dog-tracker

GoogleScript/GoogleSpreadsheet-based Slack app for tracking which dogs are in your office today. Reduces the need for people to ask around if a particular dog is in the office for them to visit.

When someone brings their dog in for the day they would use /dog [their dog's name]. Slack then sends a notification to the desired channel to inform everyone that the dog is in the office. Throughout the day other Slack users would use /dog to get a list of all the dogs currently in the office that day.

When a dog is registered as in-office, they will only show up as in-office for that day. If someone brings in their dog again the next day, they're expected to run /dog [their dog's name] again.

Data Flow

• Slack command sends POST requests to Google Script.
• Google Script uses Google Spreadsheet to manage the data.
  • Each row of the sheet contains dog name & last in-office date.
  • When a dog is marked in-office, its last in-office date is updated to today's date.
  • When the /dog command is issued, the script looks for all dogs that have a last in-office date of today and returns.
  • There are also commands to list all the dogs registered at the company, help, and 'delete' a dog from the registry.
• An Incoming Webhook is invoked to notify a Slack channel when a dog is marked as in-office.

Slackbot Commands

• Assuming you've set the slack command to /dog:
  • /dog help -> List the commands with a description of what they do.
  • /dog -> List all the dogs in the office today.
  • /dog list -> List the dogs registered at your company.
  • /dog register -> [Dog Name] - Registers the given dog (example: /dog register bruno).
  • /dog delete [Dog Name] -> Deletes the given dog (example: /dog delete bruno).
  • /dog [Dog Name] -> Sets the given dog as in-office for the day (example: /dog bruno). If the dog is not registered, it will be.

Prerequisites

• Admin access to your organization's Slack
• A Google account with Google Docs access

Getting Started

Google

• Create a new empty spreadsheet
• Go into Tools -> Script Editor
• Copy dogTracker.gs into the script
• Replace [SPREADSHEET_ID] with the ID of the spreadsheet from the spreadsheet's URL
  • As of writing, URL is like: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/[ID]/edit#gid=0
• Go to Publish -> Deploy as Web app
• Under Who has access to this app make sure the value is Anyone, even anonymous
  • Important Make sure you save the URL that it generates

Slack

Incoming Webhook

• Go to https://[ORGANIZATION_NAME].slack.com/apps/A0F7XDUAZ-incoming-webhooks -> Add Configuration
  • If that URL is no longer valid, search for Incoming Webhooks in the Search App Directory at https://[ORGANIZATION_NAME].slack.com/apps
• Choose the channel that you want to post to and click through
• Copy the Webhook URL and replace [INCOMING_WEBHOOK_URL] in your Google script
• Don't forget to modify the Customize Name and Customize Icon values :)

Slack command

• Go to https://[ORGANIZATION_NAME].slack.com/apps/A0F82E8CA-slash-commands -> Slash Commands
  • If that URL is no longer valid, search for Slash commands in the Search App Directory at https://[ORGANIZATION_NAME].slack.com/apps
• Choose the command name you want and click through
• In the Outgoing Data section, copy the value for token and replace [SLACK_WEBHOOK_TOKEN] in your Google script
• Copy your web app URL from the Google section of this guide into the URL field
• Don't forget to modify the Customize Name and Customize Icon
• In Autocomplete help text it is useful to set the Usage hint to help so your end users know to type help for more information

Back to Google

• In your script, go back to Publish -> Deploy as Web app
  • Important Make sure you select New in Project version, otherwise your changes will not be published!