Unable To Send A Message In Slack To A Specific Person

[Courtney Burton]

Hello,

I am trying to use the 'Send A Message' option in JIRA Automation to message a user in Slack. The description states that you can override where the message is sent by completing the 'Channel or user' field, however, I cannot get this to work.

From what I have read, I am typing the information correctly but, when I test the automation, my message posts to the Webhook URL I provided rather than the specific user I mentioned.

I've seen someone say to use the following syntax: <@SlackMemberID> but JIRA will not accept that.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Courtney Burton -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Short answer: that feature no longer works in the Send Slack Message action.  Atlassian has not yet updated the rule editor UX or documentation to reflect this.

After the Slack REST API changed, automation rules (and other tools) could no longer send direct messages to Slack users.  (Slack now does this type of messaging with its own "apps" feature.)  Messages can still mention a user or send to a specific channel. 

And thus one workaround is to create a specific channel for each user in Slack and using the relevant channel in messages sent from rules.  In my opinion, that is not a scalable solution due to the amount of maintenance required.

Kind regards,
Bill