geoslack

GeoSlack

Slack integration that lets your team plot and share their locations on a map.

Prerequisites

• You must be an admin for a Slack Workspace
• You must have a way to deploy this node.js app such as
  • Heroku
  • Zeit Now
  • Host it yourself
• You must have team members in the same Slack Team/Workspace (optional 😜)

Create a Incoming Webhook

This is necessary for the GeoSlack app to post a message in slack with a map/location of the user.

• Login to your Slack workspace
• Go to api.slack.com/incoming-webhooks
• Click on incoming webhook integration near the top
• Select a channel and then click the big green Add Incoming WebHooks Integration button
• Scroll down to the Integration Settings
• Double check the channel name
• Copy the Webhook URL for later
• Assign a Custom Name such as "GeoSlack"
• Assign a Custom Icon such as the :world_map: emoji
• Click the Save Settings button

Deployment

The following assumes you want to deploy GeoSlack to Heroku.

However, you can deploy to any server that can run Node.js and change environment variables.

• Click this button
• Type in a name for your app such as "geoslack"
• Click the Deploy App button
• Click the Settings tab at the top
• Click the Reveal Config Vars button to show environment variables
• Add the following key/value pairs:
  • APP_URL - From "domains", format: http://<your_heroku_domain>/findme
  • SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL - From Step 1 above, format: https://hooks.slack.com/<more>
  • GMAPS_API_KEY - From Google Maps click to get api key
  • DESTINATION - optional address or coordinates of your team's workplace

(Optional) Create an Outgoing Webhook

This is optional but will allow you to type a keyword and get a link to the GeoSlack app.

• Go to api.slack.com/outgoing-webhooks
• Click on outgoing webhook integration near the top
• Click the big green Add Outgoing Webhook Integration button
• Add url http://<your_heroku_domain>/slack

Prior Art

This code was forked from concurlabs/geoslack which is no longer maintained. Since forking, I added a couple new features including

• A page to show everyone's location
• ETA to your destination
• (future) Periodically update location