Slack

LevelFour joins Slack as an agent. Open it from its Messages tab, or mention @levelfour in any channel, and ask about your Cloud, SaaS and AI spend. It answers in a thread under your message, from your organization's own data, and you can follow up in that thread.

It also posts your cost alerts: in the channels each alert names, and as a direct message to each person who turns Slack on for them. Every organization can connect it.

Prerequisites

• You can install apps in the Slack workspace. Many workspaces reserve this for admins, or require an admin to approve the request.
• You are signed in to https://dashboard.levelfour.ai as a member of the LevelFour organization you are connecting to.

Connect

/invite @levelfour
@levelfour what are our top 5 savings?

Asking questions

• Start a conversation by mentioning @levelfour in any channel it belongs to. It opens a thread under your message and answers there.
• Follow up by replying in that thread. With the thread-reading permissions approved you do not need to mention it again. A reply that mentions someone else is left to them.
• Ask inside someone else's thread by mentioning it there. It answers that one question and leaves the rest of the thread to the people in it.
• Message it directly from the LevelFour app's Messages tab in Slack. It answers in a thread under your message.
• Check your setup with /levelfour help, or send help in a message. It shows how to ask, which LevelFour organization the workspace is connected to, and whether your Slack account is linked. In a channel, only you see the reply.
• Pass something on to the LevelFour team, such as a feature request or a problem: ask the bot to pass it on, and it sends the team your words.

The bot answers as you. Your Slack email has to belong to a member of the LevelFour organization, and your LevelFour role has to include the FinOps agent. When either is missing, it tells you privately what to fix.

While it answers

• Progress. LevelFour shows a card for each kind of data it reads, such as your forecast or your savings, and ticks it off when the read finishes. It checks the answer against your data before showing it, so a figure never appears and then vanishes.
• Quick follow-ups. Send a follow-up while it is still answering and it waits for that answer, then builds on it. A third message in the meantime gets a note to ask again.
• Stop. Stop a question you asked once you no longer need it. It stops reading and says so. Only the person who asked can stop an answer. Reply continue in the thread and it answers the question you stopped.
• Rating. Each answer carries Good answer and Not right. Your vote is your own, whoever asked the question. Not right sends the LevelFour team the question and the answer, and shows only you a Tell us what was wrong button. Its short form sends the team what you type.

LevelFour writes its answers with AI from your organization's own data. Check important figures in LevelFour before acting on them.

Making changes

The bot reads and explains. To accept or reject a saving, change a cost alert or edit a tag, use LevelFour: ask the bot and it links you to the right page.

Cost alerts in Slack

The bot posts nothing on its own except the cost alerts your organization arms. Each alert reaches Slack in two ways.

• Channels. Each alert picks its own channels, up to 10, under Slack channels in its form, and each gets one post when the alert fires. The list shows the public channels and the private ones @levelfour is already in, so invite it to a private channel first.
• A direct message. Each person turns this on for themselves on Settings > Notification preferences, under Cost alerts, or in an alert's form under Your Slack DMs. LevelFour looks them up in the workspace by their email. If it cannot message them, the switch stays off and says why. A direct message only reaches someone the alert names as a recipient.

The default channel

Default channel for new cost alerts, under Settings > Integrations > Slack, is the channel a new alert starts with. LevelFour posts a short confirmation in the channel when you choose it. It posts nothing else by itself: changing it moves no existing alert, and Clear default starts new alerts with no channel. Admins and members can choose it; viewers see which channel it is.

Investigate an alert

Click Investigate on an alert and the bot explains it in the alert's thread: what it observed, what caused it and what you could do. Whoever clicks first starts it, and anyone who clicks after that sees it is already under way. You can also reply under an alert, in the channel or the direct message, and the bot answers about that alert. Without the message-reading permissions, mention @levelfour in the reply.

What LevelFour keeps

LevelFour keeps a Slack conversation for 90 days after its last message, so a follow-up next week still has its context, and then deletes it. Diagnostics for each answer record timings and token counts, not the conversation.

A Not right vote sends the LevelFour team the question and the answer. Tell us what was wrong, and any request the bot passes on, send the team that person's own words. Security covers how LevelFour keeps the rest of your data.

Removing access

Click Disconnect on the Slack panel under Settings > Integrations. Cost alerts stop posting to Slack too. To remove the app from Slack as well, open your workspace's Manage apps page and remove LevelFour there. To take the bot out of a single channel, run /remove @levelfour in it.

Troubleshooting

Next

• Cost alerts covers the rules that post here
• Integrations lists the other tools you can connect
• Slack billing is separate, and it reads your Slack contract amount