Slack Discussions
Slack Discussions are one of the most impactful collaboration features in Plain – loved by B2B support teams for how seamlessly they bring the rest of the company into customer conversations.
They let you loop in product, engineering, or anyone else on your team directly from a support thread – without losing context or switching tools. The result: faster answers, better collaboration, and a smoother customer experience.
Available on the Grow plan and above. Interested? Message us via the chatbot or your shared Slack channel.
Why your team should use Slack discussions
In B2B support, getting help from other teams is often essential. Whether it's a technical question, a product bug, or an account-level decision – you need input, fast.
Slack Discussions solve that by:
Keeping everyone in context – no need to re-explain the issue or paste screenshots
Reducing back-and-forth – the full thread and customer history appear right in Slack
Shortening time-to-resolution – teammates can weigh in without logging into another tool
Maintaining customer momentum – once the internal chat wraps up, Plain reminds you to respond
It’s the fastest way to go from “let me check with the team” to “here’s your answer.”
How they work
You can start a Slack Discussion in two ways:
Click Start discussion from inside a thread in Plain
Paste the thread link directly into a Slack channel where the Plain bot is installed
When the link is shared, Plain will unfurl the thread and show key context – so your team can see what’s going on without opening a separate tool.
Once a discussion has started:
Messages, reactions, mentions, and attachments added in Slack will also show up in the Plain thread
You can respond from either Slack or Plain – both stay perfectly synced
Plain adds a “Resolve discussion” button to the Slack thread – anyone can click it when the internal conversation wraps up
Once resolved, Plain automatically moves the thread to Close the loop – a helpful nudge to follow up with the customer
Use cases for Slack discussions
Confirm a bug or implementation detail with engineering
Ask sales for account-level context or contract details
Check with product on roadmap plans or feature timelines
Get input from legal, security, or compliance teams
Debrief incidents collaboratively without breaking customer flow
Slack Discussions are especially useful when your team supports complex products, needs fast internal input, or works closely with other functions to resolve issues.
Setup and requirements
To use Slack Discussions, you’ll need to:
Set up your Slack integration in Plain
Add the Plain bot to any Slack channel where you want to start discussions
Anyone in your workspace – even viewers – can start a discussion from a thread once the bot is installed.
How Slack handles thread links
For privacy and data hygiene, Plain does not automatically start a discussion every time someone posts a thread link. We’ll only create a discussion if:
The link is posted by a Plain user
The link is posted in a Slack channel that Plain has access to
The link is not in a Slack Connect customer channel (unless you've configured it to allow that)
You can always adjust these defaults in your Slack integration settings. If needed, you can also fully disable Slack discussions and link unfurling.
Channel types and message handling
When Plain is added to a Slack channel:
If it’s a Slack Connect channel, we classify it as a customer channel – messages from non-Plain users become support threads
If it’s an internal channel, we classify it as a discussion channel – only messages related to active discussions are synced
This ensures clean, relevant data flows into Plain – and only when you want it to.