SLACK BOT FOR SOCIAL CONNECTION AND ENGAGEMENT

The Covid-19 pandemic made work from home a new normal. This has had a profound impact on businesses and workers alike, reshaping the way we think about traditional office structures and opening up new opportunities for collaboration and communication. While many have found remote work to be liberating, offering greater flexibility, autonomy, and work-life balance, some struggled to adapt to this new way of working.

With all the perks, remote work has also presented new challenges. Among the biggest concerns are feeling loneliness and disconnection from co-workers due to the lack of genuine human connection to other people.

Impromptu wanted to solve this issue and create opportunities for in-person social connection so that remote workers will never feel lonely or isolated again. They asked us to develop a Slack bot for formal and informal activities within the organization that would bring people together.

We started the MVP development process with the discovery phase. Its purpose was to define the list of priority features and tech stack, create product specification and work on the design concept for the Slack bot. On the last step of the discovery phase we made project estimations and agreed on team composition.

We decided to build a Slack bot on Python using FastAPI for server creation and Google Maps API to bind activities to specific places. The feature set of an MVP included the creation and management of activities and subscription to notifications.

• Super admin, the person who installs the bot, manages admin rights and pricing (in the future).
• Admins — usually these are HR specialists, event managers, etc.
• Regular users

To create a new social or event, users need to add a cover photo, enter name, choose category, start and end date. Administrators can edit and delete all Socials and Events, while regular users can only manage their own.

Newly created activities are posted to channels for Events and for Socials. Anyone can join it right from Slack channel. Not to miss the updates, any user can subscribe to notifications in categories and locations they’re interested in and add them to Google Calendar.

Personalized notifications tailored to your interests & location, invites to join an event or social activity, notifications after joining an activity, and an event or social reminder “1 hour before” the activity starts.

The Upsilon team has broad experience in providing MVP development services that allows us to deliver products in time and meet all the requirements. We start with the discovery phase, work in sprints, and use the Agile methodology.

In 2 months, we managed to develop an MVP of a Slack bot for social connection and engagement that brings remote working professionals together in-person to foster meaningful human connection.