I need your say-so first.
A teammate’s account is theirs
Bob sends them a direct message. Nothing runs in their account without their yes.
Who can ask Bob
By default, anyone in your workspace. There is no charge per person, and everyone draws from one credit pool. People from other companies in a shared channel get a polite no.
An admin can narrow that in Settings: let everyone use Bob, or only the people they tick (admins can always use him), and choose whether Slack guests can. Anyone else who asks gets a one-sentence reply, and no work runs and no credits are spent. An admin can also just ask Bob to make the change, and Bob shows a card to confirm before it applies.
Who Bob may message directly
An admin can also limit which people Bob may send direct messages to. Bob still answers in channels, and in any direct message someone starts with him. If a schedule or reminder would have messaged someone outside the list, it does not run, and the person who set it up is told.
Two roles
The person who installs Bob is the first admin. Admins can make others admins, or move them back to member, on the Users page. The last admin cannot step down, so a workspace is never left without one.
- Members see their own runs, connections, schedules, private notes and spending in the HeyBob console, the website where you sign in with Slack to see and manage Bob. Pages are the one thing every member sees there for the whole workspace. In Slack, /bob schedules lists the schedules you made, and you can switch one off from there. Admins see every schedule in the workspace. How schedules work.
- Admins also manage approval rules, who may approve, users, models, spending caps, billing and settings.
Admins can also change an approval rule just by asking Bob in Slack. How approvals work.
Who can connect apps
By default, anyone can. When Bob needs an app he does not have, he offers the person asking a private Connect button, and they sign in to their own account. An admin can limit connecting to admins in Settings. Then Bob tells everyone else to ask an admin. How connecting apps works.
When a job needs a teammate’s own account
Sometimes the work lives in someone’s own mailbox, calendar or customer records app. Bob does not reach in. He sends that teammate a direct message that says what he would do and for whom.
- Allow lets him work in their account for that one task. Anything that actually sends still comes back to them for a yes first.
- Deny keeps him out of their account. He carries on with the rest of the job without it and tells the person who asked.
- When a schedule or another automation started the job, there is a third button, Always allow, named for what started it: this schedule, this automation, this email address or this inbox watch. It covers that one source and that one app, nothing else.
- If they do not answer in time, he carries on without it. If he cannot reach them, he says so.
The receipt shows who Bob acted as. Type /bob grants to see every standing permission you have given, along with anything Bob no longer asks approval for, and /bob grants revoke 1 to take the first one on the list back. An admin can switch this whole feature off in Settings.
Stopping a job
The person who asked, or any admin, can stop a job with the Stop button on his progress message.