9 Clever Slack Bots to Boost Your Productivity

Slack is a terrific team communication tool that offers a slew of integrations. But it also provides an assortment of bots that can help you and your team get things done. By using a bot, you and members of your team can keep working without opening separate applications.

These awesome bots help you manage tasks and projects, get and provide updates, plan meetings, and create a knowledge base.

1. To-Do Bot for Managing Tasks

Create, assign, and track your team's tasks all within Slack using the To-Do Bot. When you create a task for a team member, they will be notified. When they finish, they just click the Done button. To-dos are grouped by channel for better organization.

You can set the priority and due date, view all tasks, see those assigned to you, and receive a daily reminder of incomplete to-dos. The bot also offers a web dashboard to check tasks, lists, and obtain helpful reports. This lets you quickly see tasks by status and assignee.

If you have a completely remote team, To-Do Bot is ideal. You and your team members never have to leave Slack to keep up with your tasks. For a fast and easy way to assign to-dos to your team, this bot works great.

2. Trata for Managing Project Tasks

For more detailed task management, you can create projects using Trata. With this bot you can initiate projects and tasks directly within Slack or by using the Trata web panel. From there, assign tasks to your team, set priorities, see activities, and generate reports.

When you assign a task to your team member using the Trata bot, they will receive a notification. Then, they click the Start button when they begin, the Pause button if needed, and the Completed button when finished. You can then see these statuses on the channel where you initiate the assignment.

You must be careful to enter the commands in Slack exactly as the format you see while you type. Or use the web interface which offers prompts for your actions instead. Overall, the Trata bot does have a variety of nice features for project management within Slack.

3. Fireflies.ai for Creating Smart Tasks From Messages

Another Slack project management tool is Fireflies.ai. This bot lets you easily create and assign a task from any message within Slack, making it super handy. You can set due dates, priority, status, and alerts. Plus, the bot will offer Smart Task Suggestions over time. The more you use it, the smarter it becomes.

You can also create and assign bulk tasks using snippets and stay up-to-date on each team member and channel. If you need to plan an impromptu meeting, Fireflies.ai can help. Set up and start a meeting with a simple command and then tag your team members to invite them.

Fireflies.ai is easy to use, convenient to have, and lets you and your team stay on task without leaving Slack.

4. DailyUpdates for Requesting Updates

Save yourself time tracking down statuses from your team each day with DailyUpdates. You simply set up the schedule and questions to ask on the website and the DailyUpdates bot takes care of the rest.

You can configure what time the questions should be asked, on which days of the week, which questions to ask, and how much time should be given to get the answers. Then, select an existing channel or create a new one to receive the list of updates from your team.

Your team does not have to enter any special words or characters. When the DailyUpdates bot asks the questions, users just answer them in plain text.

5. SnippetsBot for Reporting Updates

For a weekly recap of your team's status, check out SnippetsBot. Your team members can give a quick rundown of what they have completed this week and what is on their plate next week. The bot uses simple three-word triggers to do this.

To begin, you type Start. Then, to add accomplishments or completed tasks, type Done followed by the item. For what you plan to do next week, type Next followed by the item. Finally, if you have an obstacle in your way, type Blocking followed by the item.

If a user has not completed their snippets, they will receive a reminder. Then, each Monday the SnippetsBot will generate and display a report of all snippets for all users for the previous week in its channel.

6. Niles for Setting Up a Team Wiki

If you are interested in setting up a team wiki to save time answering the same questions again and again, meet Niles. This bot will create a knowledge base according to the answers you provide to the bot's questions. Then, your team members can simply ask Niles a question to access the wiki.

Niles will also recognize common questions from messages on Slack and answer or add to the knowledge base. Over time, information may change and Niles takes that into account. You will receive weekly notifications to review answers that may be out of date.

This bot is useful for many business types and teams. Use it for new hires that have company questions, sales teams that need answers for clients quickly, or for creating a glossary or how-to guide for a product team.

7. Meeting Bot for Planning and Managing Meetings [No Longer Available]

Plan and manage meetings easily with the Meeting Bot. This convenient tool connects to Google, Office 365, and Exchange accounts. When you or a team member need to plan a meeting, the bot will display availability for all invitees. You can then quickly select the appropriate time.

In addition, Meeting Bot will book the meeting, show available meeting rooms, and remind attendees if they are late. You can also review an analysis of meetings over time with two tables of data. The first will show you meetings for the past three months with hours by week. The second will show you the day and time distribution for the past three months. Both are useful for viewing the amount of time that you and your team spend in meetings.

For planning meetings without having to stop what you are doing to check everyone's availability, Meeting Bot is a terrific tool. And the helpful reminders to attendees who are late is the perfect touch.

8. GoodTalk for Creating Meeting Agendas

For setting up meetings and agendas within Slack is GoodTalk. This convenient bot lets you add meeting agenda items, keep track of what was discussed, and include a summary. You can mark off items discussed and those not marked will stay on the agenda for your next meeting.

You can also use the GoodTalk web interface to check out meeting agendas. While you could use the bot for larger team meetings, its intent is for one-on-ones. This makes it ideal for employee reviews or simple check-ins with certain team members.

Instead of going back through Slack for discussion points or creating an agenda from scratch, check out GoodTalk. Your next meeting agenda will be ready and waiting when you need it.

9. Spacetime for Navigating Time Zones

When you work with a remote team around the world, it can be hard to remember everyone's time zones and work schedules. This is why you need Spacetime. Once you and your team members sign up, the bot is ready to use.

First, you and your team members will complete the information on the web site. This includes location, work hours, and any blocked time. Then, you can pop a time into a message with Spacetime to display the time zone and current time for all team members. You can also invite Spacetime to your channels and mention the bot when you post a time. Plus, you can see the local time for a specific user.