Integrations

Settings → Integrations holds two different things that happen to use some of the same apps: team channels, where your managers get alerts, coverage gaps and new requests in Slack, Telegram or WhatsApp, and the employee messaging bot, which sends each employee their own shifts in a private chat. The page is managed by the Owner.

Team channels

A team channel is a chat your business already uses – a Slack channel, a Telegram group or a WhatsApp number. Schedio posts to it when something needs a manager.

• Who sees it – everyone in the channel you connect, usually your managers.
• What arrives – alerts, coverage gaps and new requests.
• Who sets it up – the Owner, in Settings → Integrations.

Slack, Telegram and WhatsApp are three rows of the Workspace channels card, and you can connect one, two or all three. Every connected channel gets the same messages: a Telegram group connected next to Slack receives everything your Slack channel does, rather than taking its place.

Once a row is connected, Send test posts a test message so you can confirm it works, and Disconnect removes the connection. You can connect it again at any time.

Connecting Slack

Click Add to Slack on the Slack row and pick the channel during Slack's authorization step. That is the whole setup.

Connecting a Telegram group

Telegram posts through a bot that you create for your group:

1. In Telegram, open @BotFather, create a new bot and copy the token it gives you.
2. Add that bot to the group that should receive the messages.
3. In Schedio, click Connect on the Telegram row and paste the Bot token and the group's Chat id. Group name is optional – it is the label Schedio shows once the group is connected.
4. Click Connect Telegram.

This bot is yours, and Schedio uses it only to post to that group. It is not the employee messaging bot described below, which Schedio runs for you and which needs no token.

Connecting a WhatsApp number

WhatsApp takes the most setting up, and it cannot be finished in one sitting. WhatsApp only lets a business start a conversation with a message template that Meta has approved in advance, and that approval usually takes a few days. You need three things:

• A Meta Business account with WhatsApp set up for your business number. Meta gives you the number's phone number id and an access token. Use a permanent token: the temporary one Meta shows during setup stops working after 24 hours.
• A message template that Meta has approved. Schedio fills it with two values – the message title, then the message text – so its body needs two variables, {{1}} and {{2}}, in that order. You can add your own words around them. Create it in the Utility category with English as its language (not English (US) or English (UK)), even if your messages are in another language: the title and the text are written in the channel message language you choose under What to report.
• The number that should receive the messages. WhatsApp messages go to this one number rather than to a group.

Once Meta has approved the template, click Connect on the WhatsApp row and fill in Phone number id, Access token, Number that receives the messages (with its country code, such as +15551234567) and Approved template name, which starts as schedio_alert – change it if you named your template differently. Then click Connect WhatsApp.

Channels per location

If your workspace has more than one location, the Channels per location card lets a location send its alerts, coverage gaps and requests to a channel of its own. This is useful when Northside Inn and its sister property have separate managers watching separate channels.

Pick the location, then click Set channel for Slack, Set chat for a Telegram group or Set number for WhatsApp. Each asks for the same details as the workspace connection above. Once another location has a Slack channel of its own, Use another location's channel points this location at the same channel, without changing anything for that location. Use workspace channel removes a location's own channel again.

Each app is decided on its own. Anything you leave unset keeps using the workspace channel, so a location with its own Slack channel still posts to the workspace Telegram group if you have connected one.

What gets posted

Three kinds of messages reach every connected channel:

• Alerts at or above the severity threshold you choose. The threshold is Warning or Urgent: Warning posts warnings and urgent alerts, Urgent posts only the urgent ones. Info alerts stay in the app. See Alerts for what each level means.
• Coverage gaps – when fewer people are scheduled for a window than your coverage rules ask for. A window that is partly staffed still counts: the message names the department, the job title, the hours and how many people short it is. See Open shifts for how to fill them.
• New requests – when someone asks for time off or for a change to a shift. The message names the person, the dates and their note, so you can decide without opening your inbox first. Approving or declining still happens on the Requests page.

Alerts reach the channel as soon as they go live. Coverage gaps work differently: Schedio re-checks coverage every few minutes, so a gap arrives shortly after it opens rather than at that exact minute, and each location posts at most one coverage-gap message an hour.

Schedio never posts the schedule itself or anyone's contact details to a team channel. A message names only the person who posted the alert or made the request, and a request also carries their dates and their note. Liam's phone number and the rest of the week's schedule stay inside Schedio.

What to report

The What to report card decides which of these messages are posted, and it applies to team channels only – the employee bot has its own settings, per person. Alerts, coverage gaps and new requests each have their own switch there, so you can take just the ones you want. The card also holds:

• Severity threshold – which alerts are posted, as described above.
• Channel message language – the language channel messages are written in, the same for Slack, Telegram and WhatsApp.
• Quiet hours – during the hours you set, in each location's own local time, Schedio does not post requests, warning alerts or partly staffed gaps. Urgent alerts, and gaps with nobody scheduled at all, always come through. Nothing is lost: everything is still in Schedio.

If you have more than one location, you can make these choices for the whole workspace or for a single location. A location follows the workspace on every setting you have not changed for it.

Employee messaging bot

The employee messaging bot is a private chat between Schedio and each employee, in Telegram or WhatsApp.

• Who sees it – each employee, in their own private chat with Schedio.
• What arrives – their own shifts, shift reminders and any changes. They can also check what's next or ask for time off right in the chat.
• Who sets it up – each person connects their own chat. Schedio runs the bot, so there is nothing to connect in Settings → Integrations.

There are no tokens to create and no accounts to configure. A manager creates a connect link from someone's card on the People page, or each person connects themselves on their profile. The link opens the bot already started; that's the whole setup. Anyone can disconnect from their profile at any time. The How people connect card on the Integrations page shows whether Telegram and WhatsApp are available.

This is a different bot from the one you create for a Telegram team channel. That one posts manager messages to your group; this one belongs to Schedio and only ever sends each person their own shifts, never the whole roster. Each person connects the app they already use, Telegram or WhatsApp.

Each kind of message the bot sends – a shift added, changed or removed, the shift reminder and their schedule – can be switched on or off on its own under Notifications on each person's profile, in the Bot column. Sending stop in the chat pauses all of them. See Email notifications.

What integrations are not

Signing in with Google or Microsoft is separate from integrations – that's just how you authenticate your own account, and it doesn't post anything anywhere. See Your account.

Email notifications also aren't managed here: people choose their own, and owners and managers can set defaults in Settings → Notifications. See Email notifications.