How can I set up email or Slack alerts?

Set up Slack alerts to highlight blocked work and improve team collaboration.

Once you’re added as a user on the Multitudes app, you’ll automatically get weekly summaries via email that show how your team is doing along with suggested actions you may want to take.

If you’d prefer to get these via Slack, you can set up Slack alerts either in Settings > Integrations or directly from the homepage.

To set these up from the homepage: scroll to the Trend Summary section (past the At a glance view), find any card, go to the lower Take Action section, and click the notification bell at top right. From there, connect to Slack and configure the alert for your preferred channel and time – then you’re good to go! We also suggest the Slack alert that’s best for improving the metric in question.

Configuring a Slack alert

How do I connect a Slack workspace to Multitudes?

screenshot
Screenshot of Settings > Integrations
  • Click the “Install the Multitudes for Slack app” button in the modal. This will open a new window on your browser, at [workspace-name].slack.com. Make sure you’re on the correct workspace - you can change this in the dropdown on the top right corner.
  • Click “Allow” (or “Request approval” if your workspace has app approvals turned on by a workspace owner).
  • If you clicked “Allow” (or once the request is approved) you will now see a configuration modal when you click the Slack card on Settings > Integrations, where you can configure new Slack alerts (see below for how to set up each type of alert).

How do I get alerts in private Slack channels?

Once you’ve connected your workspace to Multitudes, add the `Multitudes for Slack` app to the relevant private channels. You can do this in two ways:

  • Just type `@multitudes` in the channel, or
  • Click on the channel name and go to Integrations > Add apps.
Screenshot of Slack with the channel details for a channel called #data-chats showing. It's on the "Integrations" tab, and there is a red square around the section "Apps". The cursor is pointing at an "Add apps" link.
One way of adding the Multitudes app to a private channel - via channel settings > Integrations > Apps > Add apps

Those private channels should now be visible in the channel dropdowns when you’re configuring an alert, alongside all the public channels which are automatically visible.

Channel dropdown showing available slack channels in the alert configuration modal

💬 Set up a Daily Blocked PR Alert

A Slack post showing "Blocked PRs for AcmeOrg" and a list of pull requests in two sections: "PRs awaiting review" and "PRs reviewed and awaiting action".

To improve your delivery, set up a Daily Blocked PRs alert. This sends a daily summary of pull requests that are awaiting action (e.g., a review, a conversation being resolved, or a merge) and were last updated 8+ hours ago. We recommend timing these to arrive before your daily stand-up, so you can discuss as needed there.

How to set it up

Who can set it up? Anyone with a Multitudes account – a Member, Manager, or Owner. Learn more about permissions here.

Prerequisites: You’ve already connected a Slack workspace to Multitudes. If you'd like the alert sent to a private channel, you should also add the Multitudes Slack app to that channel.

  1. On the Multitudes app, in the side bar, navigate to Settings > Integrations.
  2. Under “Alerts”, look for Slack and click “Configure”.
  3. Click “Set up team alert”.
  4. Making sure that “Daily Blocked PRs alert” is selected in the first dropdown, select the team and channel that should get the alert, and what time you would like it to be sent.
  5. Hit “Save”. You should receive a confirmation message in the channel(s) you selected.

What does it include?

Summary of the past 3 days:

  • PRs opened: The number of PRs that were opened. This includes PRs that were opened in a “draft” state.
  • PRs merged: The number of PRs that were merged.
  • Commits done out-of-hours: The number of commits that were created outside of the commit author’s usual working hours (as specified on the Team Settings page).
  • These values are filtered for just the people on the selected team, in the past 3 days.

[NAME] has the most PRs awaiting review ([X] PRs)
This person has the most open PRs that don’t yet have any reviews.

Blocked PRs

  • 🔨PRs awaiting review: These open PRs are yet to receive a review. A good opportunity to nudge someone to review this work!
  • 👀PRs reviewed and awaiting action: These have had a review, so they’ve been waiting to be resolved and/or merged for more than 8 hours since they were last updated. Maybe worth checking to see if there’s a reply pending, or if it can be merged!
  • The list only includes PRs that were last updated 8+ hours ago (where “updated” means a commit, edit, comment, or review).

    • Hours counted represent absolute time, and are not affected by whether or not it was business hours
    • For example, PRs opened on a Friday will show up on the alert on Monday
    • This will happen even if on the app you have selected to ‘exclude weekend hours’ for Lead Time and Review Wait Time
    • This is beneficial for some people who like to be reminded on a Monday of outstanding work from Friday. The alert will never be noisy and send on the weekend itself
  • The list excludes:

    • PRs that haven’t been updated in more than 7 days, to avoid surfacing stale PRs day after day
    • Draft PRs
    • PRs with the string [do not merge] in the PR title (case insensitive)

🗞 Set up a Trend Summary

A slack message summarizing a development team's metrics, and the changes in comparison to the previous time period

A Trend Summary is a type of Slack alert that shows a quick view across 5 key metrics of how the selected team (or organization as a whole) is doing. These 5 key metrics are:

  • Lead Time
  • Merge Frequency
  • Change Failure Rate
  • Out-of-Hours Work
  • PR Feedback Given

As seen on the second line of text, the metrics are for the last week/fortnight as compared to the previous period. For each metric, we highlight insights and suggested actions. These insights are based on the targets that you have defined in the Multitudes app, which are either custom or our pre-defined industry benchmarks. 

For more information on these 5 metrics including how they’re calculated and the research behind our pre-defined industry benchmarks, please check our help article on What We Measure and Why.

How to set it up

Who can set it up? Anyone with a Multitudes account – a Member, Manager, or Owner. Learn more about permissions here.

Prerequisites: You’ve already connected a Slack workspace to Multitudes. If you'd like the alert sent to a private channel, you should also add the Multitudes Slack app to that channel.

  1. On the Multitudes app, in the side bar, navigate to Settings > Integrations.
  2. Under “Alerts”, look for Slack and click “Configure”.
  3. Click “Set up team alert”.
  4. Making sure that “Trend Summary” is selected in the first dropdown, select the team and channel that should get the alert and the frequency (weekly / fortnightly).
  5. Hit “Save”. You should receive a confirmation message in the channel(s) you selected.
The configuration modal for setting up a slack notification. "Trend summary" has been selected, "Engineering" for team, "#engineering" for the channel, and "Weekly" for cadence. There are 2 preference toggles, "Exclude weekend hours" and "Only count PR reviews" which are turned off.

🤝 1:1 Prompts

A 1:1 prompt is a type of slack notification that shows the top 3 reflection ideas to discuss, based on a team member's data.

A screenshot of a Slack 1-on-1 prompt that shows a DM from the Multitudes app to you. It shows "Reflection ideas for Alex", a button that says "View 1:1", and three bullet points with conversation starters for review wait time, PR feedback received, and PR feedback given. There is also a small warning at the bottom saying "Alex hasn't connected Slack to Multitudes, so they won't get a copy of this. We recommend sharing this message, or asking them to connect Slack under Settings -> Workspace."

Who is included in a 1:1 prompt? 
Anyone that is assigned to your Profile > 'Who you have 1:1s with'

When does this get sent? 
You can pick a day to receive this, at a weekly or fortnightly cadence.

How can I share this with my team member?
Once your team member has configured their Slack connection to the Multitudes app, they will receive a copy of the conversation starters. To do this, the team member must have access to the app.

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