How do I collect information from employees or contacts via Slack or email?

Sometimes a workflow needs information that only a specific person (or a team in a shared channel) can provide—a manager's sign-off, a vendor reference number, or a colleague's availability. The data-gathering step handles this automatically and securely, contacting the right person or channel and waiting for a reply before the workflow continues.

What it does

1. Harriet looks up the person's Slack DM channel or email address, or posts to a Slack channel you specify (by channel id).
2. Harriet sends your message and waits for a reply—the workflow pauses at this point.
3. If the reply is incomplete or ambiguous, Harriet asks follow-up questions before moving on.
4. Harriet returns a summary of what it gathered to the next step in the workflow, plus a verbatim conversation transcript for reference (treated as untrusted user content).

No-one manually monitors the thread. Harriet handles the conversation and passes results forward when done.

The three outcomes

The agent always resolves to one of:

• All information gathered: returns a clean summary and the workflow continues.
• Partial information or contact unresponsive: Harriet sends a polite closing message and hands control back to the linked ticket so your team can decide what to do next.
• No information gathered: same—releases gracefully and hands back, rather than looping indefinitely.

What the contacted person experiences

• They receive a direct message (Slack DM or email) from Harriet, or see a post in a Slack channel.
• They reply normally in the thread—no special app or link is required.
• Harriet may follow up if the reply is incomplete.
• When the conversation is complete, Harriet sends a brief closing message.

Example (direct message)

Scenario: A compensation review workflow needs a manager to confirm a performance rating before generating the letter.

• Data-gathering step instructions: "Reach out to Jane Smith at {manager_email} via Slack and ask them to confirm the performance rating for {employee_name} for the period ending {review_date}."
• Harriet messages the manager on Slack.
• Manager replies: "Strong performer, 4/5."
• Harriet returns: rating: 4/5, confirmed_by: manager@company.com, via: Slack DM.
• Workflow continues to the letter-generation step.

Example (Slack channel)

Scenario: You need whoever knows the answer to confirm a value in a team channel.

• Data-gathering step instructions: "Post to Slack channel C1375ABC and ask: What is the correct cost centre code for Project Aurora?"
• Harriet posts in the channel and waits for a reply in that thread.
• Anyone in the channel can reply; Harriet treats the thread reply as the answer.
• Harriet returns a summary plus the conversation transcript for your records.

Guardrails

• Only use data gathering to contact people or channels that are appropriate recipients for that information request. Do not use it as a bulk notification tool.
• The data-gathering agent cannot access your knowledge base or employee records—it can only send messages and receive replies. This is intentional: it limits what Harriet can reveal to third parties.
• When delegating data gathering from a configurable agent, include the full name of the person being contacted in the task instructions—the sub-agent cannot look up employee records.
• If the person never replies, the workflow enters a waiting state. Ensure someone owns the linked ticket so stuck flows are noticed and can be released manually.
• Email outreach requires a routable reply address to be configured by IT.