ajhenri / queuebot

A Slack bot that tracks lineups with a familiar data structure.

queuebot

The queuebot does exactly what it's name entails. It is a Slack bot that acts a queue, and it can find and tell you the next thing that has to be dequeued.

Calling the next in line can be triggered either manually or by user-defined phrases in Slack. The queuebot can save you the trouble of figuring out the next person whose turn it is to do a specific thing.

Installation

You must have Python 2.7+ and pip installed. Though it is not a requirement, it is ideal that you have virtualenv installed as well. Activate your virtual environment, and run the following:

$ git clone https://github.com/ajhenri/queuebot.git
$ cd queuebot
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

You must have an API token to authenticate the bot on your Slack channel. Go to your bot settings and copy the api key. Open the Terminal, and run the following in your project folder:

export SLACK_BOT_API_KEY='Your Slack API token goes here'

SLACK_BOT_API_KEY is an environment variable that must be set before running the program. Please make sure you do this before running the script.

Instruction	Examples	Description
/help	@queuebot /help	Gives a list of available commands and shows how they can be used.
/set	@queuebot /set	Creates/modifies the queue to cycle through the items list upon hearing the said phrases. Options: -c, --items, --phrases
/cancel	@queuebot /cancel	Cancel the existing queue.
/next	@queuebot /next	Manually call the next item in the queue.

NOTE: Instructions must always be prefixed with @queuebot.

Launching the bot

Assuming you followed the installation and usage details, run the following:

$ python queuebot.py

As stated earlier, set your SLACK_BOT_API_KEY environment variable before running the queuebot script. If you don't want to do this each time, you can temporarily set the key in the project itself.

Upcoming Improvements

• Allow for multiple queues to be set at once.
• Add interaction/buttons to get information from the user.
• Provide a different way to store the queue data.
• Written tests.

License

Released under MIT License. © Amanda J. Henri