​
Overview

Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot is a conversational AI tool that helps you analyze your data in Slack. You can ask questions about your data, get insights and visualizations without leaving your Slack workspace.

​
Installation

To install the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot, follow these steps:

1

Add the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot to your Slack workspace

Install the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot using this link. If you are not a Slack admin, please ask your Slack admin to install the bot.

2

Optional: Create a user group

Create a user group in Slack for users who can have access to the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot. Only users in that group will be able to access the bot. You can add or remove users from the group to control who can access the bot. More details on creating user groups can be found in the Slack documentation.

3

Optional: Create a dedicated monitoring slack channel

You can create a dedicated Slack channel that would mirror all the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot activity. This will help you keep track of all the questions asked and insights shared by the bot, and be able to continuously monitor and improve its performance.

Make sure to add the @Honeydew bot to the created channel.

It is suggested to make this channel private and invite only the users who need to monitor the bot’s activity.

4

Create an API Key for Slack Bot integration

  1. In the Honeydew application, go to Settings -> API Keys.
  2. Click on Create API Key, and set a unique name for the API Key. The key can have a Viewer role.
  3. Copy the generated API Key and secret and save them securely.
5

Configure the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot

  1. In your Slack workspace, click on the Honeydew app in the list of installed apps.
  2. Click on the Home tab and then click on Edit Configuration.
  3. Fill in the following details:
    • API Key: The API Key generated in the previous step.
    • API Secret: The API Secret generated in the previous step.
    • Base URL: The base URL of your Honeydew instance. By default that would be https://api.honeydew.cloud. If your organization uses a custom Honeydew URL, you would be provided with this information along with the Slack app installation link.
    • Workspace: The Honeydew workspace you want the bot to connect to.
    • Domain: The domain within the workspace you want the bot to connect to.
    • Log Channel (optional): The Slack channel where you want to log all the bot activity.
    • User Group (optional): The Slack user group that will have access to the bot.
  4. Click Save.

​
Usage

Once the Honeydew Analyst Slack Bot is installed and configured, you can start using it in your Slack workspace.

​
Direct Conversations

You can send messages directly to the bot by clicking on the Honeydew app in the list of installed appears and going to the Messages tab.

​
Conversations in a Channel

In order to ask the bot questions in a channel, it must be added to the channel. When in channel, the bot will answer questions when addressed directly using @Honeydew.

You can continue asking followup questions on the bot’s answer by replying in the same thread in Slack. If you would like to ask a new question, without the previous context, you can start a new thread.

​
Overriding default configuration

You can override the default Slack app configuration in a specific Slack channel. You can override the default workspace, branch and domain.

Possible use cases:

  1. You have multiple workspaces and want to use the bot in different workspaces.
  2. You are making changes to the semantic model in a branch and want to test the bot with the new changes.
  3. You want to build multiple domains for different business cases.

In order to override any of these you can add any of the following as separate lines in the channel’s description:

  1. Workspace: Workspace=my_workspace_name_override (replace my_workspace_name_override with the actual workspace name)
  2. Branch: Branch=my_branch_name_override (replace my_branch_name_override with the actual branch name)
  3. Domain: Domain=my_domain_name_override (replace my_domain_name_override with the actual domain name)

Make sure to add the Slack bot to the channel where you want to override the configuration

​
Useful Tips

  1. Treat it as a conversation: Sometimes AI will need additional context to answer well. Use follow-up questions to narrow down the data.

  2. Ask detailed questions: The more context you provide in your question, the better the bot can understand and provide accurate answers.

  3. Ask for possible values before asking to filter: If you asked for data with filter and the bot returned nothing, a common root cause is that the database values don’t match you filter. When that happens, instead first ask for the values in that category and then ask for the filtering as a follow-up question - when the bot sees the data first, it can construct much smarter filtering.

  4. Provide hints: If you get an unexpected or incomplete answer, ask again, and provide some additional information or context, or point out what was missing in the previous answer.

  5. Break very complex questions into few steps: If your question is very complex, ask it in steps and gradually make a journey through the data by adding context.

​
Limitations

Following types of questions can return sub-optimal answers:

  1. Growth over time (like comparison of periods): ask for the metric for the periods you want to see instead of asking AI to compare them.

​
Support

If you have any questions or need help with the Honeydew Analyst Slack App, please reach out to support@honeydew.ai.