Microsoft Teams and Slack Notifications

What are channel notifications?

Velaro can send real-time alerts to your Microsoft Teams or Slack channels when important events happen — new chats arrive, conversations are missed, SLA thresholds are breached, or conversations are resolved. Keep your entire team informed without everyone needing to have the Velaro messaging workspace open.

Setting up Microsoft Teams notifications

Step 1: Create a webhook in Teams (Workflows app)

Microsoft retired the old Connectors incoming-webhook flow — use the Workflows app instead:

1. In Microsoft Teams, go to the channel that should receive alerts.

2. Click the ... (More options) next to the channel name and select Workflows.

3. Search for "webhook" and choose Post to a channel when a webhook request is received.

4. Click Add, name the flow (e.g. "Velaro Alerts"), then Add again.

5. Copy the webhook URL that's shown — it starts with https://prod-XX.*.logic.azure.com/....

Step 2: Connect the webhook in Velaro

1. In Velaro admin, go to Integrations > Microsoft Teams.

2. Click Add Webhook.

3. Paste the webhook URL.

4. Give it a label (e.g. "Sales Team Alerts").

5. Choose which events to notify:

- New Conversation — fires when a visitor starts a chat

- Missed Conversation — fires when no agent responded

- Conversation Resolved — fires when a conversation is closed

- SLA Breach — fires when response time exceeds your threshold

6. Optionally filter to a specific team (only get alerts for Sales team, for example).

7. Click Save and then Test to send a sample notification.

Teams notification format

Teams notifications include:

• Event type and timestamp
• Visitor name (if known)
• Channel (web, SMS, WhatsApp, etc.)
• Team the conversation is assigned to
• Direct link to open the conversation in Velaro

Setting up Slack notifications

Step 1: Create a Slack Incoming Webhook

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and click Create New App > From scratch.

2. Name the app (e.g. "Velaro") and select your workspace.

3. Click Incoming Webhooks in the left menu and toggle it On.

4. Click Add New Webhook to Workspace.

5. Select the channel that should receive alerts.

6. Copy the webhook URL.

Step 2: Connect in Velaro

1. In Velaro admin, go to Integrations > Slack.

2. Click Add Webhook.

3. Paste the webhook URL.

4. Label it and choose your notification events (same options as Teams).

5. Click Save and Test.

Slack notification format

Slack notifications use Block Kit formatting with:

• Bold event title and color-coded sidebar
• Visitor and channel details
• Direct link button to open the conversation

Recommended notification strategy

Don't send everything to one channel — it creates noise. Instead:

Channel	Events to notify
#support-alerts	Missed conversations, SLA breaches
#support-resolved	Resolved conversations (team review)
#sales-new-chats	New conversations from sales team
#ops-overview	All events (for managers only)

Multiple webhooks

You can add as many webhooks as needed — one per Slack channel, one per Teams channel, one per team. Each webhook has its own event filters. Go to Integrations > Teams or Integrations > Slack to manage all webhooks.

Troubleshooting

No notifications arriving: click Test next to the webhook in Velaro. If the test fails, the webhook URL has expired — regenerate it in Teams/Slack and update Velaro.

Too many notifications: use the team filter to limit a webhook to only the events from specific teams.

Notifications arriving but no link: make sure your Velaro admin URL is correctly configured in Settings > General.

Velaro Bot in Microsoft Teams: commands and usage

In a Teams channel or group chat where staff added the bot, the Velaro Bot is for live queue status and alert subscriptions. It answers these commands: status (agents online, open, waiting and unassigned chats), alerts (the alerts your team is subscribed to), queue, agents, ticket, digest and help.

Any other message in a channel gets a short reply listing these commands. Commands and alerts are not conversations and do not count against your monthly conversation allowance.

Choose which alerts your team receives in Velaro admin under Integrations > Microsoft Teams.

Teams Channel: letting customers chat with your agents over Teams

Turned off by default. When you turn it on (Velaro admin > Integrations > Microsoft Teams > Teams Channel), anyone who messages the Velaro Bot in a personal 1:1 chat — not a channel — opens a real, agent-routed Velaro conversation, the same as a web chat or SMS conversation. This does use your monthly conversation allowance once enabled.

To set it up:

1. Go to Integrations > Microsoft Teams > Teams Channel.

2. Follow steps 1–3 to install the bot and connect your Microsoft 365 tenant ID (needed either way, even for staff-only commands).

3. Turn on Enable Teams Channel.

4. Optionally choose which team new conversations route to — leave it unset to use your account's default team.

5. Optionally edit the welcome message sent to a Teams user when their first message opens a new conversation. Use {{user.name}} for their display name.

6. Click Save.

A conversation started this way follows the same 7-day reopen window as every other channel: if the same Teams user messages again within 7 days of the conversation being resolved, it reopens the same conversation; after that, a new message starts a new one.

Channel/group-chat behavior (staff commands above) is unaffected by this setting — it only changes what happens in a personal 1:1 chat with the bot.

Velaro Bot in Teams: queue, agents and ticket lookups

In a channel where the Velaro Bot is installed, these read-only commands show live data for your own Velaro account only:

• queue: how many chats are waiting and unassigned.
• agents: which agents are online.
• ticket 1234: status and details for one ticket by its id.
• digest: chats started and tickets created in the last 24 hours.

If your Microsoft 365 tenant is not connected to a Velaro account yet, the bot replies with the steps to connect it: an admin opens Velaro admin, goes to Integrations > Microsoft Teams and links the tenant.

The bot's replies and Velaro's AI-drafted chat responses can be incorrect, so review AI-generated content before relying on it.

Searching Velaro contacts and tickets from Teams' compose box

In any Teams channel or group chat where the bot has been added, click the ... (More options) icon under the message compose box and search for "Velaro" to search without leaving Teams:

• Search Velaro Contacts: search by name, email, or phone — returns a card per matching contact with recent chat history.
• Search Velaro Tickets: search by ticket id, subject text, or requester email — returns a card per matching ticket with a link to the contact's history in Velaro.

Type at least 2 characters to search. This only works in a channel or group chat, not in a 1:1 chat with the bot, so ticket and contact data never reaches a personal conversation.

Teams alert limits and per-alert switches

Velaro posts new chat, missed chat and daily digest alerts into the channel where the bot is installed, once the bot has been messaged or added there. Ticket created and ticket assigned alerts are posted the same way. Each alert type can be switched on or off per account, and the daily digest is off by default.

Each account has a daily limit on alerts posted to Teams (200 by default). When the limit is reached, Velaro posts one short notice and pauses further alerts until the next day (UTC). Every alert and every failure appears in the Integration Activity Log under TeamsChannel.

Changing Teams alert settings

Account admins can view and change the Teams alert switches (new chat, missed chat, ticket created, ticket assigned, daily digest) and the daily limit without contacting support. Use the command line (velaro teams push-settings, for example velaro teams push-settings --missed false --daily-cap 100) or the teams_push_settings_get and teams_push_settings_update tools in the Velaro MCP server.

Only the settings you pass are changed. Add --reset-daily-cap to go back to the platform default limit. The daily limit applies to alerts sent through the bot and to alerts sent through Teams webhooks.