How to set up Slack notifications

Connect Burst Pro to a Slack channel and your reports, traffic alerts and tracking warnings show up where your team already talks. Nobody has to remember to open the dashboard to see that traffic doubled overnight or that tracking stopped working after a plugin update.

This guide takes about five minutes. You create an incoming webhook in Slack, paste it into Burst and send a test message.

What Burst sends to Slack

Once the webhook is saved, Burst posts three kinds of messages to your channel:

• Story reports. A summary card with the key numbers of a scheduled story report and a link to the full, interactive story
• Traffic spikes and dips. When anomaly detection spots an unusual day in visitors, sessions or pageviews, you get an alert. If the daily scan finds several anomalies, Burst bundles them into one message so your channel doesn’t fill up
• Tracking health warnings. If Burst sees a sharp drop in recorded hits, for example because a caching or security plugin blocks the tracking script, you get a warning so you can check your site

Slack notifications are part of Burst Pro.

What you need

• Burst Pro, installed and activated with a valid license
• A Slack workspace where you’re allowed to add apps. On some company workspaces only admins can do this, so ask yours if the option is greyed out

Step 1. Create an incoming webhook in Slack

An incoming webhook is a unique URL that lets an app post messages to one Slack channel. Burst uses it to deliver notifications, and it can’t read anything in your workspace.

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and sign in to your workspace
2. Click Create New App and choose From scratch
3. Give the app a name, for example “Burst Statistics”, pick your workspace and click Create App
4. In the left menu, open Incoming Webhooks
5. Switch Activate Incoming Webhooks on
6. Scroll down and click Add New Webhook to Workspace
7. Choose the channel where the notifications should appear, for example #analytics or #marketing, and click Allow
8. Copy the webhook URL. It looks like this:

https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Treat this URL like a password. Anyone who has it can post messages to your channel.

Step 2. Add the webhook to Burst

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Burst and open Settings
2. Open the Notifications tab
3. Paste the URL into the Slack webhook URL field
4. Click Send test message. A test card appears in your Slack channel within a few seconds
5. Click Save

Burst only accepts URLs that start with https://hooks.slack.com/services/. If the test fails, Burst shows the reason, which is usually a typo in the URL or a webhook that was removed in Slack.

After saving, Burst masks the URL in the settings screen and leaves it out of debug information and exports. To replace the webhook, clear the field, paste the new URL and save again.

Step 3. Send story reports to Slack

Anomaly alerts and tracking warnings go to Slack as soon as the webhook is saved. Reports need one more choice, because you decide per report where it goes.

1. Go to Burst, open Reporting and create a new report or edit an existing one
2. Choose the Story format. Slack delivery works for story reports only, because the Slack message links to the interactive story
3. At the Delivery channel step, choose Email and Slack
4. Add the email recipients who should also get the report, set the schedule and save

Want every new report to go to Slack by default? On the same Notifications tab, set Default delivery channel to Email and Slack. You can still change it for individual reports.

Who can see what

A story report in Slack contains a link to the full story. Anyone with access to the channel can open that link, including people who don’t have a WordPress account on your site. Post reports in a channel with the right members, or use a private channel if the numbers shouldn’t be shared widely.

Troubleshooting

The test message doesn’t arrive. Check that the URL is complete and starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/. If the app or webhook was deleted in Slack, create a new webhook and paste the new URL.

The test works, but reports don’t show up in Slack. Check that the report uses the Story format, that Email and Slack is selected as the delivery channel and that the report is switched on. Delivery attempts are listed under Reporting in Logs.

Messages go to the wrong channel. A webhook is tied to one channel. Create a new webhook in Slack for the channel you want and replace the URL in Burst.