Public channels

Public channels are Slack channels, Teams channels, or Google Chat spaces where Harriet answers everyone in the room. Register a channel in Harriet and it gets its own skills, knowledge scope, and instructions, so answers fit that channel instead of a generic default.

Why dedicated channels help

In a general channel, a question like "How does SSO work?" is ambiguous: different products use different identity flows, docs, and support paths. A product-scoped channel such as #payments-product signals which area the conversation is about even when the person does not spell it out. Harriet then answers with that product's integration guidance and documentation, because the channel is configured for it. The same question in a generic #it-help channel would need extra disambiguation or pull from a wider, less specific corpus.

Create one clear channel per major product, audience, or program you want people to self-serve in, and keep channel descriptions short and specific so people know where to ask.

Register a channel

1. Get the channel id. For Slack this is the C… channel id; Teams and Google Chat have their own channel or space ids. On the registration screen you can also search your Slack channels by name instead of pasting an id.
2. Register it in Harriet. Open Channels & embed → Surfaces and select Register channel. Paste the Channel identifier and an optional Display name, then select Register. You can also do this from the Public channel configuration page. Ids starting public-… are reserved for website widgets.
3. Add the Harriet app to the channel. Registering tells Harriet which channel to use; the Harriet app still needs to be a member so it can read and send messages. In Slack, add the Harriet app from the channel menu (Integrations, Add apps to this channel, or /invite @Harriet). In Google Chat, open the space and use Add people & apps to add the Harriet Chat app. In Teams, ensure the Harriet app is installed for the team and allowed in the channel; an admin may need to approve it.

Configure skills, knowledge, and instructions

Open Public channel configuration in Channels & embed and pick the channel. The list also includes channels that already appear in skill channel assignments or in group specialist lists. Three things are configured per channel:

• Skills. Turn individual skills on or off for this channel, so a payments channel runs payments skills and nothing else. You can also manage this in bulk under Skills → Channel assignments.
• Role in this channel. Optional instructions for how Harriet should behave in this public channel, the same idea as the widget's base prompt. Saved per channel.
• Document groups. Groups whose specialist channel list includes this channel id can expose knowledge in this environment. Tick the groups whose documents belong here, then select Save groups & role.

Escalation to a human team

In channels where Harriet is present, including external or customer-facing spaces you connect, threads can escalate into the same ticket system your team already uses. Where your organization has connected tools such as Jira or Salesforce, that work flows into the systems your teams already track. Exact routing depends on your integrations and group settings.

How channels differ from the widget