Meetings
October 20, 2022

Different Slack reminder bots for your workspace

Sup Bot Team

As I speak, there are more than 10 million users actively using Slack for their daily work huddle. And, because Slack is such an important part of most organisations, the Slack add-ons for reminding the team and keeping everything up to date with the work are limitless.

I've compiled a list of the most important Slack reminder examples for any organisation below.

1. Daily Catchup Slack Reminder Bot

If you work somewhere or have a company with more than two people, I'm sure that a daily catch up meeting is required. It can be done in a variety of ways, such as by having a daily standup call at a set time every day or by having someone let others know when the call is scheduled.

The whole point of the daily catchup meeting is to get everyone on the same page, but I believe that most members will not pay attention to others when they speak about the update and that the only person who will carefully listen to the updates will be a manager. To be honest, nothing is wrong, but there is a lot of time wasted by others.

The timezone would be another major issue. Because not every employee will be in the same time zone, the time may be early in the morning for some and late at night for others.

Even if we ignore all of the above concerns, when will you decide to schedule the call? Some people may find 9 too early, but what about 10, or 11? Some people will not begin work because they cannot focus if there is a distraction in the middle. 12, 1? Are we providing yesterday/today or today/tomorrow updates?

So, what is the solution? The solution could be an asynchronous standup Slack reminder bot like Sup Bot. You can specify a follow-up time and days when the user should be reminded. And the best part is that they are all recorded, making it easier for a manager to see someone's work over a period of time, or you can use it to fill out a timesheet.

A manager can send a notification to the members who haven't responded about their progress yet with Sup by simply clicking a button if they notice that a few of them haven't yet responded. Additionally, this is possible at any time of day and on any number.


2. Slack Default Reminder for your Todos

I recall having a meeting with the client for the final demo after the development work was completed. I had to jot down the changes requested by the client as we went through each page of the application, and I didn't have time to create a detailed task for myself and the other developers. I sent myself a message about the changes and set a reminder for myself to create a task in JIRA. Slack reminders are extremely useful in cases like these.

You can set reminders not only for yourself, but also for your team members or @channel, by using the slash command /remind.

You can use the option to remind yourself by clicking on the three dots that appear when hovering over the Slack message. Aside from setting a reminder, you can view a list of reminders, mark them as complete, snooze them, or delete them.


3. Google Calendar Slack Reminder bot

To avoid making someone wait for a call when you don't even show up for the meeting, you should keep in mind the call schedule you have today. Wouldn't it be convenient to have a bot on Slack that can give you a summary of your day? Google calendar reminder bot can take care of the such incident. Not only that, but it also serves as a minute-ahead reminder of the call that is coming.

How did this reminder bot solve my problem?

  1. I can create new events in Slack itself without switching between Slack and Google Calendar during work.
  2. I get notified when the meeting is about to start.
  3. The Google Calendar reminder bot also updates the Slack status, that way not a lot of people disturb me during the meeting time.
  4. I can easily decline, or accept the call on Slack.

4. Birthday/Anniversaries Slack Reminder bot

Everyone enjoys having their birthdays acknowledged, so remembering someone's birthday and sending them one is a thoughtful gesture.

Imagine that on your boss's birthday, the entire team wished him or her a happy birthday. A day later, you find out about this. How embarrassing would that be? Or consider that your coworker has worked for the company for a total of five years. Wouldn't it be wonderful to congratulate him or her on the contributions they have made during this time?

BirthdayBot is what we use in our office to keep everyone up to date on birthdays and work anniversaries. If you are an admin of the Slack workspace, you can either manually import the dates or ask team members to enter them. That's all there is to it. The BirthdayBot posts a grand joyful post on the channel for the birthday boy or girl, and the bot also reminds team members about upcoming birthdays and anniversaries.


5. Pull Request Review Slack Reminder bot

This section is primarily for employees in the company's programming and coding departments. In almost every company, I assume that the code written will not be deployed to production as is. From writing the code to deploying it, each company will be required to follow a set of guidelines. One such rule would be for senior developers to review the code and ensure it is well written and ready to go live.

And how many times have we as authors made changes after the first review and re-requested them? But, even after a few days, we are still waiting for approval. This is acceptable if the task's deadline is a little off, but consider what would happen if the PR was for a hotfix.

To receive a daily reminder of pull requests that need to be reviewed, I recommend using a Slack reminder bot. Never again will the most important reviews be skipped or delayed in this manner.

You can use a couple of them. Github launched its own integration with Slack, and you can now use it to set your important pull requests on Slack.


Conclusion

Without a doubt, the Slack reminder bots I mentioned help you stay on top of work. But it will also be crucial to avoid making the reminders too complicated. Only include reminders for the essential items that need your and your team's attention. The main objective is to ensure everything is in order and operating efficiently and not have pointless reminder notifications to annoy team members and hamper productivity.


Frequently asked questions

1. Can you automate reminders in Slack?

You can set reminders in Slack by using the reminder option or the /remind command. Sup Bot can also be used for the same purpose.

2. How do I add a reminder bot in Slack?

Visit the Slack app directory to find an array of reminder bots. Select a reminder bot as per your requirement and follow the installation steps.

3. How do I set a Slack reminder for every 2 weeks?

Use a Slack reminder bot like Sup Bot to schedule reminders weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Create a bi-weekly follow-up to receive reminders every 2 weeks right on Slack.

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