Manage your website from Slack: install and use the ShiftPress app

This page is the install and usage guide for the app. It covers what you can do, what you need first, the exact steps to connect Slack, how to make a change, and the current limitations.

What can you do with ShiftPress in Slack?

Once a channel is connected to your website, anyone on your team who has linked their account can:

• Request edits in plain language. Mention the bot and describe the change the way you would to a colleague. Examples: "add a question about parking to the FAQ", "make the homepage headline shorter", "swap the phone number in the footer".
• Review before anything is published. The bot drafts the change and replies in a thread with a short summary. Nothing is live yet.
• Approve or reject from Slack. An owner or editor taps Accept and publish to push the change (the live site rebuilds in about one to two minutes) or Reject to discard it.
• Open the full editor when needed. Larger changes are saved as a draft you can continue in ShiftPress; the bot gives you an Open in ShiftPress link for a full preview.

The point is speed for small, everyday edits without leaving the tool your team already lives in, while keeping a human approval step before anything reaches visitors.

What do you need before you install?

• A ShiftPress plan that includes chat integrations. The Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations are available on the Smart plan and above. If your plan does not include it, the Slack panel in Settings shows an upgrade prompt.
• Owner access to the website. Only an owner can connect or disconnect Slack. Editors and other members can request and approve changes once the channel is connected and they have linked their account.
• Permission to add apps in your Slack workspace. Connecting runs Slack's normal app-authorization step, which some workspaces restrict to admins.

How do you install and connect the Slack app?

The whole flow starts inside ShiftPress, not from a generic install button, so the connection is bound to the correct website.

1. Open your website in ShiftPress and go to Settings, then the Slack section.
2. Click "Connect Slack". This opens Slack's standard authorization screen, where you approve the ShiftPress app for your workspace.
3. Approve and return. After you approve, Slack sends you back to ShiftPress and the panel confirms the workspace is connected.
4. Choose a channel. In the Slack section, pick the channel that should control this website from the "Choose a channel" dropdown and click Connect channel. You can connect more than one channel, and more than one workspace, if you manage several.
5. Read the intro message. The moment a channel is connected, the bot posts a short how-to message into it with example commands, so the channel is ready to use immediately.
6. Each person links their own account once. Before someone can request edits, they link their personal Slack profile to their ShiftPress account using the Link my account button the bot sends them. This is what lets ShiftPress check that the person approving a change is a real owner or editor of the site.

That is the full install. There is no separate "Add to Slack" button to hunt for: the Connect Slack button in your dashboard Settings is the install step, and it uses the same Slack authorization flow.

How do you make a change from Slack?

1. In a connected channel, mention the bot and describe the change: "@ShiftPress add a testimonials section to the homepage".
2. The bot drafts the edit and replies in a thread with a summary of what it will change.
3. An owner or editor reviews it and taps Accept and publish or Reject.
4. On accept, the live site rebuilds (usually one to two minutes). On reject, nothing changes.

If a request is too large for a quick draft, the bot saves it as a draft and points you to ShiftPress to finish it in the full editor.

What are the limitations?

Worth knowing before you rely on it:

• Plan-gated. Requires the Smart plan or above.
• Owners set it up; owners and editors approve. Only owners can connect or disconnect Slack, and only a linked owner or editor can approve a change. Other members can draft requests but cannot publish.
• Account linking is required. Someone who has not linked their Slack profile to a ShiftPress account cannot request or approve edits.
• It works in connected channels, not DMs. The bot only acts in a channel that is bound to a website. Direct messages are redirected back to a channel.
• One change at a time, within your plan's limits. Edits are drafted one at a time, and your plan's monthly and per-site AI-change limits still apply.
• Approval is always required. By design there is no "auto-publish" mode from Slack; a person approves every change before it goes live.
• Changes that would break the visual editor are blocked. The bot will not publish an edit that would break click-to-edit on your site.

What data is shared with Slack?

When you connect the integration, the instructions you type to the bot and the change summaries it posts back are delivered through Slack, and the message content is processed by our AI provider to produce the edit you asked for. This is covered in our privacy policy. If you disconnect Slack, or an admin removes the app from your workspace, ShiftPress stops using it and the stored connection is purged.

Frequently asked questions