Like many SaaS platforms today, Slack has developed its own native automation capabilities. Available on Pro plans and above, Slack Workflows allow users to automate routine tasks directly within their workspace.
But how do these built-in features stack up against dedicated automation platforms? Let's dive into what Slack Workflows can do, and explore their strengths and limitations.
The Strengths of Slack Workflows
1. User-Friendly Interface
One of Slack Workflows' standout features for no-code builders is its approachable interface. The platform uses simple, plain language throughout the automation builder, making it accessible to users with minimal technical background. Instead of technical terms like "triggers" and "actions," you'll find friendly phrases like "start the workflow" and "then, do these things."
2. Seamless Integration with Slack Features
As you might expect, Slack Workflows excel at automating tasks within Slack itself. The platform offers robust options for triggering workflows based on people joining channels, message reactions, and other Slack-specific events.
3. Webhook Support and External Connectivity
Despite being a built-in tool, Slack Workflows offers surprising flexibility in connecting with external systems. The platform includes webhook triggers, allowing you to initiate workflows from external applications.
This feature significantly expands the potential use cases for Slack automations, giving you the option of triggering your automations with the click of a button from tools like Airtable.
4. Airtable search integration
One particularly valuable feature is the surprisingly useful Airtable integration, which includes basic search functionality. Your choices for automating Airtable in Slack aren’t as extensive as they are in providers like Zapier and Make, but the ability to find Airtable records still adds considerable depth to your Slack automations.
This allows you to use Airtable as an operational database to feed data into your automations and create dynamic workflows.
For example, you can use Airtable lookups to systematically route automatically created tasks to different projects or send messages to specific users based on custom criteria.
5. Built-in Forms
Slack Workflows includes a convenient form builder that allows you to collect data from users without redirecting them to external URLs. These forms integrate seamlessly with the Slack interface and can feed directly into your automation steps.
Areas for Improvement: Where Slack Workflows Fall Short
1. No Testing Capabilities
One significant drawback is the lack of testing features. Users cannot test individual triggers or steps within a workflow, making it necessary to run the entire automation to verify that it works as intended. This can make the development process more time-consuming and frustrating, especially for complex workflows.
By contrast, automation providers like Zapier, Make and Pipedream all include easy built-in testing.
2. Limited Integration Options
While Slack Workflows does offer some external connectivity, its integration library is relatively small. With less than a hundred available app connections, it falls far short of the thousands of integrations offered by dedicated automation platforms like Zapier, Make, or Pipedream.
3. User Experience Issues
Based on our use, several minor but noteworthy UX issues exist within the platform. For example, while the confirmation buttons for launching automations are helpful, they lack basic options like "Cancel" or "Stop." These small oversights can add friction to the user experience.
4. Limited Scalability
As with many built-in automation tools, Slack Workflows faces challenges in terms of scalability and maintainability compared to standalone automation platforms. The limited testing features and integration options can make it difficult to build and maintain complex automated systems that connect several different tools and the teams using them.
Our Verdict
Slack Workflows can be a valuable tool for teams looking to automate simple, Slack-centric tasks. The platform shines when it comes to use cases like:
- Creating quick automations for task management
- Scheduling meetings
- Composing emails directly from Slack
- Building simple workflows that leverage Slack's native features
However, for organizations seeking to build comprehensive automated infrastructure or connect multiple applications to a centralized source of truth, standalone automation platforms remain the better choice.
Tools like Zapier, Make, and Pipedream offer greater scalability, more robust testing features, and significantly more integration options and are a much better fit for enterprise organizations seeking to automate their workflows.
If you’d like to learn more about automating your team’s work with a variety of no-code and low-code tools, be sure to check out the other posts on our blog or our YouTube channel. You can also follow XRay on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
