How to Set Up Slack Webhook Notifications with Webhookify

Published Feb 21 202610 min read
Slack webhook setup with Webhookify

Slack is the dominant workplace communication platform, used by millions of teams for messaging, file sharing, and collaboration. While Slack has its own notification system, there are many scenarios where you need Slack events delivered outside of Slack itself -- perhaps to Telegram for personal alerts, to Discord for community updates, to Email for compliance logging, or to your phone as push notifications. With Webhookify, you can monitor Slack workspace events and receive AI-summarized notifications on any channel, giving you visibility into workspace activity even when you are not actively using Slack.

This guide covers setting up Slack Event Subscriptions with Webhookify to monitor messages, reactions, channel activity, team membership changes, and more. The setup involves creating a Slack app and takes about 15 minutes to complete.

Why Monitor Slack Webhooks with Webhookify?

  • Cross-Platform Awareness: Not everyone is in Slack all day. By routing Slack events through Webhookify, you can receive important Slack messages on Telegram, Discord, Email, or mobile push. This is ideal for founders who prefer Telegram, or for teams that use Discord as their primary platform but need to monitor a Slack workspace.

  • Critical Message Alerts: Set up alerts for messages in specific channels or messages that mention specific keywords. When a customer posts in a shared Slack channel or a critical alert fires in an ops channel, you get a push notification on your phone even if you have Slack notifications muted.

  • Team Activity Monitoring: Track when new members join your workspace, when channels are created or archived, and when important reactions are added to messages. This is valuable for workspace administrators and community managers who need to stay on top of team dynamics.

  • Compliance and Audit Logging: For organizations with compliance requirements, routing Slack events through Webhookify creates an external log of workspace activity. Every message, file share, and membership change is recorded with timestamps and full payload data.

  • AI-Powered Message Summaries: Webhookify's AI doesn't just forward raw event data -- it generates human-readable summaries. Instead of parsing JSON to find out who said what in which channel, you see "Bob posted in #engineering: 'The deployment is rolling back due to a memory leak in the auth service.'"

Prerequisites

  1. A Slack workspace where you have admin permissions (or permission to install apps)
  2. A Webhookify account (sign up free at webhookify.app)
  3. Access to the Slack API portal to create a Slack app
  4. At least one notification channel configured in Webhookify (Telegram, Discord, Email, or mobile push)

Step-by-Step Setup Guide

1

Create a Webhookify Endpoint

Log into your Webhookify dashboard at webhookify.app. Click "Create Endpoint" to generate a unique webhook URL:

https://hook.webhookify.app/wh/nop456qrs789

Copy this URL. Name the endpoint "Slack Workspace Events" or something similarly descriptive. This endpoint will receive all the Slack events you subscribe to.

2

Configure Your Notification Channel

Set up your preferred notification channels in the Webhookify settings. Since you are monitoring Slack events, you will likely want to route these to a non-Slack channel.

For Telegram: Connect the Webhookify bot. This is the most popular channel for Slack event monitoring, as it lets you receive Slack alerts in Telegram when you are not actively in Slack.

For Discord: Authorize the bot and select a channel. Useful for teams that use Discord as their primary platform but need to monitor a client's Slack workspace.

For Email: Add email addresses for compliance logging or for team members who prefer email notifications.

For Mobile Push: Install the Webhookify app and enable push notifications. This ensures you receive critical Slack alerts even when your phone is on silent mode for Slack.

3

Create a Slack App with Event Subscriptions

Go to the Slack API portal and click "Create New App".

Choose "From scratch" and provide:

  • App Name: Something like "Webhookify Events Monitor"
  • Workspace: Select the workspace you want to monitor

Once the app is created, navigate to Event Subscriptions in the left sidebar.

Toggle "Enable Events" to On.

In the Request URL field, paste your Webhookify endpoint URL:

https://hook.webhookify.app/wh/nop456qrs789

Slack will immediately send a challenge request to verify the URL. Webhookify handles Slack's URL verification challenge automatically, so the verification should succeed within a few seconds. You will see a green "Verified" checkmark.

Now scroll down to the "Subscribe to bot events" section and click "Add Bot User Event". Add the events you want to monitor:

Most commonly monitored events:

  • message.channels -- Messages posted in public channels
  • message.groups -- Messages posted in private channels
  • message.im -- Direct messages to the bot
  • reaction_added -- Emoji reactions added to messages
  • reaction_removed -- Emoji reactions removed from messages
  • member_joined_channel -- User joined a channel
  • member_left_channel -- User left a channel
  • team_join -- New member joined the workspace
  • channel_created -- New channel created
  • channel_archive -- Channel archived
  • app_mention -- Your app was mentioned in a message
  • file_shared -- File shared in a channel

Click "Save Changes" at the bottom of the page.

4

Install the App and Set Permissions

Before the app can receive events, you need to install it in your workspace with the appropriate permissions.

Navigate to OAuth & Permissions in the left sidebar. Under Bot Token Scopes, add the required scopes for the events you subscribed to. Common scopes include:

  • channels:history -- View messages in public channels
  • groups:history -- View messages in private channels
  • im:history -- View direct messages
  • reactions:read -- View emoji reactions
  • channels:read -- View channel information
  • users:read -- View user information
  • team:read -- View workspace information
  • files:read -- View files

Scroll up to the OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace section and click "Install to Workspace". Review the permissions and click "Allow".

After installation, Slack will begin sending events to your Webhookify endpoint. You do not need to use the bot token for anything -- the event subscriptions work automatically once the app is installed.

Note: For message.channels events, the bot needs to be a member of the channels you want to monitor. Either invite the bot to specific channels or add the channels:history scope to receive events from all public channels.

5

Test Your Slack Webhook

Test the integration by triggering one of the events you subscribed to:

  1. Post a message in a public channel where the bot is a member (or any public channel if you have the appropriate scope).
  2. Add a reaction to a message in a monitored channel.
  3. Create a new channel if you subscribed to channel_created.
  4. Invite someone to a channel if you subscribed to member_joined_channel.

After triggering the event, check:

  1. Webhookify Dashboard: The event should appear in your endpoint's log with the full Slack event payload, including the channel ID, user ID, message text, and timestamp.
  2. Notification Channel: You should receive an AI-summarized notification on Telegram, Discord, Email, or your phone.
  3. Slack App Dashboard: Under your app's settings, you can view the "Event Subscriptions" page to see recent delivery attempts and response codes.

If events are not arriving, check that the app is installed in the workspace and that the bot has been invited to the channels you want to monitor.

Slack Webhook Events You Can Monitor

| Category | Event | Description | |----------|-------|-------------| | Messages | message.channels | Message posted in public channel | | Messages | message.groups | Message posted in private channel | | Messages | message.im | Direct message to bot | | Messages | message.mpim | Message in multi-person DM | | Reactions | reaction_added | Emoji reaction added to message | | Reactions | reaction_removed | Emoji reaction removed | | Channels | channel_created | New channel created | | Channels | channel_archive | Channel archived | | Channels | channel_unarchive | Channel unarchived | | Channels | channel_rename | Channel renamed | | Membership | member_joined_channel | User joined a channel | | Membership | member_left_channel | User left a channel | | Membership | team_join | New member joined workspace | | Files | file_shared | File shared in channel | | Files | file_created | File uploaded | | App Events | app_mention | Bot mentioned in message | | App Events | app_home_opened | User opened bot's App Home | | Pins | pin_added | Message pinned in channel | | Pins | pin_removed | Message unpinned | | Stars | star_added | Item starred by user | | Stars | star_removed | Star removed from item |

Real-World Use Cases

  • Founder Telegram Alerts: A startup founder prefers Telegram over Slack for personal notifications. They set up Webhookify to forward app_mention and message.channels events from their #important-alerts Slack channel to Telegram. When the team tags them or posts a critical update, they get it on Telegram instantly -- no need to keep Slack open.

  • Customer Channel Monitoring: A B2B company creates shared Slack channels with enterprise customers. The customer success manager routes message.channels events from these shared channels to their personal Telegram. When a customer posts a question or issue, they see it immediately and can respond faster than any competitor.

  • Community Management: An open-source project runs a public Slack community with thousands of members. The community manager uses Webhookify to monitor team_join events. Each time a new member joins, they receive a notification and can send a welcome message, improving the onboarding experience.

  • Off-Hours Monitoring: A DevOps team has a critical #incidents channel in Slack. During off-hours, the on-call engineer routes messages from this channel to Webhookify mobile push notifications. Even with Slack notifications muted, they still receive alerts for genuine incidents that require immediate attention.

Example Notification

Here is what a typical Webhookify notification looks like when a message is posted in a Slack channel:

New Webhook Event Received

Source: Slack
Event: message.channels
Endpoint: Slack Workspace Events

AI Summary:
New message in #engineering by Sarah Chen:
"The v2.5 release build just passed all integration
tests. Ready for production deployment whenever
the team gives the go-ahead."
Channel: #engineering (C04ABCDEF)
Workspace: acme-corp

Timestamp: 2026-02-21T17:12:55Z

View full payload in Webhookify Dashboard

Troubleshooting

  1. Slack URL verification fails: When you paste your Webhookify URL as the Request URL in Event Subscriptions, Slack sends a url_verification challenge. Webhookify handles this automatically. If verification fails, ensure the URL is correct and try again. Check that there are no firewall or network issues blocking the connection.

  2. Events not firing for specific channels: The Slack bot must be a member of the channel to receive message.channels events for that channel. Invite the bot by typing /invite @YourAppName in the channel. Alternatively, use the channels:history scope to receive events from all public channels without joining them.

  3. Missing message content in events: If message events arrive but the message text is empty, check your Slack app's scopes. You need channels:history (for public channels) or groups:history (for private channels) to receive message content. Without these scopes, you only get metadata.

  4. Rate limiting warnings from Slack: Slack rate limits event delivery if your endpoint takes too long to respond. Webhookify responds to Slack within milliseconds, so rate limiting should not be an issue. If you see rate limiting, check the Slack API status page for platform-level issues.

  5. App reinstallation required after scope changes: If you add new event subscriptions or change OAuth scopes after initial installation, you may need to reinstall the app in your workspace. Go to OAuth & Permissions and click "Reinstall to Workspace" to apply the updated permissions.

If you only want to monitor specific Slack channels rather than all public channels, create the bot and invite it only to the channels you care about. This reduces notification noise and ensures you only receive alerts for high-priority channels like #incidents, #sales, or shared customer channels.

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How to Set Up Slack Webhook Notifications with Webhookify - Webhookify | Webhookify