighthearted bonding. Here are a few of our favorite Slack bots.

Get work done

1. Focus Mode
If you’ve tried and failed to institute a productivity technique in your solo work schedule, Focus Mode might be a game changer for you. This bot keeps the clock for you, reminding you when 25 minutes are up, and gives you a place to record distractions during work periods so you can return to them later. Tell the bot when you’re starting work and when you’ve completed a task. Bonus: With all your tasks recorded here, it’s easy to review what you’ve done in team meetings (or on your own).

2. Statsbot
Statsbot integrates with multiple analytics tools, including Google Analytics, Mixpanel, SQL, Stripe, and Salesforce, to give everyone on the team an easy way to get an analytics update. Statsbot Slack integrations provide easy data access—without having to go into your tool to find it manually—and even show charts. Not only does this bot make it easier for the analytics team to give colleagues updates, but also it empowers non-analytics workers to get the info they want, without the challenge of navigating the tool’s user interface.

3. Trello
For many teams, keeping track of everyone’s productivity and to-do lists can be quite challenging. Fortunately, there’s a Slack bot specifically designed to make these same lists much less challenging. Created to keep all visuals in the Slack app, Trello creates boards and allows team members to share important workflow information, such as to-do lists, and even lets you pin attachments. Additionally, Trello has an automated function to compile all of this information on its own, sharing results with the whole team.

4. Geekbot
Filling one function of a personal assistant, Geekbot helps you run asynchronous meetings with coworkers. Invite the bot into any Slack channel and tell it with whom you need to schedule a meeting. Geekbot can then privately message anyone who needs to attend the meeting and can gather any information you tell it to collect. It then shares these responses at whatever pace you set, saving valuable time for you and your entire team.

5. AceBot.ai
One of the beautiful things about the many different types of Slack bots is that they simplify your tasks by reducing the number of tools or systems you need to navigate. AceBot.ai brings project management capabilities to Slack—it can assign and manage tasks, create to-do lists, and track project or travel expenses. Although there are other bots designed for specific tasks, AceBot.ai compiles many of these capabilities into one place.

Take a break

6. Giphy
Why use words when a picture will suffice? How many offices have Slack channels that are secretly overrun by GIFs because of Giphy? This bot inserts a GIF from “the world's largest GIF library.” Be warned, however, that the same term can produce different GIFs, and you won’t know ahead of time which GIF will appear. To avoid embarrassing yourself or offending your colleagues, you may want to test your hashtags out on a private channel a few times first.

7. Lunch Train
Lunch Train is like Geekbot for lunch plans. Start a group outing by typing /lunchtrain. The bot sends invitations to other users, giving them the option to board the train (or to get off the train, if something changes). The organizer is notified every time someone joins. Everyone who’s in for lunch gets notified when it’s time to go, and the entire Slack channel isn’t be overloaded with messages about going out for lunch. Need to postpone those plans? Push a button, and the bot tells everyone.

8. Donut
A dream for office culture promoters everywhere, the Donut bot randomly pairs two people in the office and suggests they meet for coffee. Everyone in the bot’s channel will be paired via direct message (which includes the bot), and the bot won’t repeat any pairs until all the possible pairings have been made. Donut reminds the pair to organize something if they don’t remember on their own. This is one of the best types of Slack bots for fostering a sense of community at work, integrating new hires, creating cross-departmental communication, and heading off the formation of office cliques.

9. GameMonk
When you need a mental break but Facebook isn’t the answer, try the GameMonk bot. Most available games are designed for groups, so you can invite your colleagues to play. The bot offers games such as Categories, in which you name as many items in a given category as you can in 60 seconds, or Giphy, where you guess what hashtag is associated with a particular GIF. Another favorite game is Trivia, which serves up multiple choice questions. These Slack integrations provide an excellent alternative to solo breaks from work or video game breaks with coworkers.

Have fun at work

10. Birthday Bot
There’s no better feeling than the one you get when someone remembers your birthday, and it never feels good to have your special day forgotten. Fortunately, there’s a bot for that. Birthday Bot is designed to make sure that even the busiest teams take the time to recognize their team members. This bot privately compiles all team members’ birthdays and syncs different time zones to make sure that its public message goes out to everyone at the same time. You can customize its response and even use commands for a special birthday reaction.

11. Polly
Real-time information requests are more likely to get responses and, according to Polly, offering a survey in Slack boosts participation rates by more than 30 percent versus email or web. With this bot, you can quickly create single- or multiple-question polls and even schedule recurring polls. Polly has all kinds of productivity uses, like reaching consensus on a decision or getting feedback on a project. You could also use the bot to find out what kind of music people want to hear on Friday afternoon or where to host the holiday party. The bot tracks trends, segments poll data, and offers built-in survey templates on different topics.