Slack & Webex Teams Integration – Connect Slack and Webex Teams

Connecting Slack and Cisco Webex Teams needs to be native, seamless and simple to administer.

Standalone, both these apps have achieved this messaging nirvana.

To go one step further and connect these apps to work across platform, there are several ways to achieve this. Some better than others.

We often hear from customers trying to connect Slack and Cisco Webex Teams to get the most out of each solution.

However, this often results in another chat app being introduced and limited or loss of functionality.

We’ve highlighted 4 ways to connect Slack and Webex Teams then gone out and found a better one for internal and a better one for external.

You may also like: Ultimate Guide to External Federation between Slack and Webex Cisco Webex Teams

1- Connect Slack and Cisco Webex Teams via workflows

Pros:

a. Workflow apps allow IT admins to quickly connect Cisco Webex Teams and Slack. Generally, workflows only take a matter of minutes to set up. If you want to set up a one-off integration or trigger from one platform to the other, this is the ideal solution.

b. Most workflow engines come with intuitive interfaces so no back end coding is required to configure behaviour between platforms.

Cons:

a. Integrations need to be set up one by one and are time-consuming if you need to connect entire organizations.

b.When triggers and actions need to be modified, integrations must be modified one by one.

c. Workflow software is limited by number of integrations.

d. Workflow triggers sometimes only work one way. Communications in Slack could make it to Cisco Webex Teams but not vice versa.

2- Configure webhooks for Slack & Cisco Webex Teams

Pros:

a. Webhooks are a simple and cost-effective method of joining Slack and Webex Teams together for certain events. If the scenario resides in a single channel, webhooks provide a good solution to connecting Slack and Webex Teams.

b. The Slack API enables you to “make it fancy” with advanced formatting. Interactive buttons and menus are available when using configuring webhooks in Slack.

Cons:

a. Webhooks require lots of manual configuration. If you have multiple Slack channels or Webex Teams spaces, this means configuring on a one-by-one basis.

b. Events triggered by webhooks in Cisco Webex Teams are only near real-time. Whilst both Slack and Webex Teams are persistent chat tools, the instant messaging experience is no longer instant in only “near real-time”.

News also broke in April 2020 when it was discovered some Slack webhooks has been exposed as potential phishing hooks.

Researchers said there are nearly 131,000 Slack webhook URLs available on the Internet.

3- Use the Slack app directory to connect Slack & Webex

The Slack app directory features an app to connect Cisco Webex Meetings with Slack. This enables users to host a Cisco Webex meeting without leaving their Slack app.

Pros:

a. Slack doesn’t currently offer a meeting feature so this provides a way into a leading meeting tool. Users can launch a Cisco Webex meeting straight from their Slack channel or DM and host a meeting with up to 25 participants.

b. Users that favor Slack can now remain in their Slack app, rather than having to toggle between apps to collaborate.

Cons:

a. You must have a Cisco Webex Meetings host account to use the Slack and Cisco Webex integration. The pros of launching a meeting from your preferred app are slightly outweighed by still having to pay for and deploy a Cisco Webex Meetings account.

b. Cisco Webex Teams offers a more intuitive experience for launching Cisco Webex meetings. Users of Webex Teams will likely opt to remain using their tool of choice.

c. Only Cisco Webex Meetings is supported via the Slack app directory. There is no interoperability for messaging between Slack and Cisco Webex Teams.

4- Connect Slack and Cisco Webex Teams using tubes

Pros:

a. Tubes provide a two-way, real-time collaboration between Slack and Cisco Webex Teams.

Cons:

a. In 2017, Slack introduced Shared Channels which provides the functionality that tubes were set out to do. Essentially, this is providing a federation solution so that two different companies using Slack can communicate on the same platform.

b. The company behind these tubes was acquired in 2017 and has been off the radar since.

c. Like webhooks, tubes require lots of manual configuration. If you have multiple Slack channels or Webex Teams spaces, this means configuring on a one-by-one basis. You probably need a full -team sync that will add any new channels created in the future automatically to the other side too, so you don’t have to keep setting up more tubes

d. Tubes are considerably more expensive than any of the other methods mentioned in this post i.e. webhooks, workflows and even the solution below.

5 – The better solution for external comms?
Federation for Slack and Cisco Webex Teams

Do you communicate with people outside your organization?

Do they use Slack when you use Webex Teams?

Maybe it’s vice versa.

When this is the case, it becomes extremely unproductive moving out of your preferred app, into your external contact’s choice of app, and starting the conversation again.

Or even worse, end up resorting to email like it’s the 90s. (Okay, email has a purpose but you get the point).

That’s why Mio has created universal channels for Slack and Webex Teams…

You can stay in Slack and send messages to your contractors, suppliers, or clients that use Webex (or vice versa).

They stay in their platform too and Mio translates the messages across platform.

And it’s not just messages that are supported! GIFs, emojis, channels, DMs, and message edits/deletes are all supported.

If this sounds like something you need, install Mio into your Slack workspace or Webex Teams space.