Oliv's Slack bot can auto respond for you to take messages / escalate urgent requests when you are unavailable for a longer period of time.
The auto responder is particularly helpful for out of office events like vacations, sick days, etc. Many users use it to create blocks of focus time on their calendars as well.
To set it up, enable the Slack auto responder by default for certain types of events in the "Default event settings" tab at http://app.oliv.ai. Alternatively, you can enable it for a particular event when you are creating or editing it as well.
The following steps illustrate the workflow that you and your team members will experience.
Step 0: You set up an event with auto responder
Let's say you are out on vacation till Dec 20 and setup an auto responder when saving the event.
Step 1: A team member tries to reach you
When a team member tries to reach you in a channel or via a direct message, Oliv responds back with the auto response message and gives them an option to create a reminder for you or to contact you immediately.
They only see one such message for every 24 hour time period in a channel.
Step 2: The team member leaves a message
They choose to create a reminder for you and elaborate on what they need from you.
The reminder is saved securely and attached to the original message.
Step 3: You return from your vacation
When you return from your vacation, you get a list of reminders that were left for you.
You reply to them one by one by clicking on the reply button.
Step 4: Your replies are delivered
Oliv delivers your replies to your team members so that they have the information they needed.
Alternatively, the team member needs to reach you urgently
The team member leaves an urgent message
The team member specifies the message to escalate to you so that you know why are you are needed urgently
You get notified immediately
You get a notification immediately, even if you have "Do Not Disturb" enabled in Slack, so that you can join the conversation ASAP.
Wrapping up
I hope you now have a good understand of how the Slack auto responder by Oliv can work for you. You can always test all the steps by yourself by clicking on the "Send me a test message" when creating an event and editing it's settings.
If you are already thinking of the events to enable it for, go ahead and tweak the default events settings.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out by using the chat available at the bottom right corner of the page.