- To get started, create a new Slack App on [api.slack.com](https://api.slack.com/apps?new_app=1).

1. Type in your app name

2. Select the team you'd like to build your app on.

Let's get ourselves a shiny new **Bot User** so our app can communicate on Slack.

- On the left side navigation of your app's settings page you'll find the **Bot Users** tab where you can create a new bot user for your app.

- Next click "Add a Bot User".

- Give your bot user a name (e.g. "pythonboardingbot"), click "Add Bot User", and "Save Changes".

🎉 You should briefly see a success banner.

- Under "Settings" on the lefthand side, click "Install App" and then "Install App to Workspace".

- Click the "Authorize" button.

🏁 Finally copy and save your token. You'll need this to communicate with Slack's Platform.

**Back to the [Table of contents](/tutorial/#table-of-contents).**

The code for this step is also available [here](/tutorial/PythOnBoardingBot/onboarding_tutorial.py).

We're going to be using Block Kit to build our onboarding tutorial messages.

With Block Kit, we can create a message in Slack that looks like this:

<img width="787" alt="Onboarding Message" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/3329665/56854465-b84a6f80-68eb-11e9-9625-f45ac2d2fe18.png">

By sending the following json payload:

To make this simpler, more pleasant and more productive we'll create a class that's responsible for building it. We'll also store the state of which tasks were completed so that it's easy to update existing messages.

- Create a file called `onboarding_tutorial.py`

- 🏁Add the following code into it:

**Back to the [Table of contents](/tutorial/#table-of-contents).**

The code for this step is also available [here](/tutorial/PythOnBoardingBot).

- In the root directory create a "requirements.txt" file.

- Add the following contents to that file and save the file.

- Next you can install those dependencies by running the following command from your terminal:

- Create an `app.py` file to run the app.

The first thing we'll need to do is import the code our app needs to run.

- In `app.py` add the following code:

import os

import logging

import slack

import ssl as ssl_lib

import certifi

from onboarding_tutorial import OnboardingTutorial

Next we'll need our app to store some data. For simplicity we'll store our app data in-memory with the following data structure: `{"channel": {"user_id": OnboardingTutorial}}`.

- Add the the following line to `app.py`.

onboarding_tutorials_sent = {}

Let's add a function that's responsible for creating and sending the onboarding welcome message to new users. We'll also save the time stamp of the message when it's posted so we can update this message in the future.

- Add the following lines of code to `app.py`.

def start_onboarding(web_client: slack.WebClient, user_id: str, channel: str):

# Create a new onboarding tutorial.

onboarding_tutorial = OnboardingTutorial(channel)

# Get the onboarding message payload

message = onboarding_tutorial.get_message_payload()

# Post the onboarding message in Slack

response = web_client.chat_postMessage(**message)

# Capture the timestamp of the message we've just posted so

# we can use it to update the message after a user

# has completed an onboarding task.

onboarding_tutorial.timestamp = response["ts"]

# Store the message sent in onboarding_tutorials_sent

if channel not in onboarding_tutorials_sent:

onboarding_tutorials_sent[channel] = {}

onboarding_tutorials_sent[channel][user_id] = onboarding_tutorial

*Note:* We're using the `WebClient` to send messages into Slack.

When events occurr in Slack there are two primary ways to be notified about them. We can send you an HTTP Request through our Events API (preferred) or you can stream events through a websocket connection with our RTM API. The RTM API is only recommended if you're behind a firewall and cannot receive incoming web requests from Slack.

In this tutorial we'll be using the RTM API via the `RTMClient`. If you're interested in using the Events API take a look at the [SlackEventAdapter](https://github.com/slackapi/python-slack-events-api). We'll be adding support for the Events API into this library soon (See [#403](https://github.com/slackapi/python-slackclient/issues/403)).

Back to our application, it's time to link our onboarding functionality to Slack events.

- Add the following lines of code to `app.py`.

@slack.RTMClient.run_on(event="team_join")

def onboarding_message(**payload):

"""Create and send an onboarding welcome message to new users. Save the

# Get the id of the Slack user associated with the incoming event

user_id = payload["data"]["user"]["id"]

# Get WebClient so you can communicate back to Slack.

web_client = payload["web_client"]

# Open a DM with the new user.

response = web_client.im_open(user_id)

channel = response["channel"]["id"]

# Post the onboarding message.

start_onboarding(web_client, user_id, channel)

@slack.RTMClient.run_on(event="reaction_added")

def update_emoji(**payload):

"""Update onboarding welcome message after recieving a "reaction_added"

data = payload["data"]

web_client = payload["web_client"]

channel_id = data["item"]["channel"]

user_id = data["user"]

# Get the original tutorial sent.

onboarding_tutorial = onboarding_tutorials_sent[channel_id][user_id]

# Mark the reaction task as completed.

onboarding_tutorial.reaction_task_completed = True

# Get the new message payload

message = onboarding_tutorial.get_message_payload()

# Post the updated message in Slack

updated_message = web_client.chat_update(**message)

# Update the timestamp saved on the onboarding tutorial object

onboarding_tutorial.timestamp = updated_message["ts"]

@slack.RTMClient.run_on(event="pin_added")

def update_pin(**payload):

"""Update onboarding welcome message after recieving a "pin_added"

data = payload["data"]

web_client = payload["web_client"]

channel_id = data["channel_id"]

user_id = data["user"]

# Get the original tutorial sent.

onboarding_tutorial = onboarding_tutorials_sent[channel_id][user_id]

# Mark the pin task as completed.

onboarding_tutorial.pin_task_completed = True

# Get the new message payload

message = onboarding_tutorial.get_message_payload()

# Post the updated message in Slack

updated_message = web_client.chat_update(**message)

# Update the timestamp saved on the onboarding tutorial object

onboarding_tutorial.timestamp = updated_message["ts"]

@slack.RTMClient.run_on(event="message")

def message(**payload):

"""Display the onboarding welcome message after receiving a message

data = payload["data"]

web_client = payload["web_client"]

channel_id = data.get("channel")

user_id = data.get("user")

text = data.get("text")

if text and text.lower() == "start":

return start_onboarding(web_client, user_id, channel_id)

Finally, we need to make our app runnable.

- 🏁 Add the following lines of code to the end of `app.py`.

if __name__ == "__main__":

slack_token = os.environ["SLACK_BOT_TOKEN"]

rtm_client = slack.RTMClient(slack_token)

rtm_client.start()

**Next section: [04 - Running the app](/tutorial/04-running-the-app.md).**

**Previous section: [02 - Building a message](/tutorial/01-building-a-message.md).**

**Back to the [Table of contents](/tutorial/#table-of-contents).**

# Get the id of the Slack user associated with the incoming event

user_id = payload["data"]["user"]["id"]

"""Update the onboarding welcome message after recieving a "reaction_added"

"""Update the onboarding welcome message after recieving a "pin_added"

- [03 - Responding to Slack events](/tutorial/03-responding-to-slack-events.md)