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Retrieving Slack responses in a Zapier workflow

  • February 15, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 12 views

I'm building a Zapier workflow that automates tracking form submissions and related Slack discussions. Here’s the current setup:

  1. Trigger: A new submission is received in Jotform.
  2. Slack Notification: A message is sent to a Slack channel to notify the team.
  3. Data Logging: A new row is created in Google Sheets to store submission details.
  4. Delay: The workflow waits for a specified time using Delay by Zapier.
  5. Retrieving Responses: The workflow fetches thread messages from the original Slack notification.
  6. Formatting Data: Formatter by Zapier processes text from the Slack thread.
  7. Finding Records: A lookup action in Google Sheets finds the related submission.
  8. Updating Records: The spreadsheet row is updated with the latest details.

where I am getting stuck is retrieving responses in slack.  I can get the zap to fill in the right row in google with a thread message, my question is how to I keep in up to date.

do I need a new zap that where the trigger is a new thread or I read somewhere about using an emoji as a trigger. 

My goal is to create a google sheet repository of all the Q&A that happens in that channel to build out an FAQ and use it as a searchable resource in the future.  

thanks

 

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1 reply

escalateur.com

Hi! Yes as you mentioned I think the best solution here would be to split this flow in 2 Zaps. The first one would just post the original notification to Slack and create the new GSheets row. Note that you’d need to create a “thread_ts” column in the GSheets.

Then the 2nd Zap would have a quite broad trigger such as “New message posted to Channel”. First, set a filter to leave out the messages that are not thread replies. The rule would be Only continue if “ts” is not equal to “thread_ts”.

After that, use this “thread_ts” parameter to lookup your GSheets and find the related row.