slack-v1

Overview

Please note that I don't have access to VersionOne anymore and thus will not be updating the integration. Feel free to fork it if anything changes on VersionOne or Slack side in the future.

Basic Slack and VersionOne integration that supports links unfurling for Stories and Defects.

Requirements

The integration is designed for cloud deployment in either Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services, and thus requires an account with one of the platforms. Keep in mind that both platforms are paid services and thus may incur real costs. There are very nice GCP free tier and AWS free tier however that may or may not work for you.

The GCP deployment utilizes Google Cloud Functions and Google Cloud Pub/Sub.

The AWS deployment utilizes Amazon API Gateway, AWS Lambda and Amazon Simple Notification Service.

VersionOne versions 18.3.2.31 and 19.0.5.18 were used to test the integration.

The code is simple enough to be adapted as an Express application and deployed as such within your environment.

Limitations

• A single set of VersionOne user credentials is used to query the VersionOne API for all posted links.
• Your VersionOne installation should have API endpoint (<Server Base URI>/rest-1.v1/Data/) publicly available.

Installation

Prepare code and Slack app

The initial installation process is a little bit technical, but since you've landed here, it must be safe to assume it is not a problem for your team.

Checkout the code

git clone https://github.com/mshatalov/slack-versionone.git

Create Slack application

First, create a new Slack app for your workspace starting from https://api.slack.com/slack-apps. Take a look at this tutorial for more details.

Then, navigate to Permissions (OAuth & Permissions) section, add links:read and links:write permission scopes, click Save Changes.

Next, click Install App above on the same page.

Note the OAuth Access Token, it will be used for configuration, see below for details.

GCP deployment

The sub-sections below cover GCP deployment. If you're deploying in AWS, skip this section and proceed to AWS deployment section.

Create GCP project and enable Cloud Functions and Cloud Pub/Sub

If you don't yet have a GCP project, follow the official tutorials at https://cloud.google.com/functions/docs/quickstarts and https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/docs/quickstarts.

Make sure you have gcloud command-line tool installed.

Configure the integration

The cloud functions are configured via environment variables that are setup in env.callback.yaml and env.unfurl.yaml. There are sample files, make sure to make a local copy and update the values as follows:

env.callback.yaml

• SLACK_TOKEN – Slack verification token that can be found on your app's Basic Information page in App Credentials section under Verification Token.
• UNFURL_TOPIC – A Pub/Sub topic name for the app. You can keep it unchanged.

env.unfurl.yaml

• SLACK_OAUTH_TOKEN – Slack application OAuth token noted above
• V1_USER – VersionOne username to be used to fetch data
• V1_PASSWORD – VersionOne user password
• V1_URL_BASE – VersionOne base URL, such as https://www1.v1host.com/MyInstance/

Deploy functions

We'll use gcloud command-line tool from the root directory of the project.

First, deploy the Slack callback handler:

gcloud beta functions deploy slack-callback --source=./callback --entry-point=callback --trigger-http --runtime=nodejs8 --env-vars-file=env.callback.yaml

Note the function URL in the output under the httpsTrigger section, we'll need it to finish Slack App configuration later on. It can be retrieved later via gcloud functions describe slack-callback or via the Console.

Then, deploy the function that performs link unfurling. Replace --entry-point=unfurl with the actual topic name if you changed it from the default in the env.callback.yaml.

gcloud beta functions deploy slack-unfurl --source=./unfurl --entry-point=unfurl --trigger-topic=unfurl --runtime=nodejs8 --env-vars-file=env.unfurl.yaml

You're almost set.

AWS deployment

The following sub-sections cover AWS deployment. If you're deploying in GCP, see the GCP deploymnet section above.

AWS CLI tools

AWS deployment utilizes AWS SAM. Make sure you have AWS Command Line Interface and AWS SAM CLI installed.

Configure the integration

The cloud functions are configured via environment variables that are setup in aws-sam.yaml in Variables sections of CallbackFunction and UnfurlFunction. There is a sample file, make sure to make a local copy and update the values as follows:

CallbackFunction

• SLACK_TOKEN – Slack verification token that can be found on your app's Basic Information page in App Credentials section under Verification Token.

UnfurlFunction

• SLACK_OAUTH_TOKEN – Slack application OAuth token noted above
• V1_USER – VersionOne username to be used to fetch data
• V1_PASSWORD – VersionOne user password
• V1_URL_BASE – VersionOne base URL, such as https://www1.v1host.com/MyInstance/

Deploy functions

With AWS SAM deployment is very simple. Just execute the following commands from the root directory of the project, and you're all set.

First, build the application:

sam build -t aws-sam.yaml

Create an S3 bucket for deployment packages, if you don't have one. You can replace AWS S3 bucket name (slack-v1-deploy) with the one you prefer (in fact, you'll need to replace it with a unique name as S3 bucket names are global in AWS):

aws s3 mb s3://slack-v1-deploy

Package the deployment and upload the package to S3 bucket. Make sure that S3 bucket (slack-v1-deploy) in parameters below matches the one you created above:

sam package --output-template-file packaged.yaml --s3-bucket slack-v1-deploy

Finally, deploy the package. You can specify other AWS region (us-east-2 below) available for Lambdas if you wish:

sam deploy --template-file packaged.yaml --stack-name slack-v1-sam --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM --region us-east-2

Now we need to get Slack callback URL to finalize Slack app configuration. Note OutputValue value for CallbackURL from the output of the command below:

aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name slack-v1-sam

You're almost set.

Finalize the Slack app configuration

Update Slack application with actual callback URL

Now, once we have a public Slack callback URL, we can finish Slack app configuration.

Navigate to the Event Subscriptions section of your Slack app and follow the steps below:

• Enable Events
• Set Request URL to the slack-callback function URL noted in the Deploy functions sub-section
• Add link_shared workspace event
• Lists your VersionOne installation domain under App Unfurl Domain; it may include https:// in front of the domain
• Don't forget to click Save Changes
• If Slack asks you to reinstall the app, follow the prompts and reinstall the app (we could avoid this step, but it'll require more back-and-forth)

You should be all set now! Go ahead and post these backlog item links to yourself to check that all works.

Updates

If you need to update the configuration, or there is a new version of the code, just follow the steps in the Deploy functions sub-section of your hosting platform section. There is no need to update Slack application as the callback URL stays unchanged between deployments.

Troubleshooting

Check the logs

If something does not work, the best place to look first is the logs.

You can check GCP logs either via Google Cloud console or using gcloud:

gcloud functions logs read --limit=100

AWS logs are in AWS CloudWatch.