Guides12 min read

5 Time-Saving Slack Automations You Can Build in Minutes

Stop drowning in Slack notifications. Learn 5 practical Slack automations you can set up in minutes — no coding required. From standup bots to lead alerts.

autn Team

March 9, 2026

Slack is where your team lives. But if you're honest, it's also where hours disappear — buried under notifications, manual updates, and the same questions asked over and over.

The good news? Most of that busywork can be automated. And you don't need to write a single line of code to do it.

In this guide, we'll walk through five practical Slack automations that teams are using right now to reclaim their time. Each one takes just a few minutes to set up with a tool like autn.

1. Automated Daily Standups

The problem: Your team spends 15–30 minutes every morning in a standup meeting that could have been a Slack message.

The automation: At a set time each day, a bot posts a standup prompt in your team channel — something like "What did you work on yesterday? What's on your plate today? Any blockers?" Team members reply in a thread at their own pace.

How to build it with autn:

Open the workflow builder — Click "New Workflow" from your autn dashboard.

Describe it in plain English — Type your prompt in the AI builder. Try any of these:

- *"Every weekday at 9 AM, post a standup prompt in #engineering and collect replies into a summary."*

- *"Send a daily standup message to #product-team asking: What did you ship yesterday? What's the plan today? Any blockers?"*

- *"At 9:15 AM Monday through Friday, ask my team for standup updates in #dev-standup and compile a digest at noon."*

Connect Slack — Autn will prompt you to authorize your Slack workspace. Click "Connect," select your workspace, and approve the permissions. You'll see a green checkmark when it's linked.

Customize the message — The AI generates a standup template. You'll see a preview of the Slack message in the right panel. Edit the questions, channel name, or timing directly in the visual builder if you want to tweak anything.

Set the schedule — The time trigger will already be configured from your prompt. Verify it shows the correct timezone (autn auto-detects yours) and the right days.

Test it — Hit "Run Test" to send a one-time standup message to your channel. Check Slack to confirm it arrived with the right formatting.

Activate — Toggle the workflow to "Active." It runs on autopilot from here.

Pro tip: Add a second step that collects thread replies and posts a summary to a #standup-digest channel at end of day. Just tell autn: *"At 5 PM, summarize all thread replies from today's standup in #engineering and post the summary to #standup-digest."*

Time saved: ~2.5 hours per week for a team of 6.

2. New Lead Alerts from Your CRM

The problem: A hot lead fills out your contact form, but no one on the sales team notices for three hours because the notification got buried in email.

The automation: When a new lead enters your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, etc.), an alert posts to a dedicated #sales-leads channel with the lead's name, company, and score. Tag the assigned rep automatically.

How to build it with autn:

Create a new workflow — Click "New Workflow" and choose your prompt approach.

Describe the trigger and action — Try one of these prompts:

- *"When a new contact is created in HubSpot with a lead score above 50, post their details to #sales-leads and tag the assigned owner."*

- *"Whenever a new deal is added in Salesforce, send a Slack message to #new-deals with the deal name, amount, and stage."*

- *"When a lead fills out our contact form in Pipedrive, post their name, email, company, and source to #inbound-leads."*

Connect your CRM — Autn will ask you to authorize HubSpot (or Salesforce, Pipedrive, etc.). Follow the OAuth flow — it takes about 30 seconds. Once connected, you'll see your CRM fields listed in the data mapping panel.

Map your fields — The AI auto-maps common fields (name, email, company, lead score). You'll see a preview like: "New Lead: {{contact.name}} from {{contact.company}} — Score: {{contact.lead_score}}." Adjust the mapping or add custom fields by clicking any field chip.

Add conditional logic — Want to filter by lead score? The AI already included it from your prompt. You can adjust the threshold in the condition block — just click the "50" and change it. Want different channels for different scores? Tell autn: *"If score is above 80, also send a DM to the sales manager."*

Connect Slack and pick your channel — Authorize Slack if you haven't already, then select the target channel from the dropdown.

Test with sample data — Click "Run Test." Autn sends a test message using the most recent lead from your CRM. Check #sales-leads to verify the format.

Go live — Toggle to "Active." Every new qualifying lead now hits Slack in real time.

Pro tip: Add a follow-up step: *"If no one reacts to the lead alert within 30 minutes, send a reminder DM to the channel owner."* This ensures no hot lead goes cold.

Time saved: ~1 hour per day in missed-lead recovery and manual checking.

3. Customer Support Ticket Routing

The problem: Support tickets come in through email, chat, and your help desk — but your team only sees them when someone manually checks each tool.

The automation: When a new ticket is created (in Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, or similar), post a summary to #support with the ticket priority, customer name, and a direct link. High-priority tickets can trigger an @channel mention.

How to build it with autn:

Start a new workflow and describe what you need:

- *"When a new Zendesk ticket is created, post it to #support. If priority is urgent, mention @support-oncall."*

- *"When a customer submits a ticket in Intercom, post the subject, priority, and a link to the ticket in #customer-support. Tag @tier1-support."*

- *"Route new Freshdesk tickets to Slack: low priority to #support-queue, high priority to #support-urgent with an @channel mention."*

Connect your help desk — Authorize Zendesk, Intercom, or Freshdesk. Autn pulls in your ticket fields automatically: subject, priority, requester name, tags, and direct link.

Configure the message format — The AI generates a Slack message template. You'll see a live preview showing something like:

> 🎫 New Ticket: Account login issue

> Priority: High | Customer: Jane Smith

> Link: [View in Zendesk →]

Click any element in the preview to customize it. Drag fields to reorder them.

Set up priority routing — The conditional logic from your prompt is already wired up. In the visual builder, you'll see a branch node: "If priority = urgent → mention @support-oncall." Add more branches by clicking the "+" on the condition block — for example, route billing tickets to #billing-support.

Test it — Hit "Run Test." Autn creates a simulated ticket event and posts to your channel. Verify the formatting, priority badge, and mention all look right.

Activate — Switch it on. New tickets now route to Slack instantly with zero manual effort.

Pro tip: Chain a second workflow: *"When a support ticket in #support-urgent gets no emoji reaction within 15 minutes, escalate to #support-managers."* This builds an automatic escalation ladder.

Time saved: ~45 minutes per day in context-switching between tools.

4. Weekly Project Status Summaries

The problem: Every Friday, someone spends 30 minutes compiling updates from Asana, Jira, or Notion into a Slack message. Or worse, it just doesn't happen.

The automation: At the end of each week, pull completed tasks and upcoming deadlines from your project management tool and post a clean summary to the relevant channel.

How to build it with autn:

Create the workflow with one of these prompts:

- *"Every Friday at 4 PM, pull all tasks completed this week from Asana for the Marketing board and post a summary to #marketing-updates."*

- *"At end of day Friday, get all Jira tickets moved to 'Done' this week in the ENG project and post a weekly recap to #engineering."*

- *"Every Monday at 9 AM, pull upcoming deadlines for the next 7 days from Notion and post them to #team-priorities."*

Connect your project tool — Authorize Asana, Jira, Notion, or whichever PM tool you use. Autn will ask you to select the specific project, board, or database to pull from.

Choose your data — The AI builder shows you which fields it's pulling: task name, assignee, completion date, status. You'll see these as field chips in the workflow editor. Add or remove fields by clicking "Edit fields" in the data step.

Customize the summary format — Autn generates a clean grouped summary. The preview shows something like:

> 📊 Weekly Recap — Marketing (Mar 3–7)

> ✅ 12 tasks completed

> - Campaign landing page (Maria)

> - Email sequence draft (Alex)

> - Social calendar Q2 (Jordan)

> ⏰ 3 tasks due next week

You can switch between a bullet list, numbered list, or compact table by clicking the format toggle in the preview panel.

Set the schedule — Verify the day (Friday), time (4 PM), and timezone. Toggle "Skip if no completed tasks" to avoid empty posts on slow weeks.

Test it — Click "Run Test." Autn pulls real data from your project board and posts a sample summary. Check the channel and tweak the format if needed.

Activate — Every week, your team gets a clean update without anyone lifting a finger.

Pro tip: Add a second prompt to the same workflow: *"Also include a section with tasks that are overdue or at risk, and mention the assignee."* This turns a status update into an early warning system.

Time saved: ~30 minutes per week, plus everyone stays informed without asking.

5. Onboarding Checklists for New Hires

The problem: A new team member joins, and the onboarding process is a mix of scattered docs, forgotten invites, and "Oh, someone should have told you about that."

The automation: When a new member joins a specific Slack channel (like #new-hires), trigger a personalized onboarding sequence: send a welcome DM with key links, post a checklist to #onboarding, and notify IT to set up their accounts.

How to build it with autn:

Start the workflow with a detailed prompt — the more specific, the better:

- *"When someone joins #new-hires, send them a welcome DM with our onboarding doc link, post a setup checklist to #onboarding-ops, and message #it-requests to set up their email and tools."*

- *"When a new member joins #welcome, DM them: 'Welcome to the team! Here are your first-day essentials: [Handbook link], [Slack guide link], [Benefits enrollment link]. Your buddy is @sarah.' Also notify #people-ops."*

- *"When someone joins #engineering-new, send them a DM with links to our dev setup guide, GitHub org invite, and CI/CD docs. Post to #eng-onboarding: 'New team member joined — please make sure their access is set up.'"*

Connect Slack and select the trigger channel (#new-hires, #welcome, etc.). In the trigger configuration, you'll see "Event: Member Joined Channel" — this fires automatically when anyone is added to the channel.

Build the multi-step sequence — The AI creates separate action blocks for each step:

- Step 1: Welcome DM — A direct message to the new hire. Edit the message text, add links, and use the {{user.name}} variable to personalize it.

- Step 2: Checklist post — A message to your ops channel with a checklist. The preview shows checkbox-style formatting that your team can track.

- Step 3: IT notification — A message to #it-requests tagging the relevant person or group.

Each step appears as a card in the visual builder. Drag to reorder, click to edit, or add delays between steps (e.g., send the DM immediately, but wait 1 hour before posting to ops).

Add your links and content — Click into each message block and fill in the actual URLs: handbook link, setup guide, benefits portal, etc. Use the variable picker (the {{}} button) to insert dynamic values like the new hire's name or the date they joined.

Optional: Add a delay sequence — Want to send a follow-up check-in on day 3? Add another step: *"3 days after someone joins #new-hires, DM them: 'How's your first week going? Here's our FAQ for new team members: [link]. Feel free to ask anything in #help.'"*

Test it — Add yourself to the trigger channel (or use "Run Test" with a simulated event). Verify all three messages fire correctly — the DM, the ops post, and the IT request.

Activate — Every new hire now gets a consistent, thorough onboarding experience from minute one.

Pro tip: Build a second workflow for the 30-day mark: *"30 days after someone joins #new-hires, DM them a feedback survey link and post a reminder to #people-ops to schedule their first check-in."* This closes the loop on onboarding without anyone tracking dates manually.

Time saved: ~2 hours per new hire, with nothing falling through the cracks.

Getting Started

All five of these automations follow the same pattern: something happens → Slack gets notified → the right people take action faster.

With autn, you don't need to map triggers and actions yourself. Just describe what you want in plain English, and the AI builds the workflow for you. Connect your apps, test it, and let it run.

Here's how to get your first automation live in under 60 seconds:

Sign up at autn.io — it's free, no credit card required.

Describe your workflow in the builder. Something like: "When a new row is added to my Google Sheet, post a summary to #updates in Slack."

Connect your apps. Autn walks you through authorizing Slack and whatever other tool you're connecting.

Test and activate. Run a test to make sure it works, then flip it on.

That's it. No flowcharts, no documentation deep-dives, no "if this then that" logic trees. Just plain English and a working automation.

What's Next?

Once you've built your first Slack automation, the possibilities open up fast. Teams using autn typically go from one automation to ten within their first month — because once you see how much time you save, you start noticing busywork everywhere.

Ready to stop doing things manually? Start building with autn →

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