Chat integrations
This page explains how By Dawn works inside Slack, Discord and Microsoft Teams. Once you’ve read it, you’ll know what each platform can do, who can do what from chat, and what By Dawn reads and keeps. Each platform also has its own setup page, and the command reference lists every command.
Intercom works differently, because it’s a support inbox rather than a chat: By Dawn lives in the conversation’s sidebar, with no channels, commands or account links. It has its own pages: Intercom for org admins, and The By Dawn sidebar in Intercom for support teammates.
How it fits together
Section titled “How it fits together”Three people set it up, each once:
- An org admin connects the platform in Organization settings › Chat integrations. That adds By Dawn to one Slack workspace, Discord server or Microsoft 365 tenant. See Slack or Discord. The Microsoft Teams admin guide is coming.
- A project admin binds channels to a project in Project settings › Chat channels. A bound channel knows where its requests go and which updates to post. See Bind a channel.
- Each member links their chat account in Settings › You › Connections, and chooses what By Dawn may do as them. See Connect your chat account.
The steps are kept apart because each one hands over a different kind of authority. A connection lets By Dawn into the platform. A binding lets one channel file requests in one project. A link lets By Dawn act as one member, within their own role.
What each platform can do
Section titled “What each platform can do”| Slack | Discord | Teams | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open the create form | /saw, or the global shortcut |
/saw create |
only from a message (next row) |
| Turn a message into a ticket | Create SAW ticket shortcut | Create SAW ticket (Apps menu) | Create SAW ticket (More actions) |
| File a request with @SAW | ✅ | — | ✅, also @SAW create |
| File a request with a 🎫 reaction | ✅ | — | — |
| Every message is a request (request channel) | ✅ | — | — |
| Replies sync between a thread and its ticket | ✅ | — | ✅ |
| Link a thread to a ticket you already have | ✅ | — | — |
| Preview a pasted By Dawn ticket link | ✅, with action buttons | — | ✅ |
| Your own tickets on the app’s home tab | ✅ | — | — |
| Search tickets | — | /saw search |
— |
| Manage the channel’s subscriptions from chat | — | /saw subscribe |
— |
| Subscriptions post updates to the channel | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Attention notifications as a DM | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
A dash means the platform doesn’t have it yet. Discord can’t read channel messages yet, so it has no @SAW, 🎫, request channels or thread sync. Those need a permission Discord grants separately.
Who may do what
Section titled “Who may do what”Every action from chat is taken by a person, and By Dawn checks that person’s authority on every click. There are three kinds of people in a channel:
| Who | File a request | Act: create, comment, move, assign, start a worker | Merge |
|---|---|---|---|
| A member who linked their account | ✅ | ✅, within their role and the scopes they chose | only behind the four locks below |
| Anyone else in a bound channel: unlinked people, guests, people from another organisation | ✅ when the channel takes requests | ❌ | ❌ |
| Anyone in a channel that isn’t bound | ❌, they’re asked to have the channel bound | linked members only | only behind the four locks below |
- A linked member always acts as themselves. The ticket’s timeline shows them as the author, “via Slack” (or Discord, or Teams). Their role and project access in By Dawn decide what works. The scopes they chose when linking can narrow that further, but never widen it.
- A request isn’t a member. Someone who files a request without a linked account is recorded by their chat name and id. They never become a By Dawn member. They can see the request’s status and, in Slack, close it.
- A refused action never falls back. If By Dawn can’t act for a member, say because they unlinked or left the organization, they’re asked to link again. By Dawn never retries with the channel’s authority or with anyone else’s.
Merging from chat
Section titled “Merging from chat”The Approve and merge button on a run card works only when all four of these hold:
- The member turned on Merge for their linked account. It’s off by default.
- A project admin turned on Merge from chat in Project settings › Chat channels. It’s off by default.
- The project’s GitHub merge policy allows the merge, including required checks and approvals. Chat adds no way around it.
- The member’s own role may merge.
In a channel shared with another organisation (Slack Connect, any Teams shared channel), the button never shows. The card offers Open in SAW instead.
What By Dawn reads and keeps
Section titled “What By Dawn reads and keeps”- By Dawn keeps ids, not conversations. It stores what links By Dawn to chat: connections, bound channels, subscriptions, linked accounts, linked threads and the ids of the messages it posted. A message that isn’t in a linked thread and isn’t turned into a request is dropped as soon as By Dawn reads it, and never stored. Logs carry ids, never message text.
- What you file lives on the ticket. A request or a synced reply becomes a ticket or a comment in By Dawn, and is kept as long as the ticket is. By Dawn keeps no second copy.
- Work in progress is purged. By Dawn’s queue of incoming and outgoing chat messages is deleted 7 days after each one is handled. A message that couldn’t be delivered is kept 30 days so an operator can retry it, then deleted.
- Disconnecting deletes. When an org admin disconnects a workspace, server or tenant in By Dawn, or By Dawn’s Slack app is uninstalled from a workspace, By Dawn deletes that connection’s bound channels, subscriptions, linked accounts, linked threads and card records. It revokes every member’s grant and deletes the stored token. Comments already synced stay on their tickets, under the chat name of the person who wrote them.
- Unlinking deletes the link. It also revokes what the member let By Dawn do as them.
- Images posted to chat follow the platform’s retention. By Dawn posts a ticket’s screenshots only into channels bound to that ticket’s own project. Once posted, the copy in chat is kept and deleted by Slack’s, Discord’s or Microsoft’s rules, not By Dawn’s.
- AI intake is off until an org admin turns it on. It’s in Organization settings › Chat integrations › AI intake. When it’s on, By Dawn sends Anthropic’s API only the text being turned into the ticket: the message, its thread, or the person’s run of messages, with the authors’ display names. Files and other channels are never sent. When it’s off, or a draft fails, the ticket’s title is the message’s first line and its body is the rest.
Where to go next
Section titled “Where to go next”- Bind a channel: intake modes, subscriptions and synced threads.
- Connect your chat account: what By Dawn may do as you.
- Chat command reference.
- Words we use.