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Slack → Wrike Triage Intake

How to triage AI & Innovation feedback in Slack and get it into Wrike without retyping it. One decision, one click, one task.

Status: proof of concept, not yet pointed at real work.

The workflow described here is built, published, and has created a real Wrike task end to end. But it is still wired to test objects — a test list, a private channel, and a placeholder task title. See Before the team can use this for the four changes needed. Read this guide now to sanity-check the shape; don't send it to the team yet.

What it does

You mark a piece of feedback with a decision. Slack posts a confirmation with a button. You click the button, and a Wrike task appears in the intake board — already carrying the link back to the original Slack conversation.

flowchart LR
    A["Feedback arrives<br/>in Slack"] --> B["You set a<br/>Disposition"]
    B --> C["Slack posts a<br/>confirmation + button"]
    C --> D["You click<br/>the button"]
    D --> E["Wrike task created<br/>in the intake board"]

The point is not that it saves keystrokes. The point is that nothing gets triaged and then lost. Today a decision made in a Slack thread lives only in that thread. This makes the decision produce a record.

What you need before you start

  • Access to the triage list in Slack (ask Jordan if you can't see it)
  • A Wrike account on the Seer instance, connected once (Slack prompts you the first time — it takes about 15 seconds)
  • Nothing else. No Wrike tab open, no copy-paste, no task template

Using it

Step 1 — Open the triage list

In the Slack sidebar, click Files, then Lists, then open the triage list.

Two URL forms exist and they are not interchangeable. The shareable one is https://seerinteractive.slack.com/lists/<team>/<list-id> — paste that and it unfurls into a live preview card of the list. The app.slack.com/client/.../unified-files/list/... form does not unfurl and can bounce an "open the desktop app" screen. If a link misbehaves, navigate through Files → Lists instead.

Step 2 — Set the Disposition

Find the row for the feedback you're triaging. Click its Disposition cell and pick a value.

Only one value creates a Wrike task today. The rest are there so the record is honest about what you decided — they cost nothing and fire nothing.

Disposition Meaning Creates a Wrike task?
triage-now Real, wanted, act on it this sprint Yes
triage-later Real and wanted, but not now No
triage-explore Interesting; needs discovery before it can be sized No
triage-variation No as asked, but a variation gets the same outcome No
triage-needs-info Can't judge it yet — the asker needs to tell us more Not yet — see below
triage-absorbed Already covered by something we're doing No
triage-no Declined No

Three things worth knowing about that table:

  • Picking "no" three different ways is deliberate. "No, but a variation works" (triage-variation), "no, not now" (triage-later), and "no" (triage-no) each imply a different follow-up. One blocked state would destroy that distinction.
  • triage-needs-info is designed but not built — no emoji and no workflow exist for it yet. Use it to record the state; then reply to the asker yourself. It is listed under Before the team can use this.
  • Recording a decision is free. Only triage-now costs anything to run, which is why the vocabulary can be rich without being expensive.

Step 3 — Click the button

Slack posts a short message with a button. Click it.

You'll see Workflow complete. That's your confirmation the Wrike task was created.

This click is required, not optional. Slack will not let a workflow write to Wrike unattended — see Why the click exists. If you set a Disposition and walk away, no Wrike task is created.

What lands in Wrike

The task is created in the AI & Innovation intake board with:

  • A title identifying it as a Slack triage intake
  • A link back to the originating Slack conversation
  • Status Active

Everything else — priority, effort, votes, division, roadmap position — stays in Wrike and is set there. Slack deliberately does not carry copies of those fields.

Why Slack doesn't mirror Wrike

One field, one writer. If both systems could edit priority, they would disagree within a week and nobody would know which was right.

Slack answers "where does this go?" Wrike answers "is this ready to build?" The Refined? field in particular lives only in Wrike — it's the outcome of a judgement, not a label to copy around.

When it doesn't fire

What you see Likely cause Fix
No button message appeared You edited a column other than Disposition Only a Disposition change triggers it
Button posted, but no Wrike task You didn't click the button Click it; the click is the write
Slack asks you to connect Wrike First run for your account Connect once; it remembers
List link shows "open the desktop app" You used the client/.../unified-files/ URL form Use the /lists/<team>/<id> form, or navigate Files → Lists

If a task genuinely didn't appear after you clicked, say so in the feedback channel ([INSERT_CHANNEL_NAME]) rather than re-clicking. A second click creates a second task.

Known limits

These are measured, not guessed. Worth knowing so you don't fight them.

  • One click per task, always. Not a configuration mistake; see below.
  • The Wrike destination folder is fixed. Slack's folder picker cannot see a Wrike folder created recently, so the destination has to be a folder that already existed. Ask before assuming you can route somewhere new.
  • Reactions can't carry the request text. If the trigger is an emoji reaction, Slack gives the workflow the link to the message but never the message body — so the Wrike task carries a permalink, not a copy of the ask.
  • Filters are OR, never AND. One workflow handles exactly one transition. This is why several dispositions are recorded but not automated.

Why the click exists

Slack refuses to publish a workflow containing a Wrike step unless a message with a button comes first. We tested Slack's other suggested fix — pinning the workflow to a named Wrike account — and it makes the step unsaveable instead. So the click is Slack's requirement, not a design choice on our end.

Fully unattended Wrike task creation is possible, but only from outside Slack via the Wrike API. That's a separate build.

Before the team can use this

Five changes, none of them hard:

  1. Rename the workflow from its ZZZ Agent test... proof name
  2. Repoint the trigger from the test list to the real triage list
  3. Repoint the confirmation message from a private channel to a team channel
  4. Replace the placeholder Wrike task title with the requester and a real link
  5. Build the triage-needs-info reply workflow — designed, not yet built

Until those are done, treat this guide as a design review, not instructions.

Who to ask

Jordan Strauss owns this workflow. For the engineering detail behind every claim in this guide — including what's proven at runtime versus still untested — see plugins/experimental/skills/inn-slack-automation-builder-exp/resources/evidence.md.