Using the Amazon Q Business Slack App - Amazon Q Business
PrerequisitesInstall and ConfigureFeaturesConsiderationsTroubleshooting

Using the Amazon Q Business Slack App

The Amazon Q Business Slack app is available to all Amazon Q Business users.

Prerequisites

  • Your Amazon Q admin must connect the Amazon Q Business Slack app to your Slack workspace.

Install and configure the Amazon Q Business App in Slack

The following are instructions on how to install the Amazon Q Business App in Slack:

  1. Open and login to the Slack workspace for your company.

  2. Choose More in the left navigation, then select Automations.

  3. Choose Apps.

  4. Choose + Add apps

  5. Search for "Amazon Q Business" and choose Amazon Q Business

  6. This will take you to the About page. Choose the 3 vertical dots (that say "more actions") to the right of the New Chat button.

  7. Choose add assistant to top bar

  8. You will now see a Q icon/logo on the top bar on the right where you can access and chat with Amazon Q Business

For more information, see Understand AI apps in Slack in the Slack help center.

Features of the Amazon Q Business Slack App

Following are some of the features supported by the Amazon Q Slack App:

  • In direct messages (DMs) to the Amazon Q Business contact, it responds to all messages and queries.

  • In channels it responds only to @mentions, and always replies in thread.

  • Thumbs up and down buttons to track feedback and help improve performance over time.

  • Provides Source Attribution - see references to sources used by Amazon Q Business.

  • It tracks the conversation and applies context.

  • Process up to 5 attached files for contextual question answering, summaries, etc.

Important

The Amazon Q Business Slack integration does not support actions or plugins.

Considerations for using the Amazon Q Business App for Slack

  1. When Amazon Q is invoked by a user in a public Slack channel, it generates responses based on the invoking user's permissions, which may include content that other channel members aren't authorized to access. To prevent unintended exposure of sensitive information, carefully evaluate the use of Amazon Q in public channels.

  2. Amazon Q Business does not use customer data for service improvement or for improving its underlying large language models (LLMs). Also, none of the data you include in your browser extension conversations will be indexed into your company's Amazon Q Business instance. For more information, see Amazon Q Business Service improvement.

  3. The Amazon Q Business Slack app will have access to the same knowledge available in the corresponding Amazon Q Business web experience.

  4. To reset, start new conversation, direct message as a New chat.

  5. When you upload a file, the Amazon Q Slack app will only be able to respond from the file (and general knowledge if your Amazon Q admin has enabled it). Start a new chat if you want to return to getting answers from company knowledge.

  6. Closing the Amazon Q Business Slack app side panel will end the current conversation. Users can review past conversations in Slack or all conversations from all channels (Slack, browser extensions, etc.) in your Amazon Q Business web experience. You can access all the history of previous conversations including, the names of the attachments in those conversations.

  7. All conversations in Amazon Q Business are deleted after 30 days of inactivity. Slack may store conversations for longer depending on your company's Slack conversation history rules.

  8. Amazon Q may provide inaccurate responses at times. For more information, see Hallucination in the topic Key concepts of Amazon Q Business.

Troubleshooting the Amazon Q Business App for Slack

My admin has enabled the Amazon Q Business app for Slack, but I'm unable to login.

Try having a conversation on your Amazon Q web experience first and then try Slack again. If this doesn't work, then contact your Amazon Q admin or IT department.

I am getting a "Can't access document" error.

This happens when a document uses an unsupported format from which Amazon Q app is unable to pull relevant data to provide a helpful response. If you encounter this error and would like your file format to be supported, please submit feedback via the feedback button in the browser extension.

Amazon Q doesn't respond helpfully or doesn't use the context of the document I added.

Try starting a new chat and adding the document again. If it still does not work, contact your Amazon Q Business admin for further support.