Welcome to this tutorial on Notifications! In this article we will cover:

1. How to configure Slack or MS Teams integrations

2. How to set up basic Issue and Log notification rules

3. How to trigger notifications on demand 

4. I don't have Slack or Teams... is there anything I can do?

Notifications really shine when they are delivered over a messenger such as MS Teams or Slack. For that reason we highly recommend you give this configuration a fair attempt. 

Our first order of business is to configure the respective integration. If you are using Slack, simply read on. For MS Teams users, skip to this section.

Slack Integration Setup

The first thing we need to do is connect Pharos to your Slack. We'll initiate this process from Pharos Admin in the instance where the Pharos managed package is installed.

Running Into Trouble?

If things didn't go smoothly for you during the steps above, most likely is that you get stuck during or after the OAuth prompt (the green Allow button). If that's the case, read on for some insights.

Permission Woes

We realize that due to security and compliance needs companies may have different policies regarding which apps can be installed in their Slack workspace or within their Azure accounts. 

Pharos Slack Application

Pharos is able to send messages to Slack via the Pharos Slack application. Think of it as a Slack connector that is performing basic tasks via the api, such as "create a message" or "list channels". By authorizing a Slack connection you are effectively installing the Pharos Slack app into your workspace so it can perform actions on your behalf.  Pharos Slack app is very lightweight and, at this moment, does not have any bot functionality to interpret commands or display custom banners or forms within messages. It's meant to send messages only.

For reasons above, Pharos isn't officially listed on the Slack marketplace... yet. For most companies this wouldn't pose any problems. However, if your company prohibits installing apps that are not listed on the Slack marketplace, we'll have to resolve this matter before moving forward. 

If you go through the Slack flow below and discover that this is the case for your company, there are a couple of things to try:

1. Reach out to your admin and see if they can temporarily remove the non-listed app restriction and then re-enable it 

Before connecting to Slack, reach out to your Slack admin and simply ask them to remove this permission for a brief period. Once you've finished connecting to Slack the admin there can re-enable the non-listed applications restriction.

This is a great option for smaller companies and is by far the easiest workaround.

2. Have your Slack admin create a custom app for Pharos.

This option involves a joint effort by you and your Slack admin. You can check out this guide on creating and connecting a custom Slack application.

Once you're done with the steps there, you can move forward with connecting to Slack as described below.

Teams Integration Setup

The first thing we need to do is connect Pharos to your Teams. We'll initiate this process from Pharos Admin in the instance where the Pharos managed package is installed. Follow the steps in this article and, if necessary, reach out to your Azure admin.

Creating Notification Rules

Now that we're set up with our messenger of choice let's see some Pharos notifications in action! To do that we'll simply need to create a couple of Notification rules in Pharos Admin. Follow the video instructions below:

Creating Channels

There are 3 options to create channels depending on your level of access within Slack or Teams. 

• If your user has access to create new channels you can test out Pharos notifications without disturbing other users on your team. You can also experiment with private and public channels. If your user has the necessary access you can safely skip the rest of this section.
• Utilize an existing channel. Perhaps, you already have a Salesforce or Salesforce themed channel. It's a good idea to be mindful of who's one the channel and who will be receiving notifications from Pharos*.
• Reach out to your Admin and have them create a channel for you.
  For Slack users, once you've logged into Pharos, have them add the Pharos app to this channel, if it's private, as described here.
  Teams users don't need to worry about adding any apps to channels.
  This is the easiest option (well, for you) but may require a bit more time than any of the above.

(*) The perfect group to receive Pharos notification messages would be one that consists of technical folks such as admins or developers. Feel free to also include those that support your Salesforce instance and would like to be informed about problems within it.

Before initiating any notifications from Pharos, please communicate to the other channel members that they might see some Salesforce-related activity, just to let them know what's going on. 

Testing out Notifications

Now that we've got our integrations set up and the rules configured we can move on to the fun part. To recap, here's the configuration we have set up:

• Any new Log record created will send a notification
• Any new Issue record created will send a notification

At this point both of the notifications will send a message to the same channel (if you followed the video instructions verbatim). Now, you may choose to separate the two later, in fact, we would encourage you to do so. However, for evaluation purposes, it's easier to work with a single channel. The goal of this exercise is to create some logs and issues and observe the notifications. If you've installed in production, simply wait for new logs to come in and observe your Slack/Teams channel. If you've installed in a sandbox environment, try our error generator for immediate results! 

If you'd like a more detailed overview of notifications, check out this training video here.