How to create a workflow to send messages in Slack based on Google Sheets or Jira content
I wanted to have a weekly notification in our team Slack channel based on the status of our Jira tickets. We already get messages when a particular watched Jira issue is changed but I was rather looking for aggregated information I could use as metrics and so on.
Long story short; by connecting Jira cloud for Google sheets and Google Sheets for workflow builder I managed to pull information from a Jira filter and present the result in Slack weekly.
The long story
Step 1
Get Jira cloud for Google sheets and install it using these instructions:
Step 2
Populate your sheet from Jira by going to the menu Add-ons -> Jira Cloud for Sheets -> Open…
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image.png)
In the Jira add-on you then connect to your Jira instance and then chose “Get Jira issues”. You can set a number of parameters, such as using an existing filter or type JQL and you can set which fields to import as well as a schedule for how often the sheet should be populated.
Step 3
Install Google Sheets Slack app for workflow builder and then create a workflow using to these instructions.
Step 4
Structure your data in the Sheet so that the Slack app can read them – this is the hard part.
The app assumes you have your data structured in named columns and variable names identifying each row as such
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-1.png)
This means that if you don’t have this structure already you need to add variable names and column headers.
You can also add a small table somewhere with just the results you are interested in:
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-2.png)
Step 5
Add a workflow step that searches for a row in your sheet and
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-3-1024x130.png)
edit the step so that the row you are looking for is selected
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-4.png)
Step 6
Choose “Send a message to..” and insert a variable with a column which contains the value you want in your row (See example)
![](https://www.citerus.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/image-6.png)
That’s it! now you can choose when you want your workflow to run etc and you should be able to get all information you want directly in your Slack Channel