Worker Bees can keep your team in the loop without anyone watching a screen: a post in your fundraising channel when a large gift arrives, or in your services channel when a case is closed. If one person needs to know rather than a channel, use Email a colleague instead.

Before you start

  • You need workerbees:admin:automations.
  • Posting to a channel also needs notifications:read:targets, because the bee uses a channel’s stored webhook address. Without it, the Slack and Teams actions aren’t offered.
  • The channel must already be registered as a notification target in your beehive. Targets are added through the Notifications API by someone with notifications:write:targets; there isn’t a screen for this yet. Ask your administrator if your channel isn’t in the list.

Post to a channel

  1. In the Worker Bee wizard, on the Actions step, choose Notifications · Post to Slack or Notifications · Post to Microsoft Teams.
  2. In Slack channel or Teams channel, choose the channel.
  3. Optionally, write a Message of up to 2,000 characters. Use Insert data to include details from the event, such as New gift of {{ payload.amount }} {{ payload.currency }}.
  4. Finish the wizard and choose Create worker bee.

If you leave Message empty, the post reads “Automation triggered.” Slack posts also show the event type and when it occurred underneath.

A channel post can be read by everyone in that channel, including people who can’t see the record in ThirdSectorBee. Think about what you include, especially names and amounts.

Email a colleague

Notifications · Email a colleague sends one member of your team a short email. It’s available in every beehive and needs no extra permission.

  1. Choose Notifications · Email a colleague.
  2. In Recipient, choose the person.

The wording is fixed and can’t be changed: the subject is “Automation triggered:” followed by the event type, and the email lists the event type, event ID and when it occurred. It doesn’t include the record’s details, so your colleague will need to look it up.

What you’ll see

Each post or email appears as a row in the bee’s flight history.

  • If Slack or Teams rejects a post, ThirdSectorBee tries again automatically. Occasionally a retry can produce a duplicate post.
  • A post fails without retrying if the channel’s stored address isn’t a recognised Slack or Teams address, or if the colleague has no email address.