How to install and use Simployer One AI Slackbot

Modified on Thu, 5 Jun at 1:51 PM

How to use our AI chatbot in Slack

NOTE: As the first step, an Owner or Admin of your Alexis company account need to have activated this integration for your organization. If you're an Owner or Admin, you can check our guide here for the Simployer One Slackbot and here for the Simployer One AI Slackbot.

There are currently two different versions of Slackbots, Simployer One and Simployer One AI. Simployer One is the old version of our Slackbot and Simployer One AI is the newer version. If you have the Simployer One bot installed, we suggest that you uninstall it and switch to the newer Alexis AI bot. Worth to note is that the Simployer One Slackbot will be replaced fully by the Simployer One AI bot in 2024.

This guide will show you as an employee can download our Simployer One AI bot to your Slack and how to use it.

Installing the Simployer One AI Slackbot

Open your Slack and head over to the Section "Apps" and then "Add apps".
Type "Simployer One AI" in the search bar and choose the one called "Simployer One AI". If you can't see Simployer One AI then it means this has not been activated for your organization yet.
You should now see the Simployer One AI-app in amongst your apps on Slack. Click on it and type "help" to wake up the bot.

How to use the Simployer One AI Slackbot

So now that you have installed your Slackbot, let's take a look at how to use it and what you can do.

Everyone:

Apply for time off
Fill in and/or review your time report
Let your team know when you will be/if you are working from home
See your current available vacation days
Get notifications in Slack instead of via email (you can choose which notification in your Notifications Center)
Receive summaries and digests from your company handbooks (Simployer One AI only)
View public information about colleagues e.g. who their manager is, role, contact details etc.

As a Manager you can do all of the above and:

Get notified when you have a leave request from your subordinate(s)
Approve or reject leave requests
View and edit information about your subordinates e.g. update employment types

As a Admin or Owner you can do all of the above and:

Get different notifications and receive weekly digests
View and edit employee information on the profile with the help of different prompts

Read more about some of the actions available in our Slackbots here below. Click on the arrows to unfold each section.

Applying for time off or Working from Home

Go to our Slackbot and wake it up by typing "Help".
You will now find all time off options available including WFH. Choose the one relevant for you, e.g. "Sick leave".
A popup will now appear where you can select the time frame for your time off request, as well as an option for you to add a note to your approver.
Click on "Submit" when you are done. If the request needs to be approved first then you will receive a notification when this has been done.

Report worked hours or review your timesheet

You can now easily report your worked hours in Slack, projects included, as well as reviewing your timesheet whenever needed.

Keep in mind however that this is currently only for reporting worked hours, you still need to submit your timesheet in Alexis for it to be approved.

Wake up the bot by typing "Help".
Choose "Report time" if you want to make a new entry or "My timesheet" for a summary of your reported hours for the current timesheet.
- "My timesheet" will show you all your reported hours as well as any approved time offs for that timesheet.
A popup will appear allowing you to fill in some options such as:
- Project(s) - this is optional and only visible if you have been added to a time reporting policy allowing projects. If this option is missing for you when it shouldn't, reach out to your HR-team.
- Day - which day you would like to report for, e.g. today or 2023-11-23 etc.
- Time to report - you can add both hours and minutes.
- Notes - also optional but here you can add a note to your approver if needed.
When done with your entry, click "Submit". From there you will see short a summary of your reported entry as well as an option to add another one or open your timesheet in Alexis.

Note: Edits are currently not possible in the Slackbot, if you want to change an already reported entry then this needs to be done in Alexis. However, if you want to add more hours for the same project as you already have reported, you can add this as a new entry and choose the same project.

How to use receive handbook digests

As an employee you can chat with our Simployer One AI Slackbot, in any language you want, whenever you have questions or in need of information which can otherwise be found in the company handbooks set up by your organization. Our AI will adapt and translate its content and answers to you in the same language. Som examples of questions which you can use:

What is the company's remote work policy?
How does the vacation policy work for full-time employees?
What does our handbooks say about remote work?
What are our policies regarding office dogs?

Instead of browsing through all the handbooks and policies yourself, allow Simployer One AI to do the hard work and summarize it for you in the language of your choice.

Keep in mind you can only receive summaries and answers based on the handbooks made available by your organization and which you have access to. If there are no published handbooks then the bot will not be able to return an answer.

Open "Simployer One AI" in Slack.
Type your question, in any language, and wait for a few seconds for our bot to do its magic.
1. To retrieve information connected to handbooks, you must include words such as such as "handbook" and "policy" as part of your prompt. For example "What is our time off policy for employees based in Sweden?"
Our AI will summarize the answer for you, given the information is made available to you by the organization. If our AI finds possible answers in several handbooks then it will showcase you all these and give you direct links to all of those handbooks.
If the bot doesn't return an answer then it could mean your organization either:
1. Don't have any sections about that specific topic in their published handbooks
2. Haven't given you access to any handbooks covering that topic
3. Haven't published any handbooks in Alexis in general

View and edit employee profile data

View and update your own or a subordinate's profile via our AI chatbots. For example:

Prompts to view information

Profile: Show me my profile
Birthday: When is XXX birthday?
Address: What is XXX’s address? Where does XXX live?
Manager: Who is XXX’s manager? Who does XXX report to?
Title: What is XXX’s title? What is XXX working with?
Contact: What are XXX’s contact details? Show me XXX’s email.
Office: At what office is XXX working? Where is XXX working?
Salary: What does XXX earn? Show me XXX’s salary
Employment: What is XXX’s employment type? When is XXX last day?

Prompts to update information

Salary: Update XXX’s salary.
Manager: Change who XXX reports to
Employment: Update XXX’s employment
Title & Manager: Update XXX title to Product Manager and that he reports to XXX
Office: Change XXX’s office to Berlin

Please note:

The types of data and information on an employee's profile which you can view or edit via the Simployer One AI Slackbot depends completely on your current permission level in Simployer One. Regardless of prompts used, the bot will only show or answer you with the information you are allowed to see. To simplify:

Employee A is an Owner in Simployer One which means they can use prompts related to employment about each employee since they have access to the compensation information on the profiles in Simployer One. For example: "Update NAME_OF_EMPLOYEE's employment".

Meanwhile, Employee B is a Colleague in Simployer One which results in our Simployer One AI Slackbot not returning a proper answer with the sensitive data as the answer if they are asking for data they don't have access to on Simployer One, for example other colleagues' compensations or employments (besides their own).

You can read this article (available for Owners and Admins only) to learn more about the different permissions and their access rights in Simployer One.

Important: If this is your first time using AI, please read our general guidelines and pointers found here with a summary of important things to think about if you are new to this new way of working

Troubleshooting the Slack app

"The Slack- and Simployer One-email addresses do not match"

For security reasons and to mitigate user errors, the email you have in Slack needs to match your email in Simployer One. Currently we check the email adress in the field "work email" in Simployer One with the email in Slack.

This error can also occur if you have turned on security features blocking API requests permissions. If you have checked that the email in Simployer One matches your email in Slack - please check your security settings in Slack. This can only be done by your Slack workspace Administrator.