Hi Community members 👋 I’m excited to share details on the latest update to Guru’s Slack app. Slack Trending Topics will surface conversation trends in your busiest channels, identifying where knowledge gaps may exist in Guru. Cut down time spent scanning through channels like #product-questions, #it-help, and #hr-questions (every company has ‘em!) and get hot topics delivered directly to you via Slack DM, on your schedule. This feature uses machine learning to save you and your experts time while turning your busy Slack instance into an info goldmine. 

During the private beta for this feature, we learned about so many ways to get value from this feature:

• Help teams get started building Collections: Guru admins can scan channels and pick up the signal on info that should be stored in Collections that don’t yet exist. Want to help your benefits manager document open enrollment processes? Set up a Slack Trending Topics digest and demonstrate where they can get started.

• Track evolving themes around product questions: Tons of product questions get asked in Slack, so it can be hard to keep up with the most important themes. With Slack Trending Topics, you’ll be able to spend your time wisely by documenting the most important answers.

• Fight FOMO, stay focused: Let’s face it: it’s difficult to focus on deep work when you’re monitoring Slack channels. Trending Topics helps take some of the burden off your SMEs by surfacing the hottest topics in the busiest channels, so they don’t have to have one eye open for the red dot alert.

We’d teased this new feature during the Knowledge Fest Keynote, and starting today, Slack Trending Topics is available to all Guru customers. 

Here’s how it works:

• If you have Guru Author or Admin access (the ability to create Cards in Guru) goes to their Home tab in Slack, they will see the option to Subscribe to Trending Topics

• After clicking “Subscribe,” you will see a window prompting you to choose their Digest Settings. From here they will be able to:

  • Choose specific channels to analyze (maximum of 5 channels per user).

    • The only channels that appear in this dropdown will be those where the Guru Slackbot has already been invited.*

  • Designate which keywords or phrases to ignore

    • If a user is subscribed to Trending Topics, they will also be able to exclude specific keywords or phrases that might create unwanted noise.

    • For example, at Guru we exclude “Guru” and “knowledge base” from our trending topics.

  • Designate a delivery cadence

    • Choose what day/time to receive the digest, and schedule it to arrive every week, 2 weeks, or 4 weeks

• After clicking “Save,” you’ll receive a DM from the Guru Slackbot confirming: “You have successfully created a scheduled Trending Topics digest. You are subscribed to receive the digest weekly/bi-weekly/monthly on (Day) at (Time) for the following channels: (List of Channels). Your first Digest will be sent on (Day), (Date) at (Time).”

• When the first Trending Topics digest is sent via a Guru Slack message, you will see the topics discussed in the channels you have subscribed to

• After saving the Digest, the “Subscribe” button should change to “Manage.” Clicking it will open the same Settings window and allow the user to remove any or all subscriptions.

Read more about this feature in the help center.

We’re eager to hear how you’re using Slack Trending Topics. Drop a comment on this post and let us know about your experience!

*NOTE: By subscribing to Trending Topics, you are authorizing Guru to scan a specific channel for recurring keywords. This is an opt-in feature, so Guru’s Slack app will not be scanning any channels where 1) the bot is not invited and 2) there is no Trending Topics subscription. Users can unsubscribe from Trending Topics at any time, which will remove the Guru Slack app’s ability to listen to messages in that channel.