Slack

Connect Flowstate to your Slack workspace and stop switching between tabs. Effort reports, approvals, project updates, and AI recommendations come to you as direct messages — and you can act on most of them without opening a browser.

Why connect Slack?

Your team already lives in Slack. Without the integration, managers forget to submit effort reports, approvers miss review requests, and unlinked projects pile up silently. With Slack connected:

• Effort reports land in your DMs. On submission day, team managers get a message with their team's effort breakdown for the week — employees, contractors, and non-project work included. One tap to submit.
• Approvals don't wait. When someone submits a report for your review, you get a Slack message with an Approve button. No need to log in for straightforward approvals.
• Nothing falls through the cracks. New projects from Azure DevOps, Jira, or Linear that haven't been linked to your roadmap trigger a reminder. Link them in-message or auto-create a new project with one click.
• Finance workflows move faster. CapEx rationale submissions, R&D claim reviews, approval decisions, and rejection feedback all show up as Slack DMs to the right people at the right time.
• AI does the legwork. When Flowstate's analysis engine spots projects that might qualify for CapEx capitalisation or R&D tax relief, you'll hear about it in Slack with a direct link to review.

What you'll receive

Here's everything Flowstate can send to Slack, and who sees it:

Effort tracking

Message	Who gets it	Can you act from Slack?
Weekly effort report preview	Team managers	Yes — submit directly or open to edit
"Report needs your review"	Approvers	Yes — approve with one click, or open to reject
"Your report was approved"	Submitters	No action needed
"Your report was rejected"	Submitters	Link to edit and resubmit

Project management

Message	Who gets it	Can you act from Slack?
"New PMS project needs linking"	Project owner or their manager	Yes — link or auto-create

CapEx and R&D workflows

Message	Who gets it	Can you act from Slack?
"Rationale required"	Project owner	Link to submit
"Submitted for review"	Approvers at current stage	Link to review
"Approved" / "Rejected" / "Changes requested"	Project owner or claim creator	Link to view or revise
"Ready for completion"	Completion stage members	Link to complete
"AI found potential CapEx/R&D projects"	Admins and financial managers	Link to recommendations

Getting started

1. Connect your workspace

1. Open Settings → Data Integrations → Slack
2. Click Connect Slack
3. Choose your Slack workspace and click Allow
4. Done — you'll see a confirmation and can start configuring

You need to be an admin in both Flowstate and Slack to set this up. Only one person needs to do this — it connects the whole organisation.

2. Choose what gets sent

After connecting, you'll see toggles for each notification type:

Setting	What it controls	On by default?
Unlinked project reminders	DMs when PMS projects need linking	Yes
Effort submission reminders	Effort report previews on submission day	Yes
Effort approval notifications	Messages to approvers when reports are submitted	Yes
CapEx workflow	All CapEx lifecycle notifications	No
R&D workflow	All R&D claim lifecycle notifications	No
AI recommendations	Alerts when the scanner finds CapEx/R&D candidates	Yes

Turn off anything that's not relevant to your team. You can change these at any time.

3. Make sure emails match

Flowstate finds your Slack account by matching your Flowstate email to your Slack email. If they're different, you won't receive messages. Ask your Slack admin to check.

How it works day-to-day

Effort submission day

At your organisation's configured send time, every team manager gets a DM:

• A table showing each team member — employees and contractors — their projects, non-project work, and daily effort percentages for the week
• An Accept & Submit button if everything looks right
• An Edit in Flowstate button if changes are needed

Hit Accept & Submit and the report goes straight to your approver. No browser required.

When you're an approver

You'll get a message like: "Jane submitted the effort report for Platform Team (17–21 Mar)" with:

• Approve — one click, done
• Reject — opens Flowstate so you can write a reason
• View in Flowstate — see the full detail before deciding

Unlinked projects

When someone creates a project in Azure DevOps, Jira, or Linear and it syncs to Flowstate without being linked to a roadmap project, the owner (or their manager) gets a DM:

• A dropdown to pick which existing project it belongs to
• An Auto-create button to make a new project from it
• A link to see all unlinked projects in Flowstate

This keeps your effort tracking accurate — unlinked projects mean unattributed costs.

Privacy and permissions

• Flowstate only sends direct messages — it never reads your Slack messages, channels, or files
• Messages go to the specific person who needs to act — not to shared channels
• The integration requests four Slack permissions:
  • Send messages (chat:write)
  • Look up workspace members (users:read)
  • Match accounts by email (users:read.email)
  • Open DM conversations (im:write)

Disconnecting

If you change your mind:

1. Go to Settings → Data Integrations → Slack
2. Click Disconnect

This stops all Slack notifications immediately. You can also remove the Flowstate app from Slack → Settings → Manage Apps.

Troubleshooting

I'm not receiving messages

• Check that your Flowstate email matches your Slack email
• Make sure the relevant notification toggle is on in Settings
• Check that you haven't muted the Flowstate bot in Slack

The "Approve" button didn't work

• You might not be a designated approver for that team. Check with your admin.
• The report may have already been approved by someone else.

I see "Your Slack account is not linked"

• This means Flowstate couldn't find a Slack user matching your email. Contact your admin.

Messages are going to the wrong person

• Flowstate sends to the person responsible for the action. For effort, that's the team manager. For CapEx, it's the project owner. Check team and project ownership in Flowstate.